Wikipedia

Susan Straight

Susan Straight (born October 19, 1960) is an American writer. She was a National Book Award finalist for the novel Highwire Moon in 2001.

Susan Straight
Straight in 2010
Born (1960-10-19) October 19, 1960 (age 64)
Riverside, California, U.S.
EducationRiverside Community College
University of Southern California
University of Massachusetts Amherst (MFA)
OccupationWriter
Years active1990–present
Websitesusanstraight.com

Biography

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Susan Straight attended John W. North High School in Riverside, California and took classes at Riverside Community College while in high school. She went on to earn a scholarship to the University of Southern California and, in 1984, earned her M.F.A. from the University of Massachusetts Amherst's MFA Program for Poets & Writers. She co-founded the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing & Writing for the Performing Arts program at University of California, Riverside, where she is currently a Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing and the director of the graduate program.

Straight has published eight novels, a novel for young readers and a children's book. She has also written essays and articles for numerous national publications, including The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Nation and Harper's Magazine, and is a frequent contributor to NPR and Salon. Her story "Mines", first published in Zoetrope: All-Story, was included in The Best American Short Stories 2003.

Personal life

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Straight lives in Riverside, California. She has three daughters.

Awards and honors

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Year Title Award Category Result Ref
1990 Aquaboogie Milkweed National Fiction Prize — Won [1]
2001 Highwire Moon National Book Award Fiction Finalist [2]
2007 — Lannan Literary Award Fiction Won [3]
2008 "The Golden Gopher" Edgar Awards Best Short Story Won [4]
2013 — Los Angeles Times Book Prize Robert Kirsch Award [5]

Bibliography

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Novels

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  • —— (1991). Aquaboogie: A Novel in Stories. Minneapolis, Minn.: Milkweed Editions. ISBN 9780918633593.
  • —— (1993). I Been in Sorrow's Kitchen and Licked Out All the Pots.
  • —— (1995). Blacker Than a Thousand Midnights.
  • —— (1997). The Gettin' Place.
  • —— (2001). Highwire Moon.
  • —— (2006). A Million Nightingales.
  • —— (2010). Take One Candle Light a Room.
  • —— (2012). Between Heaven and Here.
  • —— (2022). Mecca.[6]

Short fiction

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Year Title First published Reprinted/collected
???? Tulsa, 1921 ???? Golden, Marita; Shreve, Susan Richards, eds. (1995). Skin deep : Black women & White women write about race. New York: Nan A. Talese. ISBN 9780385474092.
2003 "Mines" Zoetrope: All-Story
2005 "Poinciana" The Cocaine Chronicles
2007 "The Golden Gopher" Los Angeles Noir[4]
"El Ojo de Agua" The O. Henry Prize Stories 2007
2018 "The Princess of Valencia" Amazon Original Stories[7]
"The Perseids," Granta[8]

For younger readers

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  • Bear E. Bear (1995)
  • The Friskative Dog (2007)

Nonfiction

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  • In the Country of Women (2019)

Essays, reporting and other contributions

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  • Race: An Anthology in the First Person (essay, "Letter to My Daughters") (1997)
  • Mothers Who Think: Tales of Real-Life Parenthood (essay, "One Drip at a Time") (1999)
  • When Race Becomes Real: Black and White Writers Confront Their Personal Histories (essay, "Country Music") (2002)
  • Life As We Know It: A Collection of Personal Essays from Salon.com (essay, "Love Me, Love My Guns") (2003)
  • Dog Is My Co-Pilot: Great Writers on the World's Oldest Friendship (essay, "Brave and Noble Is the Preschool Dog") (2003)
  • Some of My Best Friends: Writers on Interracial Friendships (essay, "Cartilage") (2004)
  • Little Women (afterword) (2004)
  • Because I Said So: 33 Mothers Write About Children, Sex, Men, Aging, Faith, Race, and Themselves (essay, "The Belly Unbuttoned") (2005)
  • I Married My Mother-in-law And Other Tales of In-laws We Can't Live With - And Can't Live Without (essay, "A Family You Can't Divorce") (2006)
  • Inlandia: A Literary Journey Through California's Inland Empire (introduction) (2006)
  • Bad Girls: 26 Writers Misbehave (essay, "Reckless") (July 2007)
  • The Show I'll Never Forget: 50 Writers Relive Their Most Memorable Concertgoing Experience (essay, "The Funk Festival at Los Angeles Coliseum, Los Angeles, May 26, 1979") (2007)
  • Straight, Susan (Mar–Apr 2013). "November 24, 1963 : what my brother left behind". The Believer. 11 (3): 25–28. Retrieved 2015-10-16.

References

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  1. ^ Milkweed National Fiction Prize Archived 2014-04-07 at the Wayback Machine
  2. ^ Allen, David (24 September 2020). "Writer Susan Straight embeds herself in her Riverside hometown". Inland Valley Daily Bulletin. Retrieved 1 March 2023.
  3. ^ "Lannan Foundation Announces 2007 Literary Award Recipients". philanthropynewsdigest.org. 10 November 2007. Retrieved 1 March 2023.
  4. ^ a b "Mystery Writers of America Announces the 2008 Edgar Award Winners" (Press release). 2008-05-01. Retrieved 2009-05-02.
  5. ^ Carolyn Kellogg (April 11, 2014). "Jacket Copy: The winners of the Los Angeles Times Book Prizes are ..." LA Times. Retrieved April 14, 2014.
  6. ^ "Fiction Book Review: Mecca by Susan Straight. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $28 (384p) ISBN 978-0-374-60451-6". PublishersWeekly.com. Retrieved 2022-02-24.
  7. ^ Straight, Susan (2018-02-27). The Princess of Valencia. Amazon Original Stories.
  8. ^ "The Perseids". Granta. 2018-05-03. Retrieved 2022-02-24.
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