About
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Jean, captured in the back of a school bus, holds her ground as a chaperone, ensuring the ride to
Roller World doesn’t spiral into chaos.
Jean Stehle (steel) is a Boston-based literary influencer, school librarian, literary festival organizer, digital creator, and writer. She studied cinema and photography at Ithaca College and received a master's in education from Columbia.
Jean is a middle school librarian in Newton, MA. She has consulted for PBS Learning Media, taught graduate-level children's literature courses, and spoken on panels about censorship and its effects on student reading.
Jean is one of the co-founding organizers of the Newton Children's Book Festival. Established in 2024, it is the first of its kind in eastern Massachusetts. This year's event featured 60+ children's authors and illustrators and welcomed over 1,300 attendees. She is also an ambassador to the Associates of the Boston Public Library.
Jean has moderated panels at bookstores in Boston and neighboring communities, including Trident Booksellers & Cafe, Hummingbird Books in Chestnut Hill, among others. She has also moderated events on Cape Cod, including at the boutique Story in Falmouth and the Wellfleet Public Library in the Outer Cape.
At her local bookstore, Newtonville Books, she has been in conversation with Pulizter Prize winning biographer, Megan Marshall with Best American Short Story essayist, Nicole Graev Lipson; writer, publisher, and podcaster, Zibby Owens; USA Today bestselling author, Hank Phillippi Ryan; Zibby Publishing author Alisha Fernandez Miranda; and Rob Schwartz, editor of The Wisdom of Morrie, written by his late father, Morrie Schwartz, the eponymous subject of the beloved classic, Tuesdays with Morrie. Additionally, she has been in conversation with Civil Rights icon, Ruby Bridges, and Holocaust survivor and activist, Elly Gotz.
A writer since she was a girl, Jean is going after her dream of becoming a published author and is revising her coming-of-middle-age novel.
She lives just outside of Boston with her one husband, two children and countless books.