![\"\"](\"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2023\/04\/Colgate-Alumnus-Philip-Beard.jpg\")
His first published novel, Dear Zoe<\/em>, was released in 2005, formally beginning Beard\u2019s writing career. The book follows the story of a teen girl who loses her sister in a hit-and-run on 9\/11. Looking for closure, she writes letters to her sister that demonstrate the book\u2019s themes of guilt, troubled family relationships, and adolescence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, Beard can count a film among his accomplishments \u2014 in late 2022, the book was adapted into a film starring Stranger Things<\/em>\u2019 Sadie Sink. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Beard had always been a \u201cvoracious reader,\u201d but it wasn\u2019t until Professor Frederick Busch\u2019s Living Writers course that he seriously considered writing. Each week, as Busch brought professional authors, editors, and publishers before the class, the English major sat in awe. \u201c[Busch was] giving us a taste of the entire industry, and it was really eye-opening,\u201d Beard says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Though Beard enjoyed his English courses,\nhe ultimately wanted a law career. He\nattended Pitt Law, where he met his soon-to-\nbe-mentor Nordan and developed a passion\nfor writing fiction. After graduation, Beard\nstarted his contract law career and helped\nraise his three daughters, including his step-\ndaughter, Cali. When he started writing again,\nin 2000, he imagined her voice as he created\nTess, the female protagonist in Dear Zoe<\/em>. \u201cI\ngot that pull that Buddy Nordan said I would\nfeel,\u201d he remembers.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n He looked around his office at the law firm, feeling out of place and dissatisfied with his day-to-day life. He and his wife discussed him leaving law for about a year. One day they were having a meal in their favorite Chinese restaurant. As they rehashed the details, the waitress brought them their fortune cookies. Beard\u2019s read: \u201cYou are a lover of words. Someday, you will write a book.\u201d He kept that fortune tacked to his refrigerator for the next 20 years, as he wrote and published three novels, including Dear Zoe <\/em>(Viking, 2005), Lost in the Garden <\/em>(Viking, 2006), and Swing <\/em>(Van Buren, 2015). <\/p>\n\n\n\n Beard eventually went back to practicing\nlaw part time, but now he largely does it to\nfund his writing time. \u201cI realize what a gift it is\nto be able to do something part-time that can\nactually pay my bills, leaving time for creative\nstuff,\u201d he reflects.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n From the New York Times<\/em>\u2019 \u201cModern Love\u201d editor Daniel Jones (Beard\u2019s high school classmate): \u201cWriting a novel is taking a road trip in your car at night. You can\u2019t see where you\u2019re going, but you\u2019re getting somewhere. Every day you just see as far as the headlights, you just write as far as you can see, and keep stacking up pages.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI think that to write a novel, you don\u2019t want to know in advance what\u2019s going to happen, but you have to have something in mind with enough weight to carry you forward,\u201d Beard says. When inspiration strikes, he writes thoughts in a recipe card notebook that he keeps on hand. When the notes start speaking to one another, he knows there is weight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019ve never felt that the words just flowed,\u201d Beard says. \u201cI\u2019m a very deliberate writer. I\u2019m a ruthless editor.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Dear Zoe <\/em>includes several tragic events that are overshadowed by the events of 9\/11. \u201cI was like, \u2018How do you write about this tiny little tragedy in a world where buildings can fold into the sidewalk?\u2019 And it wasn\u2019t until I struggled with that for a month or two that I realized that\u2019s exactly how my narrator, Tess, would feel. She would feel as if her tragedy had somehow been silenced by what happened elsewhere that day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThat\u2019s when I realized I had to make it a part of the story, but work hard to keep it in the background as something that was just sort of whispering but not dominating the page.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Philip Beard ’85 has balanced a law career with writing novels. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1222,"featured_media":12422,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2],"tags":[568,684,1542,1323,1540,1539,123,1541],"coauthors":[168],"class_list":["post-11977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-alumni-spotlights","category-alumni-updates","tag-advice","tag-author","tag-dear-zoe","tag-fiction-writers","tag-lawyer","tag-stranger-things","tag-writing","tag-young-adult-author"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/palXSH-37b","amp_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2023\/05\/Philip-Beard-Final-Illustration_edit.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1222"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11977"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11977\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12423,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11977\/revisions\/12423"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11977"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=11977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}The Best Advice He\u2019s Ever Received <\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
How to Develop a Plot <\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
On Writing About Tragedy <\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n