13 is the New18

Beth J. Harpaz is the author of “13 is the New 18 … and other things my children taught me while I was having a nervous breakdown being their mother” (Crown, 2009), a funny book about raising teenagers.
She’s also written two other books: “The Girls in the Van” (St. Martin’s Press, 2001), about Hillary Clinton’s first Senate campaign, which Harpaz covered for The Associated Press, and “Finding Annie Farrell” (St. Martin’s, 2004), a memoir about her family in Maine during the Great Depression.
Harpaz is the travel editor for The Associated Press, where she has worked for 20 years. She has also worked for the Staten Island Advance, the Bergen Record and Exceptional Parent magazine. She holds degrees from Cornell University and the Columbia School of Journalism. She was born and raised in Manhattan and attended Hunter High School.
Harpaz decided in the second grade that she wanted to be a writer, and she is grateful to have made her living as one, but she wishes more people would go out and buy a newspaper.
Harpaz lives in Brooklyn with her husband, Elon, a Legal Aid attorney, their two sons, a dog and two cats. (AUTHOR PHOTO BY TINA FINEBERG, PHOTOGRAPHER EXTRAORDINAIRE!)