Short Bio
Judy Bebelaar is a San Francisco Bay Area poet, author, and former San high
school teacher. Her book of poetry, Sky Holding Fall, was published by Blue
Light Press in 2023. She also has a chapbook, Walking Across the Pacific. In 2018,
she published, And Then They Were Gone, which tells the story of the People’s
Temple teenagers she taught. Many of them never returned after the Jonestown
massacre and died there. She co-authored the book with former teacher Ron
Cabral. The Nonfiction Authors Awards Association praised the book as
“beautiful and passionate.” In 2019, And Then They Were Gone received a
Northern California Book Nomination for nonfiction books. The book has since
received ten honors and awards including four first prizes and Ron and Judy
being named San Francisco Friends of the Library Laureates, also in 2019. She
lives in the Bay Area, where she continues to write poetry and give readings.
Full Bio
For 37 years, she taught in San Francisco public high schools. She worked at the
following schools: Samuel Gompers, Opportunity, Galileo, McAteer and
International Studies Academy.
As a poet, she empowered her students to find their voice through writing. But,
her desire to inspire them through language did not stop there. She invited
poets into her classroom and published student work in anthologies. For twenty
years, she helped them produce a prize-winning literary calendar that
contained their research and writing.
Because of her support, her students gained attention and won many awards.
They received recognition from Scholastic Magazine and won 8 national awards.
Judy also received national recognition by State Farm, the Good Neighbor
Teacher Award (one of 8 nationally in 1996) and Business-Week/McGraw
Hill (1994). In 2002, she received praise for innovative practices in teaching;
by Scholastic and The Whitehouse Women’s Leadership in Teaching.
Her book of poetry, Sky Holding Fall, published by Blue Light Press in 2023, is
available from most bookstores through Ingram, and on Amazon. She also
published a chapbook in 2014, Walking Across the Pacific, available from
Finishing Line Press.
Judy has published her poems in over fifty literary journals and her work also
appears in five anthologies, including:
The Widows’ Handbook (foreword by Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Kent State University
Press); River of Earth and Sky: Poems for the 21st st Century (Blue Light Press); The
Squaw Valley Review; The Marin Poetry Center Anthology’s 20th – Anniversary
Edition Getting the News; and California Fire & Water: A Climate Crisis Anthology.
In 2018, she co-authored a nonfiction book with fellow teacher Ron Cabral.
Together, they tell the story of the People’s Temple teenagers they came to
know, teach, and love.
In 1976, Jim Jones sent all the San Francisco Temple teens to the small
alternative school where the two taught. And Then They Were Gone: Teenagers of
Peoples Temple from High School to Jonestown (Sugartown Publishing, 2018)
follows the students the two knew best from San Francisco to Jonestown. The
book is now available at most bookstores through Ingram, and on Amazon,
Kindle and Audible.