Josephine Humphreys is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 novel

Novel

A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

ist.

A native of Charleston, South Carolina

Charleston, South Carolina

Charleston is the second largest city in the U.S. state of South Carolina. It was made the county seat of Charleston County in 1901 when Charleston County was founded. The city's original name was Charles Towne in 1670, and it moved to its present location from a location on the west bank of the...

, which is also the setting of her novels Dreams of Sleep, Rich in Love and The Fireman's Fair, Humphreys was educated at Ashley Hall (Class of 1963), studied creative writing

Creative writing

Creative writing is considered to be any writing, fiction, poetry, or non-fiction, that goes outside the bounds of normal professional, journalistic, academic, and technical forms of literature. Works which fall into this category include novels, epics, short stories, and poems...

 with Reynolds Price

Reynolds Price

Reynolds Price was an American novelist, poet, dramatist, essayist and the James B. Duke Professor of English at Duke University. Apart from English literature, Price had a lifelong interest in ancient languages and Biblical scholarship...

 at Duke University

Duke University

Duke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco industrialist James B...

 (A.B., 1967), and went on to attend Yale University

Yale University

Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

 (M.A., 1968) and the University of Texas

University of Texas at Austin

The University of Texas at Austin is a state research university located in Austin, Texas, USA, and is the flagship institution of the The University of Texas System. Founded in 1883, its campus is located approximately from the Texas State Capitol in Austin...

. She held fellowships from the Woodrow Wilson Foundation and the Danforth Foundation. From 1970 to 1977, before beginning her writing career, she taught English in Charleston.

While her first three novels are mainly about contemporary family life in the South

Southern United States

The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...

, her fourth, Nowhere Else on Earth, is a departure in that it is an historical novel

Historical novel

According to Encyclopædia Britannica, a historical novel is-Development:An early example of historical prose fiction is Luó Guànzhōng's 14th century Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which covers one of the most important periods of Chinese history and left a lasting impact on Chinese culture.The...

 based on the true story of Rhoda Strong and Henry Berry Lowrie

Henry Berry Lowrie

Henry Berry Lowrie or "Lowry" led an outlaw gang in North Carolina during and after the American Civil War. He is sometimes viewed as a Robin Hood type figure, especially by the Lumbee and Tuscarora people, who consider him one of their tribe and a pioneer in the fight for their civil rights and...

 from the American Civil War

American Civil War

The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

 era. It won the Southern Book Award in 2001.

Rich in Love, probably her best-known novel, was made into a 1993 film of the same title

Rich in Love

Rich in Love is a 1993 drama film based on the 1987 novel with the same name by Josephine Humphreys. The film stars Albert Finney, Katherine Erbe, Kyle MacLachlan, Jill Clayburgh, Suzy Amis, and Ethan Hawke.-Plot:...

 directed by Bruce Beresford

Bruce Beresford

Bruce Beresford is an Australian film director who has made more than 30 feature films over a 40-year career.-Early life:...

, from a screenplay

Screenplay

A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...

 by Alfred Uhry

Alfred Uhry

Alfred Fox Uhry is an American playwright, screenwriter, and member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers. He is one of very few writers to receive an Academy Award, Tony Award and the Pulitzer Prize for dramatic writing....

, starring Albert Finney

Albert Finney

Albert Finney is an English actor. He achieved prominence in films in the early 1960s, and has maintained a successful career in theatre, film and television....

 and Jill Clayburgh

Jill Clayburgh

Jill Clayburgh was an American actress. She received Academy Award nominations for her roles in An Unmarried Woman and Starting Over.-Personal life:...

.

Humphreys was the winner of the 1984 Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award

Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award

The Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award is awarded annually to a novel or book of short stories by an American author who has not previously published a book of fiction. The award is named after Ernest Hemingway and funded by the Ernest Hemingway Foundation, which has been administered by the Hemingway...

, for Dreams of Sleep, and the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship

Guggenheim Fellowship

Guggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...

, the Lyndhurst Prize, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature.

Novels

• Dreams of Sleep (1984)
• Rich in Love (1987)
• The Fireman's Fair (1991)
• Nowhere Else on Earth (2000)