Jeff Gottesfeld

Jeff Gottesfeld
Jeff Gottesfeld
	Jeff Gottesfeld in 2023
Born	Howard Jeffrey Gottesfeld; 1956 (age 69–70)
Education	Colby College (BA); University of San Francisco (JD)
Occupations	Novelist; playwright; writer;
Notable work	Twenty-One Steps: Guarding the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (illustrated by Matt Tavares); The Tree in the Courtyard: Looking Through Anne Frank's Window (illustrated by Peter McCarty); Food for Hope: How John van Hengel Invented Food Banks for the Hungry (illustrated by Michelle Laurentia Agatha); The Christmas Mitzvah (illustrated by Michelle Laurentia Agatha); The World’s Strongest Librarian (play adaptation of the book by Josh Hanegarn)

Howard Jeffrey Gottesfeld (born 1956) is an American novelist, playwright, and screen and television writer.

Gottesfeld is an author of children's literature. Together with ex-wife Cherie Bennett, he has written under the pen name Zoey Dean, including How to Teach Filthy Rich Girls which was developed into the series Privileged. Gottesfeld has also written freelance for numerous magazines and newspapers and continues to publish essays on subjects such as the effect of the Gaza conflict on American-Jewish family relations, Confederate flag, immigration policy, and trends in young adult fiction. For television, he has written for such shows as Smallville and The Young and the Restless.

Gottesfeld has won a Sydney Taylor Book Award for The Tree in the Courtyard: Looking Through Anne Frank's Window, while his No Steps Behind: Beate Sirota Gordon's Battle for Women's Rights in Japan was named the Freeman Book Award’s best picture book. Food for Hope: How John van Hengel Invented Food Banks for the Hungry won the Christopher Award. In addition, his play World’s Strongest Librarian won the American Alliance for Theatre and Education’s Distinguished Play Award.