Kimberly Brubaker Bradley was born and raised in Fort Wayne, Indiana, in 1967, very near the small town that was the setting for her first book, RUTHIE'S GIFT. She attended Smith College, in Northampton, Massachusetts, and graduated with a degree in chemistry just a few weeks before marrying her high school sweetheart --- Bart Bradley.

She studied chemistry in college because that was what she most loved to learn, but it was not what she most loved to do, and she knew that even then. She remains always grateful that her sophomore roommate talked her into taking an Introduction to Children's Literature class, and that the teacher of that class, Patricia MacLachlan, not only encouraged her earliest writing, but helped her join a writer's group and learn both the art and the business of writing for children.

Kimberly worked as a freelance writer for equestrian magazines in college, and later as a part-time editor. While her husband was in medical school she worked as a research chemist, but wrote at night, on weekends, and sometimes in the very early morning --- and from freelancing she moved onto ghost-writing.

Not long after that, she moved to Bristol, a small town on the Tennessee/Virginia border, where Bart joined an ophthalmology practice. Her daughter Katie was born in 1998. They live now on a 52-acre farm, with ponies, dogs, cats, sheep, goats, and lots and lots of trees, in the foothills of the Appalachian mountains.

Books by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

The War I Finally Won

by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley - Children's 9-12, Family, Fiction, Friendship, Historical Fiction

The War that Saved My Life

by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley - Children's, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Youth Fiction