Author Bio
Kelley Benham French
• Birth—1974
• Where—N/A
• Education—B.A., University of Florida; M.A., University of Maryland
• Awards—Finalist, Pulitzer Prize
• Currently—lives in Bloomington, Indiana
Kelley Benham French, has been an American journalist, 2013 Pulitzer Prize finalist, and now professor of Journalism at Indiana University. She and her husband are co-authors of Juniper: The Girl Who Was Born Too Soon (2016), the story of their baby daughter's birth at 23 weeks and the couple's decision to fight for her survival. At the time of the book's release, Juniper was a healthy three-year-old.
Career
French received her B.A. from University of Florida and her M.A. from the University of Maryland. From 1998 to 2001, she taught high school journalism, mass media, film, newspaper, yearbook and photo-journalism classes at a magnet journalism high school in Deerfield Beach, Florida. She helped produce the school’s first online newspaper and was named the Florida Scholastic Press Association’s district teacher of the year in 1998.
In 2002 French joined the Tampa Bay Times as reporter, feature writer and, later, editor. As a reporter, she covered several hurricanes and an execution, and she wrote the obituary of Terri Schiavo, a Florida woman with brain damage who died after a right-to-life legal battle that received national attention.
She became a deputy editor in 2006 of the Floridian, the Times’ feature section. Appointed as full editor in 2008, she helped to create and lead the paper's Enterprise Team, editing two stories that became Pulitzer Prize finalists—one of which revealed decades of abuse at a state-run reform school, leading to its closure.
In addition to her work for the Times, she served as a visiting faculty member at the Poynter Institute, a journalism school (and owner of the Tampa Bay Times). She also taught at the University of Florida and spoken about writing at universities, workshops, and conferences around the country.
In 2013 French became a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in feature writing for "Never Let Go," a series about the premature birth of her and Thomas French's daughter. The series considered the ethical and medical dilemmas involved in saving the lives of premature babies.
In 2014 she joined Indiana University (where her husband Thomas French also teaches) as a professor of journalistic practice. Her position is at the university's Media School, which unites faculty from the School of Journalism and the departments of telecommunications and communication and culture. Upon her appointment, French commented:
I’ve spent my career in a newsroom stocked with brilliant journalists who periodically break out into the IU fight song, so I’m...thrilled to be joining the Media School at this pivotal moment, when the teaching of reporting, writing and thinking has never been more important.
(Adapted from IU Bloomington Newsroom.)
Thomas French
• Birth—January 3, 1958
• Raised—Indianapolis, Indiana, USA
• Education—B.A., Indiana University
• Awards—Pulitzer Prize (journalism)
• Currently—lives in Bloomington, Indianapolis
Thomas French is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist who worked for the St. Petersburg Times (currently the Tampa Bay Times) for 27 years. After his retirement from the Times, he turned to teaching and occupies the Riley Endowed Chair in Journalism at Indiana University School of Journalism and teaches in Goucher College's creative nonfiction MFA program
Personal
French was born in Columbus, Ohio, and raised in Indianapolis, Indiana. While at Indiana University, he was the editor-in-chief of the Indiana Daily Student, the recipient of a Poynter scholarship, the winner of the Hearst Competition for Feature Writing. He graduated in 1980. He has two sons by his first wife Linda and is currently married to Kelley Benham. Benham documented the premature birth of their daughter Juniper in the Tampa Bay Times, for which she was a finalist for the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing.
Career
In 1981 French started at the then St. Petersburg Times, working on the police and courts beats, as well as writing general assignments.
In 1998 he won the Pulitzer Prize-Feature Writing for his piece “Angels and Demons,” the story of the murders of Jo, Michelle and Christe Rogers and the eventual capture of the murderer, Oba Chandler.
French also wrote the series "South of Heaven," with the cooperation of LHS journalism teacher Jan Amburgy. The series, later expanded into a book, focused on students at Largo High School at end of the 1980s. He collaborated on "13," a mini-series that ran in the St. Petersburg Times about middle schoolers at Booker T. Washington Middle Magnet School for International Studies in Tampa. His piece "The Exorcist in Love" is an in-depth investigation into the life and work of Laura Knight (now Laura Knight-Jadczyk).
According to Washington Postreporter Anne Hull, French's work has set the standard for a generation of reporters:
He wrote a seminal piece of journalism called 'A Cry In The Night' that dominated our craft for a long time and made a model for the rest of us to follow.... He's been my teacher since the day I met him. IU will soon get a glimpse of his passion and ferocious belief that journalism should be fair and truthful but also raucous, subversive, emotional and daring.
His 2010 book about Lowry Park Zoo in Tampa, Florida is called Zoo Story: Life in the Garden of Captives. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 10/2/2016 .)