Zilpha Keatley Snyder (1927-2014)

Children’s writer Zilpha Keatley Snyder, 87, died October 8, 2014 of complications from a stroke in San Francisco. Snyder wrote over 40 books, including many middle-grade novels with fantasy elements. She is best known for Newbery Honor book The Egypt Game (1967), and wrote two other Newbery Honor titles, The Headless Cupid (1971) and The Witches of Worm (1971).

Zilpha Keatley was born May 11, 1927 in Lemoore CA. She attended Whittier CA, graduating with a BA in 1948, and also attended the University of California at Berkeley during the summers from 1958-60. She married Larry Allan Snyder in 1950; they had two children, and later adopted a third. She was an elementary school teacher from 1948-62.

Snyder gave up teaching to focus on fiction, and began publishing with Season of Ponies in 1964. Her most recent book was William’s Midsummer Dreams (2011).

See the November issue of Locus for a complete obituary.