Author
Chelsey has written two novels: Even In Paradise and Be Good Be Real Be Crazy (both with HarperCollins), and always has a new project (or two) keeping her busy.
Journalist
Chelsey’s journalism has be published in the New York Times, Boston Globe, Slate, BuzzFeed, and many other publications. Her articles focus on topics close to her heart: books and publishing, education, the arts, creativity, writing, and technology.
Teacher
She teachers writing to undergraduates at Boston University, and has held workshops on writing YA novels, creative nonfiction, storytelling, media literacy, and more.
All Around Creative Type
Chelsey is a maker through and through. Her hobbies include woodworking (one can never have enough bookcases), sewing costumes for her many nieces and nephews, and design.
Proust Questionnaire
“The Proust Questionnaire has its origins in a parlor game popularized (though not devised) by Marcel Proust, the French essayist and novelist, who believed that, in answering these questions, an individual reveals his or her true nature.”
Vanity Fair
Who are your favorite writers?
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Roald Dahl. Donna Tartt, Elizabeth Gilbert, Cheryl Strayed, Nancy Willard, Paul Kane (poetry), Charles Wright (poetry), Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Adam Smith (YA), Julie Berry (YA), Nick Lake (YA), Dave Eggers, and Maurice Sendak.
WHAT DO YOU REGARD AS THE LOWEST DEPTH OF MISERY?
Heartbreak.
WHAT IS YOUR MOST MARKED CHARACTERISTIC?
My quirky speech patterns. I am a language magpie, if I like a word or phrase—whether it’s Spanish, French, Latin, or Swahili—it becomes part of my repertoire alongside nonsense phrases my siblings and I came up with and lines from novels that I just can’t shake.
What is your most treasured possession?
My collection of journals. I’ve been keeping one since I was 12.
WHAT DO YOU CONSIDER YOUR GREATEST ACHIEVEMENTs?
WHICH WORDS OR PHRASES DO YOU MOST OVERUSE?
Don’t threaten me with a good time.
WHICH TALENT WOULD YOU MOST LIKE TO HAVE?
In my next life, I’d like to come back as a professional ballerina, so the talent I’d most like to have is to dance, ballet specifically.
WHAT IS YOUR IDEA OF PERFECT HAPPINESS?
Early morning. A cup of coffee. An absolutely still lake.
Press
PUBLISHER’S WEEKLY: FALL 2014 FLYING START
Chelsey Philpot had many inspirations for Even in Paradise (Harper, Oct.), which tells the story of Charlotte Ryder, a girl changed irrevocably by the beguiling Julia Buchanan and her family.
EXPRESS YOURSELF TEEN RADIO
Author of Even in Paradise, Chelsey Philpot, captures the intensity, the thrill, and the heartbreak of our too-brief friendships and loves in her stunning debut novel that is a cross of The Great Gatsby meets Looking for Alaska.
NEW HAMPSHIRE PUBLIC RADIO
This week, The Bookshelf features young adult novelist Chelsey Philpot. Part road trip, part love story, part exploration of one’s purpose in life, the novel, Be Good Be Real Be Crazy, takes us from Florida to New Hampshire and puts its young protagonists face to face with people from a world much different from the world they grew up in.
SLJTEEN CHATS WITH CHELSEY PHILPOT
I first met Chelsey Philpot when she joined the staff of School Library Journal as an assistant book reviews editor. Beside penning her debut novel, Even in Paradise (HarperCollins, 2014), she writes about books, culture, travel, and the arts for the Boston Globe, The New York Times, BuzzFeed, and many other publications.