 | This article reads like a press release or a news article and may be largely based on routine coverage .(July 2021) |
Ellen Sussman is a New York Times bestselling author of four novels. She was born in Trenton, New Jersey and resides in Sebastopol, California with her husband. Sussman's work features settings and characters from France to Bali to the United States. [1] She lived in Paris from 1988 to 1993 with her first husband and two daughters. [2]
Sussman attended Tufts University for her undergraduate degree and Johns Hopkins University for her graduate degree in creative writing. [3] Jonathan Strong was her mentor and teacher while she studied at Tufts University.
Despite knowing she wanted to be a writer at age six, Sussman endured years of rejection before successfully publishing her first novel at the age of 49. [4] [2] In addition to writing, Sussman teaches private writing classes and workshops. [5] One of the private classes is called "Novel in a Year" in which students write and entire novel over the course of the year with Sussman's guidance and critiques. [4] She also teaches through Stanford Continuing Studies. Sussman is the co-founder and co-director of Sonoma County Writers Camp. [6]
She is the founder of the Bay Area women-writers network Word of Mouth. [7] As of 2021, there were over 170 women in the organization. [4]
In her most recent novel, Sussman returns to France. Provence is a city of "romance and love" for the author. [5] France has always been a location of romance; her husband Neal Rothman and she married in France. [2] While in France for a writer's residency in 2010, she got the idea for the novel after visiting Cassis, a sea resort in Provence.
Set in Bali during the 2002 bombing in Bali, this novel deals with the subjects of terrorism, anxiety, and loss. [8] To prepare for this novel, Sussman interviewed Balinese locals and expats on their healing after the attacks. The novel follows the actions of Jamie, a 32-year-old travel guide who was injured in the attack as she attempts to find Gabe, a man who helped her recover after the bombing. [9]
French Lessons earned the title of "People Pick" from People magazine. It became a New York Times bestseller and was sold in many countries. [10] This novel tells the story of three attractive French Tutors and their American students as they navigate Parisian life. [11] French Lessons has been optioned by Unique Features to be made into a movie. [11]
On a Night Like This was Sussman's first novel. Blair Clemmons is the main character. She is working as a chef in San Francisco when she learns she is dying from cancer. The novel follows Flair as she deals with terminal illness, raising a teenaged daughter, and rekindling a romance with a successful screenwriter named Luke. [12]
This anthology, edited by Sussman, shares the voices of women reminiscing on their "bad girl days" and their perspectives on parenthood, success, and life. Sussman says she was inspired to create this collection because her essays were always "about her detours from the good girl path". [13] Contributors include Sussman herself, Maggie Estep, Ann Hood, and Lolly Winston. [14]
This anthology, edited by Sussman, contains definitions of words from "adultery" to "wet dreams" alongside essays about sex. Some authors included are: Joshua Furst, Patricia Marx, and Elissa Schappell. [15]
In 2004 and 2009, Sussman was named a San Francisco Library Laureate. [11]
Sussman was featured in the July 2010 issue of Gentry magazine in an article titled "Life's Little Luxuries". [16]
In 2013, Sussman was named one of the Best Local Authors in San Francisco. [17]
The explicit language used in French Lessons caused some concern while Sussman was traveling to promote the book. She was asked not to read some of the expletives when visiting Midwestern bookstores. Additionally, some of the graphic sex scenes were questioned by book club leaders. [18]
Paradise Guest House has been described as "A respectful and earnest but far from edgy treatment of devastation's aftermath." [9] Largely reviews of the book have been please with the representation of the attacks and Bali's rebuilding.
Julia Pottinger, better known by her pen name, Julia Quinn, is a best-selling American author of historical romance fiction. Her novels have been translated into 41 languages and have appeared on The New York Times Bestseller List 19 times. She has been inducted into the Romance Writers of America Hall of Fame. Her Bridgerton series of novels has been adapted for Netflix by Shondaland under the title Bridgerton.
Joyce Maynard is an American novelist and journalist. She began her career in journalism in the 1970s, writing for several publications, most notably Seventeen magazine and The New York Times. Maynard contributed to Mademoiselle and Harrowsmith magazines in the 1980s, while also beginning a career as a novelist with the publication of her first novel, Baby Love (1981). Her second novel, To Die For (1992), drew on the Pamela Smart murder case and was adapted into the 1995 film of the same name. Maynard received significant media attention in 1998 with the publication of her memoir At Home in the World, which deals with her affair with J. D. Salinger.
Judith Krantz was a magazine writer and fashion editor who turned to fiction as she approached the age of 50. Her first novel Scruples (1978) quickly became a New York Times best-seller and went on to be a worldwide publishing success, translated into 50 languages. Scruples, which describes the glamorous and affluent world of high fashion in Beverly Hills, California, helped define a new supercharged sub-genre of the romance novel - the bonkbuster or "sex-and-shopping" novel. She also fundamentally changed the publishing industry by becoming one of the first celebrity authors through her extensive touring and promotion - "a superstar of fiction". Her later books included Princess Daisy (1980), Till We Meet Again (1988), Dazzle (1990) and Spring Collection (1996). Her autobiography, Sex and Shopping: The Confessions of a Nice Jewish Girl, was published in 2000.
Thisbe Nissen is an American author. Originally from New York City, she lived in Iowa for eleven years. Among her works are Osprey Island, The Good People of New York, and Out of the Girls' Room and into the Night. She has taught a fiction course at least once a year since the inception of the Iowa Young Writers' Workshop, a two-week intensive creative writing workshop "camp" for talented high school students, except in 2006. She has also taught at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, Iowa Elderhostel.
Jewell Parker Rhodes is an American bestselling novelist and educator.
Katie Fforde, née Catherine Rose Gordon-Cumming, is a British romance novelist. Published since 1995, her romance novels are set in modern-day England.
Katharine Weber is an American novelist and nonfiction writer. She has taught fiction and nonfiction writing at Yale University, Goucher College, the Paris Writers Workshop and elsewhere. She held the Visiting Richard L. Thomas Chair in Creative Writing at Kenyon College from 2012 to 2019.
Michelle Tea is an American author, poet, and literary arts organizer whose autobiographical works explore queer culture, feminism, race, class, sex work, and other topics. She is originally from Chelsea, Massachusetts and has identified with the San Francisco, California literary and arts community for many years. She currently lives in Los Angeles. Her books, mostly memoirs, are known for their exposition of the queercore community.
Jenny Colgan is a Scottish writer of romantic comedy fiction and science-fiction. She has written for the Doctor Who line of stories. She writes under her own name and using the pseudonyms Jane Beaton and J. T. Colgan.
Betty Lee Duran was an American writer of romance novels. She started writing as Ruth Jean Dale, and now she writes as Lee Duran.
Lesbian literature is a subgenre of literature addressing lesbian themes. It includes poetry, plays, fiction addressing lesbian characters, and non-fiction about lesbian-interest topics.
Barbara Andrews is an American writer of 20 romance novels under her real name; with her daughter, Pam Hanson, she now writes under the pseudonyms Jennifer Drew and Pam Rock.
Susan Wiggs is an American author of historical and contemporary romance novels.
Karin Kallmaker is an American author of lesbian fiction whose works also include those originally written under the name Laura Adams. Her writings span lesbian romance, lesbian erotica, and lesbian science-fiction/fantasy. Dubbed the Queen of Lesbian Romance, she publishes exclusively in the lesbian market as a matter of personal choice.
Elin Hilderbrand is an American writer, mostly of romance novels. Her novels are typically set on and around Nantucket Island, where she resides. In 2019, New York magazine called Hilderbrand "the queen of beach reads".
Marjorie M. Liu is an American New York Times best-selling author and comic book writer. She is acclaimed for her horror fantasy comic Monstress, and her paranormal romance and urban fantasy novels including The Hunter Kiss and Tiger Eye series. Her work for Marvel Comics includes NYX, X-23, Dark Wolverine, and Astonishing X-Men. In 2015 Image Comics debuted her creator-owned series Monstress, for which she was nominated for an Eisner Award for Best New Series. In 2017 she won a Hugo Award for the first Monstress trade paperback collection. In July 2018 she became the first woman in the 30-year history of the Eisner Awards to win the Eisner Award for Best Writer for her work on Monstress.
Nina George is a German writer, best known as the author of The Little Paris Bookshop, an international bestseller that has been translated into more than 28 languages as of 2015, and sold in more than 500.000 copies. She has published 26 books as well as over hundred short stories and more than 600 columns. George has worked as a cop reporter, columnist and managing editor for a wide range of publications, including Hamburger Abendblatt, Die Welt, Der Hamburger, as well as TV Movie and Federwelt.
American author Nancy Naigle is well-known for the books she has written for companies like Crossroads Publishing, Hallmark Publishing, Waterbook, Center Point Large Print, Montlake Romance, and St. Martin's Press. Naigle was raised in North Carolina but was born in Virginia Beach.
Jasmine Guillory is an American romance novelist. Her works' protagonists are often African-American professionals. In February 2019, her book, The Proposal, was ranked on The New York Times Best Seller list for paperback trade fiction.
Tiffany Reisz is an American author. She is best known for the Original Sinners series of erotica and she has won the RITA Award and a Lambda Literary Award.
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