Suzanne Fisher Staples | |
---|---|
Born | August 27, 1945 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
Occupation | Writer |
Alma mater | Cedar Crest College |
Genre | Children's literature |
Suzanne Fisher Staples is an American writer of children's books.
Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on August 27, 1945, Suzanne Staples was a daughter of Robert Charles Fisher and Helen (Brittain) Fisher. She grew up in northeastern Pennsylvania with her sister and two brothers. [1]
Staples graduated from Lakeland High School in Jermyn, Pennsylvania and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Cedar Crest College in Allentown, Pennsylvania. [1] [2]
Staples worked in Asia as a correspondent and editor at United Press International for 13 years in the 1970s and 80's [3] and then for two years at The Washington Post. [4] While in Pakistan, Staples learned to speak Urdu which she credits with helping her develop relationships with people, listen to their stories, and understand nuance. These experiences enriched her writing, providing the geographical and cultural details that made her settings integral to the novels she would eventually write. [5] She was in Afghanistan from 1979-1982 and noted it was the most important story she covered. [4] In 1981 she was present at a war council of Afghan tribal elders led by Ahmed Shah Massoud who told her she would be hearing about the Soviet–Afghan War for years to come. [6]
Staples's first two novels, Shabanu: Daughter of the Wind (1989) and its sequel Haveli (1993) are set in Pakistan and explore the life of a young woman facing an arranged marriage. Shabanu, a Newbery Honor book in 1990, is a story about a girl who longs for the freedom to shape her own destiny in a society where women face arranged marriages and have minimal autonomy. [2] [4] Haveli, set several years later, delves into Shabanu's feelings of entrapment after marrying a wealthy landowner with three jealous, spiteful wives. [3] The House of Djinn (2008) is a sequel to Shabanu and Haveli taking place ten years after the events in Haveli. It completes the Pakistani trilogy. [5]
Staples' third novel Dangerous Skies (1996) set in Virginia's Chesapeake Bay follows two children, a white boy and a black girl, who struggle to hold their friendship together. In Shiva's Fire (2000) Staples returns to South Asia to tell the tale of Parvati, a girl in India blessed with the magical ability to dance through fire akin to the Hindu god Shiva, who learns to use her magic wisely. Under the Persimmon Tree (2005) is set in Afghanistan and Pakistan after the 2001 terrorist attacks and centers on Najmah, an Afghan refugee whose family is devastated by war, and her teacher. [2] The Green Dog (2003) is a memoir about the author's childhood. [5]
Åsne Seierstad is a Norwegian freelance journalist and writer, best known for her accounts of everyday life in war zones – most notably Kabul after 2001, Baghdad in 2002 and the ruined Grozny in 2006.
Madeleine L'Engle was an American writer of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and young adult fiction, including A Wrinkle in Time and its sequels: A Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, Many Waters, and An Acceptable Time. Her works reflect both her Christian faith and her strong interest in modern science.
Alice McDermott is an American writer and university professor. For her 1998 novel Charming Billy she won an American Book Award and the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction. She was shortlisted for the PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction.
David Grossman is an Israeli author. His books have been translated into more than 30 languages.
Gjertrud Schnackenberg is an American poet.
Jack Gantos is an American author of children's books. He is best known for the fictional characters Rotten Ralph and Joey Pigza. Rotten Ralph is a cat who stars in twenty picture books written by Gantos and illustrated by Nicole Rubel from 1976 to 2014. Joey Pigza is a boy with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), featured in five novels from 1998 to 2014.
Lydia Davis is an American short story writer, novelist, essayist, and translator from French and other languages, who often writes short short stories. Davis has produced several new translations of French literary classics, including Swann's Way by Marcel Proust and Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert.
Marly Youmans is an American poet, novelist and short story writer. Her work reflects certain recurring themes such as nature, magic, faith and redemption, and often references visual art.
Sylvia Alderyn Brownrigg is an American author. She is the author of seven books of fiction. Brownrigg's books have been on The New York Times notable fiction lists and Los Angeles Times and Kirkus books of the year. Her children's book, Kepler's Dream, published under the name Juliet Bell, was turned into an independent film in 2017. She won a Lambda Literary Award in 2002 for Pages for You and published the sequel to that book in 2017. Brownrigg's reviews and criticism have appeared in a wide range of publications, including The New York Times Book Review, The Times Literary Supplement, The Guardian, New Statesman, Los Angeles Times, and The Believer.
Shabanu: Daughter of the Wind is a 1989 novel by Suzanne Fisher Staples. It is narrated by a young girl who lives in the Cholistan Desert and centers on the story of her coming-of-age. It is succeeded by the novels Haveli and The House of Djinn. Staples had lived in Asia for about twelve years prior to writing the novel.
Janet McDonald was an American writer of young adult novels as well as the author of Project Girl, a memoir about her early life in Brooklyn's Farragut Houses and struggle to achieve an Ivy League education. Her best known children's book is Spellbound, which tells the story of a teenaged mother who wins a spelling competition and a college scholarship. The book was named as one of the American Library Association's eighty-four Best Books for Young Adults in 2002.
Eliza Griswold is a Pulitzer Prize–winning American journalist and poet. Griswold is currently a contributing writer to The New Yorker and a Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York University. She is the author of Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America, a 2018 New York Times Notable Book and a Times Critics’ Pick, for which she won the Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction and the Ridenhour Book Prize in 2019. Griswold was a fellow at the New America Foundation from 2008 to 2010 and won a 2010 Rome Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She is a former Nieman Fellow and a current Berggruen Fellow at Harvard Divinity School, and has been published in The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, and the New York Times Magazine.
John Henderson, better known by his pen name John Wray, is an American novelist and regular contributor to The New York Times Magazine. Born in Washington, D.C., of an American father and Austrian mother, he is a citizen of both countries. He grew up in Buffalo, New York, attended the Nichols School for his high school education, and then graduated from Oberlin College, majoring in Biology. He dropped out of graduate school twice: first from New York University's M.F.A. program in poetry, where he won an Academy of American Poets Prize, and then, a few years later, from Columbia University's fiction program. He currently lives in New York City.
Catherine Lloyd Burns is an American actress and author who portrayed Caroline Miller, the title character's teacher in the television series Malcolm in the Middle.
Phillip M. Hoose is an American writer of books, essays, stories, songs, and articles. His first published works were written for adults, but he turned his attention to children and young adults to keep up with his daughters. His work has been well received and honored more than once by the children's literature community. He won the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award, Nonfiction, for The Race to Save the Lord God Bird (2004), and the National Book Award, Young People's Literature, for Claudette Colvin (2009).
Marie K. Rutkoski in Hinsdale, Illinois is an American children's writer, and professor at Brooklyn College. She has three younger siblings. She graduated from the University of Iowa with a B.A. in English with a minor in French in 1999, and then her English M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University in 2003 and 2006 respectively. She lives in Brooklyn with her family and two cats, Cloud and Firefly.
Cynthia Carter DeFelice was an American children's writer. She wrote 16 novels and 12 picture books for young readers. The intended audience for her novels is children of reading ages nine to twelve.
Haveli is a 1993 novel by Suzanne Fisher Staples. It is the sequel to the 1989 book, Shabanu, Daughter of the Wind, also by Suzanne Fisher Staples. Haveli shows the ups and downs of Shabanu's new life as an 18-year-old mother.
Peter Handke is an Austrian novelist, playwright, translator, poet, film director, and screenwriter.
Dorothy Todd (1883–1966) was a British magazine editor.