Sarah Kernochan was born in New York City. Educated at Rosemary Hall and Sarah Lawrence, she achieved early success by winning the Academy Award for Best Feature Documentary, at age 27, for her film "Marjoe." Her next move was to record two RCA albums as a singer-songwriter. Two years later her novel "Dry Hustle" was published. An original musical titled "Sleeparound Town" followed, with workshop productions at the New York Public Theater, and then Playwrights Horizons, where she met her future husband James Lapine. Their daughter Phoebe Lapine was born 1985, by which time Kernochan had settled into a career as a screenwriter and filmmaker. In 2002 she won a second Academy Award, this time for the 40-minute short "Thoth". She continues to compose songs for her website. She has taught advanced screenwriting as a Terry and Jane Semel Fellow at Emerson College in Boston. Her most recent accomplishments have been the publication of "Jane Was Here"(2011), a well-reviewed reincarnation mystery, and the release of her third album "Decades of Demos" for digital download in online stores. Her biog "At Home With a Ghost" is an ongoing chronicle of her lifelong encounters with ghosts and spirits.