Beth Gutcheon

Beth Gutcheon
Gutcheon in May 2014
Occupation	Novelist
Education	Miss Porter's School, Harvard University
Website
www.bethgutcheon.com

Beth Gutcheon is a best selling American author having written ten novels and two quilting books.

A graduate of Miss Porter's School in Farmington, Connecticut, Gutcheon went on to study at Harvard University, earning a Bachelor of Arts with honors in English.

In 1973 Gutcheon published her first book, The Perfect Patchwork Primer; two years later came its sequel, The Quilt Design Workbook, written with then-husband, Jeffrey Gutcheon. Both works are considered classics in their field.

In 1978, Gutcheon wrote the narration for a feature-length documentary about the Kirov ballet school in St. Petersburg, Russia called The Children of Theatre Street, which was nominated for an Academy Award. Other screenplays include The Good Fight (1992) for Lifetime TV.

Gutcheon's first novel, The New Girls, was published in 1979. The novel drew loosely upon the author's own experience of the cruel and rarified atmosphere of elite boarding schools, and was well received by critics.

Her second novel, Still Missing, was translated into 14 languages, and published in a condensed version by Reader's Digest, a large print edition for the vision-impaired, and made into an audio book. Gutcheon used her appearances promoting the novel, whose plot centered on a child abduction, to elevate the subject of missing children to the level of a national issue, raising public awareness and support for Child Find of America. The appearance of Missing Child photos on milk cartons was a direct result of this campaign, as was the creation of National Missing Children's Day. Still Missing was bought for the screen by movie producer Stanley R. Jaffe, who had recently won the Best Picture Oscar for Kramer vs. Kramer. Gutcheon was retained to write the screenplay. The finished film, titled Without A Trace, was released by Twentieth Century Fox in February 1983, starring Kate Nelligan, Judd Hirsch, and .