S.J. Parris
S.J. Parris writes about her inspiration for Heresy, which masterfully blends true events with fiction into a page-turning murder mystery set on the sixteenth-century Oxford University campus.
Adam Haslett
A conversation with Adam Haslett, author of Union Atlantic, a deeply affecting portrait of the modern gilded age, the first decade of the twenty-first century.
Cheryl Strayed's award-winning stories and essays have appeared in
over a dozen magazines, journals, and anthologies. Her first novel,
Torch, was published by Houghton Mifflin in 2006.
Born in western Pennsylvania in 1968, Strayed spent most of her
formative years—from the age of five until her mid-twenties—in
Minnesota. Her novel, Torch, takes place in the fictional town
of Midden, Minnesota, based on her hometown of McGregor. "It's my
literary landscape; my spiritual home," she says. "No matter how far I
wander, I often travel back to Minnesota when I sit down to write."
Torch is a novel about big things—about love and loss and grief
and redemption—but it takes place on the small stage: centering on the
lives of one working class family as they struggle with the illness
and subsequent death of one of its members—the mother. "It's the story
I had to write. The story of my heart," says Strayed, who lost her own
mother, Bobbi Lambrecht, to cancer at a young age. Though Torch
began as an autobiographical novel, it soon became almost entirely
fictional as Strayed wrote it. "Not surprisingly, the characters took
on lives of their own as I got deeper into the story and I happily
gave way to that. I ended up with something bigger, more meaningful,
and in many ways more true than had I stuck to autobiography."
Not that she is averse to writing autobiographically. Her personal
essays, "Heroin/e" and "The Love of My Life," were both selected for
inclusion in the prestigious Best American Essays collections
(in 2000 and 2003 respectively) and she has published in magazines
such as the New York Times Magazine, Allure,DoubleTake
and The Sun. "I love the freedom to write both fiction and
nonfiction. In each I draw from the other: in my fiction I mine the
actual events of my life—often changing them entirely by the time the
piece is finished—and in my essays I utilize the writing craft of a
fiction writer, paying close attention to character and dialogue and
setting to structure the piece so that I'm not just relating an
interesting story, but rather crafting a work of art that has meaning
beyond the personal or confessional."
Though Strayed grew up in a household that didn't necessarily
encourage an interest in the literary arts, she knew she wanted to be
a writer since she was a child, before, as she puts it, "I knew that
anyone even could be a writer—I assumed they were all dead." An
avid reader, she began writing stories at age seven and never stopped.
"My first real short story was called ‘Murder on the Midnight
Express.' It featured a talking parrot named Poncho. My teacher showed
it to a police officer friend of hers and he wrote ‘nice job' at the
top. I have it still."
After graduating from McGregor High School in 1986, Strayed went on to
earn a bachelor's degree in English and women's studies from the
University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. It was there, by reading great
works and honing her own budding craft in workshops, that she found
her true calling as a writer. After graduating, she worked a number of
jobs—as a waitress, a political organizer, a youth advocate, pregnancy
prevention counselor, and an EMT, among other things—and wrote on the
side. "I published a bit, won a few grants and residencies, and wrote
whenever I could." Still, it wasn't enough. "I'd put off going to
graduate school because I felt it was important to develop my writing
craft on my own. I think that was a wise decision, but by the time I
turned thirty, I realized what I needed in order to finish a project
as big as a novel was sheer time to focus solely on my writing.
Graduate school offered me that."
Strayed earned her MFA in fiction writing at Syracuse University in
2002. Her short story, Good, which she wrote while a student at SU,
was selected by Joyce Carol Oates for inclusion in The Best New
American Voices 2003.
She lives in Portland, Oregon with her filmmaker husband, Brian
Lindstrom, and their two children.
This biography was last updated on 02/11/2006.
A note about the biographies
We try to keep BookBrowse's biographies both up to date and accurate. However, with over 1,500 lives to keep track of it's inevitable that
some won't be as current or as complete as we would like. So, please help us - if the information about a particular author is out of date,
inaccurate or simply very short, and you know of a more complete source, please let us know. Authors and those connected with authors:
If you wish to make changes to your bio, please send your complete biography as you would like it displayed so that we replace the old with the new.
You are about to travel to Edgecombe St. Mary, a small village in the English countryside filled with rolling hills, thatched cottages, and a cast of characters both hilariously original and as familiar as the members of your own family.
The Postmistress is an unforgettable tale of the secrets we must bear, or bury. It is about what happens to love during wartime, when those we cherish leave. And how every story-of love or war-is about looking left when we should have been looking right.
Masterfully blending true events with fiction, this blockbuster historical thriller delivers a page-turning murder mystery set on the sixteenth-century Oxford University campus.
Kostova's masterful new novel travels from American cities to the coast of Normandy, from the late 19th century to the late 20th, from young love to last love. The Swan Thieves is a story of obsession, history's losses, and the power of art to preserve human hope.
Lisa See has written a great book! This story is satisfying on many levels, some scenes horrifying, but seemingly truthful, and her handling of the ...
read more
I was sorry to see that there were so few reviews. I started reading COAL and could not stop. The only thing I am going to say is that I wish ...
read more
The tragedy, the sorrow, the loss, is almost too much for me to recommend this; on the other hand Mistry made me believe I knew these characters. I ...
read more
Amazon 'buy button' rumors abound(Mar 18 2010) Rumors swirled today that Amazon could revoke the buy buttons for books by Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, Penguin, or Hachette if the major publishers can't...
Full Story
Amazon's e-pricing threats(Mar 18 2010) With Apple's iPad launch just weeks away, Amazon raised the stakes again when it threatened to stop directly selling the books of some publishers online...
Full Story
RSS feed
