Judy Bentley

Judy Bentley writes books about history, hiking, biography, and current issues for both adults and young adults. She grew up in Indiana, went to college in Ohio, and lived in New York City before moving to Seattle where she has retired from teaching at South Seattle College. Her newest book is 25 Sugarland Road, Letters of Love and War, 1943-1945, a narrated collection of letters her parents wrote to each other during World War II. Her young adult books include biographies of Harriet Tubman, William Still, Thomas Garrett, Desmond Tutu, Sandra Day O'Connor, and Fidel Castro. She has also written about the nuclear freeze movement, national health care, refugees, immigration, and the settlement of the West. Her most recent young adult book is Free Boy, a True Story of Master and Slave, co-authored with Lorraine McConaghy. The boy, Charles Mitchell, was enslaved in Washington Territory in the 1850s and escaped to Victoria on the tiny West Coast underground railroad. This spring the second edition of Hiking Washington's History was published by the University of Washington Press with co-author Craig Romano. Walking Washington's History: Ten Cities, published in 2016, is an urban counterpart to Hiking Washington's History. Both books guide hikers and walkers on historically significant routes in Washington State history.