Background
Susan Lynn Thames was born on April 19, 1947, in Roanoke, Virginia, United States. She is a daughter of Martin Saul Thames, a salesman, and Florence (Fox) Thames, a photographer.
2 Union Ave, Saratoga Springs, NY 12866, United States
In 1987, Susan received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature from Empire State College, one of the 13 arts and science colleges of the State University of New York.
160 Convent Ave, New York, NY 10031, United States
In 1990, Thames attained a Master of Arts degree in English and Creative Writing from the City College of New York.
(In a collection of stories, set in small towns and namele...)
In a collection of stories, set in small towns and nameless places, a young woman returns to her childhood home with her daughter. A lonely woman struggles with her incestuous past, and a little girl senses the deception and bravado on her mother's face.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0679404953/?tag=2022091-20
1992
(Reminiscent of the works of Kaye Gibbons and Mona Simpson...)
Reminiscent of the works of Kaye Gibbons and Mona Simpson, Susan Thames' "I'll Be Home Late Tonight" offers an incandescent examination of the bond between a mother and a daughter. During a car trip through the South of a generation ago, two women learn about each other's strengths, failings and secrets.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ill-Be-Home-Late-Tonight/dp/0812992369
1997
(This work introduces important symbols for the United Sta...)
This work introduces important symbols for the United States, including the flag, the Liberty Bell and Mount Rushmore.
https://www.amazon.com/American-Symbols-Around-Discovery-Library/dp/1595159940/?tag=2022091-20
2006
columnist educator novelist author
Susan Lynn Thames was born on April 19, 1947, in Roanoke, Virginia, United States. She is a daughter of Martin Saul Thames, a salesman, and Florence (Fox) Thames, a photographer.
In 1987, Susan received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature from Empire State College, one of the 13 arts and science colleges of the State University of New York. Later, she continued her education at the City College of New York, graduating with a Master of Arts degree in English and Creative Writing in 1990.
In 1990, Susan began her career as an instructor in English at St. Joseph's College in Brooklyn, New York City, a post she held till 1991. In 1993, she was appointed an instructor in English and Creative Writing at the City College of New York.
Between 1994 and 1997, Thames acted as an associate professor at Columbia University in New York City. Also, during the period from 1994 till 1998, she worked as a guest writer at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville.
During her career, Susan also was as a fellow at different institutions, including the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (fall of 1992), Hawthornden Castle International Retreat for Writers, in Midlothian, Scotland (1993), and Yaddo (artists' community), in Saratoga Springs, New York (spring and summer of 1992 and summer of 1996).
During her career, she also worked as a contributing editor and member of editorial board for Global City Review and Press. Also, she served as a columnist and contributor to various magazines and newspapers.
(Reminiscent of the works of Kaye Gibbons and Mona Simpson...)
1997(This work talks about where our muscles are located in th...)
2007(This work talks about our bones, how many bones are in ou...)
2007(In a collection of stories, set in small towns and namele...)
1992(This work talks about germs, how the immune system fights...)
2007(This work introduces important symbols for the United Sta...)
2006(Easy reading about five senses.)
2007Susan believes, that she is mostly influenced by the spoken word, the rhythms of the spoken language and the writing she comes upon, that sounds like spoken language to her. These include James Agee’s "A Death in the Family", Marguerite Yourcenar's "Memoirs of Hadrian", Carlos Fuentes’s "The Death of Artemio Cruz" and Jerome Badanes’s "The Final Opus of Leon Solomon". She also noted, that all these books are important to her because of the way these writers confront the truth - head on.
Quotations:
"Right from the start I wrote because I could, when I wasn’t at all sure what else was within my means. Even now, when people ask me what I was doing before I started writing, I usually answer "staying alive". Then, when I was in my early thirties, I started taking workshops and struggled to write a story a year, usually about something fantastic and alienated, usually about someone alienated and isolated. It took me about five years to get to where I had a feeling for what a story was, and then I was writing, if not daily, then regularly."
"I am interested in depicting a world, in which blame cannot easily be laid. I get the feeling sometimes, that readers are more horrified by the lives some of my characters lead than I am. The way I look at it, people make mistakes, they make bad mistakes, and their mistakes affect the lives of other people. I am interested in watching these people, and finding the complexity in them, and seeing how they reckon with the messes they make."
"I don’t have work habits. I work when I can. This often means daily, for as many hours as my life permits — anywhere from a couple of hours to eight or ten hours a day. I also hit times, when I feel like I’ve scraped the bottom of the barrel, and it’s not the barrel of a particular work, it’s my own barrel, my bottom. Then I know I have to back off for a while. As time goes by, I find I need less and less of that, and so I enjoy it more."
Susan is a member of Authors Guild.