bio
Beth Kaplan graduated at the age of twenty-one from one of the foremost British theatre schools, the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. She worked for a decade as a professional actress, then left the stage to earn an MFA in Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia. Scores of her essays and articles have appeared in the Globe and Mail, in other newspapers and magazines, and on CBC radio; a play of hers won the Canadian Jewish Playwriting Competition. She taught memoir and personal essay writing at Ryerson University from 1994 to 2020, and has taught since 2007 also at the University of Toronto, where in 2012 she was given the Excellence in Teaching Award.
Her book about her famous playwright great-grandfather Finding the Jewish Shakespeare: The Life and Legacy of Jacob Gordin was published in 2007 and appeared in paperback in 2012 with a blurb from acclaimed writer Tony Kushner: “A witty, shrewd, elegant book which tells a story of vital importance.”
Her sixties memoir All My Loving: Coming of Age with Paul McCartney in Paris, about a fascinating, lonely, Beatle-mad year in Paris with her complicated family, came out in 2014. So did True to Life: 50 Steps to Help You Tell Your Story, a concise guide to memoir writing based on her teaching that is the textbook for her courses.
Loose Woman: my odyssey from lost to found, a memoir about the dramatic year her life changed forever, was published in 2020 and was a finalist for the Whistler Independent Book Award.
Beth says, “Except for an occasional bout of sadness about the state of the world, I am a ridiculously cheerful person.”
