Susan Stinson

The amazing Alison Bechdel gave a shout-out to Martha Mooday in Elle.com's book column.  She picked it as the book with the best opening line, and wrote something really gorgeous  about it.  "The first sentence is magnificent in the way it's a microcosm of the whole book, as well as a glimpse at the way Stinson writes so beautifully about fat bodies..."  That gives me an enormous amount of joy.  The whole list is full of books I love. 

Everyone should check out Alison's new book The Secret to Superhuman Strength, too! 

I love these author questions by Briallen Hopper at Killing the Buddha. They were posted for Valentine's Day, which is so lovely!  Killing the Buddha: 11 Questions About Martha Moody

Judith Katz wrote a wonderful review of Martha Moody in Lamda Literary Review. "Susan Stinson's substantial and delicious historical novel, Martha Moody, has been reissued by Small Beer Press, and it is certainly cause for celebration."  It's also a great history of lesbian and feminist publishing.  

Now there's a link at Book Moon Books so that if you've got a US mailing address, you can get almost all of my books, including Belly Songs. What you do is, click the button to order Martha Moody, then write in "Belly Songs" or "Venus of Chalk" or "Spider in a Tree." Then, you'll get the book and the money goes to me. It works that way because these small and micro press books aren't on the distributor's website, but Gavin from Book Moon came to my stairs and fetched the books, so I know they are there. (Fat Girl Dances With Rocks isn't available because it's out of print and I don't have copies.)

I have a new short piece up at the Kenyon Review about reading from Martha Moody and having it embraced now by the wonderful Book Moon Books.

"I was reading from Martha Moody in Vermont at the Institute for Social Ecology in 1995 the time that Grace Paley blew me a kiss and told the audience that my work was clearly about changing the world."  (Confidential to blog readers: We were actually reading together at that event.) 

The launch for the twenty-fiftn anniversary edition of my "highly imaginative Western," Martha Moody, was a conversation with the great Elizabeth McCracken at Book Moon Books. It was virtual and recorded, so some day I may be able to post it. Full of launch and good company in the midst of a pandemic, it was one of the best things that has ever happened to me as a writer.

I met Elizabeth McCracken more than twenty-five years ago before Martha Moody was published.  I used an excerpt as my work sample in an application to the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center. I didn't get in, but Elizabeth wrote me a beautiful letter in praise of the excerpt, which was enclosed in the envelope with the rejection. We eventually started a correspondence, and it has been such gift to get to read her work and witness her literary adventures over the years.  Talking with her about Martha Moody was SO MUCH FUN.  The audience was full of writers and others dear to me.  We sang happy birthday to my dad, who turned 92 the next day!  People got passionate in the chat about punctuation marks.  So good. 

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Sally Bellerose interviewed me about Martha Moody for Lambda Literary

Sally, whose novel Fishwives is out in February, is one of my oldest writing friends.  It was so great to be interviewed by her for Lambda Literary. 

I wrote a remembrance of Joan Drury for  Lambda Literary.  Here's the first paragraph: 

Joan Drury, who died at age 75 on November 9 in Grand Marais, Minnesota, was a mover and shaker in the movement to get the work of feminist and lesbian writers into the hands, minds, and lives of those who desperately wanted to read them. She ran a press, created a fund for lesbian writers, started a retreat center for women writers, opened a bookstore, and wrote books of her own. She also changed my life.