Pamela Ditchoff

Born on September 21, 1950 to Ronald E. Reed and Beatrice W. Reed, Ditchoff was raised with two siblings in Lansing and East Lansing, Michigan. She began writing poems and stories at age seven. Ditchoff earned an Associates degree from Lansing Community College while raising three children as a single mother. She received a BA in Communication Arts from Michigan State University (1982), and an MA in English/Creative Writing from Michigan State University (1985). Ditchoff worked at WFSL-TV47 in Lansing as head copywriter/creative consultant and then as a Graduate Teaching Assistant at Michigan State University. Ditchoff is married to Paul Ditchoff and lives in Liverpool, Nova Scotia, Canada.

Ditchoff's literary works have been recognized and highlighted at Michigan State University in their Michigan Writers Series.[1] In the mid-1980s, her early fiction and poetry was published in various literary magazines.[2] Ditchoff's first book, Poetry: One, Two, Three, was published by Interact Press, an educational publisher, in 1989, as a guide for teaching poetry in the classroom.[3]

Ditchoff's first novel,The Mirror of Monsters and Prodigies (Coffee House Press, 1995) was a semi-fictional oral history of dwarves, giants, conjoined twins and bearded women. The book was featured in a segment on NPR’s All Things Considered.[4] Ditchoff's second novel Seven Days & Seven Sins (2003) was published by Shaye Areheart Books at Random House. Labeled a modern-day Our Town, the novel explored the subtle tragedies and the hope for redemption tucked deep inside every house in an average suburban neighborhood in Lansing, Michigan.[5]

Ditchoff moved to Liverpool in 2006 and completed her third novel, Mrs. Beast (Stay Thirsy Press, 2009), about the lives of the Grimm's Fairy Tales princesses after marriage. Ditchoff's sequel to Mrs. Beast entitled Princess Beast was published by Stay Thirsty Press in September 2010.

Ditchoff's fifth novel, Phoebe's Way (ECW Press, 2014), is the story of a Saint John Ambulance therapy dog whose unsentimental lessons on aging propel this powerful work of fiction. It will be released in September 2014.

• Walter Dakin Fellow, Sewanee Writers' Conference, 1998.
• Who's Who in Writers, Editors & Poets: United States & Canada, 1992–1993.
• John Ciardi Scholar, Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, 1991.
• Winner, Chicago Review[6] Award in Fiction, 1991.
• Michigan Addy Award for Excellence as producer/director of Artpeace, 1984.