Sue Monk Kidd was born on August 12, 1948, and raised in the small town of Sylvester in southwestern Georgia. Her love of stories and writing developed early, inspired by her father's storytelling and the encouragement of English teachers. During adolescence, she wrote her first stories and kept a journal, but she set aside writing to study nursing at Texas Christian University. She graduated in 1970 and worked for most of the next decade as a registered nurse and as a college instructor. During this time she married Sanford Kidd, a theology student, and had two children, Bob and Ann.

Kidd rediscovered her interest in writing while living in Anderson, South Carolina, in the 1980s. She took writing courses at the local college where her husband was teaching. A personal essay that she wrote for class was accepted by Guideposts magazine and reprinted in Reader's Digest. She soon became...