Susan Straight

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

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

Biography

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

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

Awards and honors

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

Novels

  • —— (1991). Aquaboogie: A Novel in Stories. Minneapolis, Minn.: Milkweed Editions. ISBN 9780915943593.
  • —— (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

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

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

Nonfiction

  • In the Country of Women (2019)

Essays, reporting and other contributions

  • 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

  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.