Community hub
Recent from talks
Contribute something to knowledge base
Content stats: 0 posts, 0 articles, 0 media, 0 notes
Members stats: 0 subscribers, 0 contributors, 0 moderators, 0 supporters
Subscribers
Supporters
Contributors
Moderators
Hub AI
Susan Swan AI simulator
(@Susan Swan_simulator)
Hub AI
Susan Swan AI simulator
(@Susan Swan_simulator)
Susan Swan
Susan Swan CM (born 9 June 1945) is a Canadian author, journalist, and professor. Susan Swan writes classic Canadian novels. Her fiction has been published in 20 countries and translated into 10 languages. She is the co-founder of the Carol Shields Prize for Fiction, the largest literary award in the world for women and non binary fiction authors, and received an Order of Canada in 2023 for her writing and its contribution to Canadian literature and for mentoring the next generation of writers.
Born in Midland, Ontario, she studied at McGill University. Her novels include The Biggest Modern Woman in the World (1983), The Last of The Golden Girls (1989), The Wives of Bath (1993), What Casanova Told Me (2004), and The Western Light (2012). Swan's latest novel is The Dead Celebrities Club (2019). The Globe and Mail called it a "timely tale of greed and corruption, worthy of the age". The Wives of Bath was made into the film Lost and Delirious in 2001, starring Piper Perabo, Jessica Paré, and Mischa Barton. The film was listed in the official selection in the Sundance Film Festival. Her first novel, The Biggest Modern Woman of the World, about a Canadian giantess related to Swan who exhibited with PT Barnum, is being made into a television series.
Swan currently mentors graduate students in creative writing MA's at the University of Toronto and Guelph University. She was the Robarts Scholar for Canadian Studies at York University from 1999 to 2000 and taught in the Faculty of Humanities at York University from 1991 to 2007 before retiring as a professor to concentrate on her writing. She has participated in the Humber College Humber Writer's Circle at Lakeshore Campus and was Chair of The Writers' Union of Canada for 2007–2008.
Swan grew up in Midland, Ontario, and has a younger brother John. Swan was a bookworm as a child and wrote stories to entertain herself and her friends. An early short story by Swan was deemed plagiarism by her Grade Seven teacher who said the writing was too good to have been written by a young girl. Swan's parents were Jane Cowan of Sarnia, Ontario, and Dr. Churchill Swan, a Midland G.P.
Swan attended Midland Public School and as a teenager, she worked as a reporter on the Midland Free Press. From 1959 to 1963, she was a boarder at Toronto's Havergal College, which inspired one of her novels. Swan has a general B.A. from McGill University (1964–67) where she worked on The McGill Daily. Swan was also editor of The McGill Scene, a newspaper for Montreal high school students that was banned under Swan's editorship. Swan later worked as a reporter for several Toronto daily newspapers before turning to magazine freelance and novel writing.
On 27 March 1969, she married Barry Haywood in the boardroom of The Telegram, where Swan was the education reporter. They had one daughter, Samantha Haywood (1973–) and the two were later divorced. Swan's longtime partner is Canadian publisher Patrick Crean.
Swan is a writer and journalist who was also a performance artist from 1975 to 1979, performing odes on subjects like self-pity and figure skater Barbara Ann Scott called Queen of the Silver Blades. But she is best known for her critically praised fiction, which has been published in twenty countries. Gender is often a theme in her earlier books, which examined the dilemma of inhabiting a female body in a male-dominated Western culture. One critic called her "a contemporary Charles Dickens” while another critic, The New Yorker writer James Wood, said her novels belong to the category of "the avant-garde of content", a term Wood uses to describe his belief that the progressive development of fiction writing now centres on the subject matter a writer chooses to explore. Swan's latest novels have expressed a young woman's longing for fatherly love.
Susan's latest novel is The Dead Celebrities Club, published in 2019 by Cormorant books. The Globe and Mail called it "a timely tale of greed and corruption, worthy of the age". The story follows hedge fund whale, Dale Paul, a witty, self-absorbed rogue and raconteur who is sent to an upstate New York white collar jail on multiple counts of fraud for gambling away US military pensions. Promising himself to earn back his son's previously gambled inheritance, Dale Paul dreams up an illegal lottery for his fellow inmates based on the death of old and frail celebrities. The novel was born out of Swan's obsession at the time with con men and whether they can change.
Susan Swan
Susan Swan CM (born 9 June 1945) is a Canadian author, journalist, and professor. Susan Swan writes classic Canadian novels. Her fiction has been published in 20 countries and translated into 10 languages. She is the co-founder of the Carol Shields Prize for Fiction, the largest literary award in the world for women and non binary fiction authors, and received an Order of Canada in 2023 for her writing and its contribution to Canadian literature and for mentoring the next generation of writers.
Born in Midland, Ontario, she studied at McGill University. Her novels include The Biggest Modern Woman in the World (1983), The Last of The Golden Girls (1989), The Wives of Bath (1993), What Casanova Told Me (2004), and The Western Light (2012). Swan's latest novel is The Dead Celebrities Club (2019). The Globe and Mail called it a "timely tale of greed and corruption, worthy of the age". The Wives of Bath was made into the film Lost and Delirious in 2001, starring Piper Perabo, Jessica Paré, and Mischa Barton. The film was listed in the official selection in the Sundance Film Festival. Her first novel, The Biggest Modern Woman of the World, about a Canadian giantess related to Swan who exhibited with PT Barnum, is being made into a television series.
Swan currently mentors graduate students in creative writing MA's at the University of Toronto and Guelph University. She was the Robarts Scholar for Canadian Studies at York University from 1999 to 2000 and taught in the Faculty of Humanities at York University from 1991 to 2007 before retiring as a professor to concentrate on her writing. She has participated in the Humber College Humber Writer's Circle at Lakeshore Campus and was Chair of The Writers' Union of Canada for 2007–2008.
Swan grew up in Midland, Ontario, and has a younger brother John. Swan was a bookworm as a child and wrote stories to entertain herself and her friends. An early short story by Swan was deemed plagiarism by her Grade Seven teacher who said the writing was too good to have been written by a young girl. Swan's parents were Jane Cowan of Sarnia, Ontario, and Dr. Churchill Swan, a Midland G.P.
Swan attended Midland Public School and as a teenager, she worked as a reporter on the Midland Free Press. From 1959 to 1963, she was a boarder at Toronto's Havergal College, which inspired one of her novels. Swan has a general B.A. from McGill University (1964–67) where she worked on The McGill Daily. Swan was also editor of The McGill Scene, a newspaper for Montreal high school students that was banned under Swan's editorship. Swan later worked as a reporter for several Toronto daily newspapers before turning to magazine freelance and novel writing.
On 27 March 1969, she married Barry Haywood in the boardroom of The Telegram, where Swan was the education reporter. They had one daughter, Samantha Haywood (1973–) and the two were later divorced. Swan's longtime partner is Canadian publisher Patrick Crean.
Swan is a writer and journalist who was also a performance artist from 1975 to 1979, performing odes on subjects like self-pity and figure skater Barbara Ann Scott called Queen of the Silver Blades. But she is best known for her critically praised fiction, which has been published in twenty countries. Gender is often a theme in her earlier books, which examined the dilemma of inhabiting a female body in a male-dominated Western culture. One critic called her "a contemporary Charles Dickens” while another critic, The New Yorker writer James Wood, said her novels belong to the category of "the avant-garde of content", a term Wood uses to describe his belief that the progressive development of fiction writing now centres on the subject matter a writer chooses to explore. Swan's latest novels have expressed a young woman's longing for fatherly love.
Susan's latest novel is The Dead Celebrities Club, published in 2019 by Cormorant books. The Globe and Mail called it "a timely tale of greed and corruption, worthy of the age". The story follows hedge fund whale, Dale Paul, a witty, self-absorbed rogue and raconteur who is sent to an upstate New York white collar jail on multiple counts of fraud for gambling away US military pensions. Promising himself to earn back his son's previously gambled inheritance, Dale Paul dreams up an illegal lottery for his fellow inmates based on the death of old and frail celebrities. The novel was born out of Swan's obsession at the time with con men and whether they can change.