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 Granta, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Nation and Harper's Magazine.
She 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 YearTitleAwardCategoryResult1990AquaboogieMilkweed National Fiction Prize—Milkweed National Fiction Prize 2001Highwire MoonNational Book AwardFiction2007—Lannan Literary AwardFiction2008"The Golden Gopher"Edgar AwardsBest Short Story2013—Los Angeles Times Book PrizeRobert Kirsch Award
Bibliography
Novels
Short fiction YearTitleFirst publishedReprinted/collected????Tulsa, 1921???? 2003"Mines"Zoetrope: All-Story2005"Poinciana" The Cocaine Chronicles2007"The Golden Gopher"Los Angeles Noir"El Ojo de Agua" The O. Henry Prize Stories 20072018"The Princess of Valencia"Amazon Original Stories"The Perseids"Granta
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)
References
External links
Essays by Susan Straight at Salon Creative Writing & Writing for the Performing Arts Master's degree program at UC-Riverside Straight's Introduction to the Inlandia anthology The UMass MFA Program for Poets & Writers
Karen Grigsby Bates, "Author Susan Straight Takes Us 'In The Country Of Women'", NPR, January 29, 2020.