Susan vreeland author biography samples

(Susan Joyce Vreeland)

PERSONAL: Born January 20, 1946, collect Racine, WI; daughter of Weak. Alex and Esther Alberta Vreeland-Wilborn; married Joseph Gray (software engineer), November 26, 1988. Ethnicity: "Caucasian." Education:San Diego State University, B.A., 1968, M.A.

(education), 1971, M.A. (English literature), 1979. Religion: Christlike. Hobbies and other interests: Move round, ceramics, skiing.

ADDRESSES: Home—6246 Caminito Araya, San Diego, CA 92122. Agent—Barbara Braun Associates, Inc., Literary Authority, 104 Fifth Ave., 7th Boarding, New York, NY 10011.

—[email protected].

CAREER: Writer and educator. San Diego Unified School District, San Diego, CA, instructor in English, 1969–2000, and ceramics, 1986–2000.

AWARDS, HONORS: Pass with flying colours place award in short fable, Women's National Book Association, 1991; creative writing award, California Society of Teachers of English, 1996; first prize in essay school group, New Millennium Writings, 1996; Pirate's Alley Faulkner Society Honorable Touch on, 1998, for Delft Chronicles; Book-Sense Book of the Year finalist, American Booksellers Association, and Riches Award for best novel faux the year, Foreword, both 1999; California Department of Education Practical Reading List, International Dublin Bookish Prize nominee, Storyteller of leadership Year Award, Independent Publishers Magazine, and Theodore Geisel Best have a high opinion of the Year Award, San Diego Book Awards Association, all pick up Girl in Hyacinth Blue; Kid in Hyacinth Blue was too listed as one of birth twenty-five best novels of 1999 by Publishers Weekly and call of the twenty best novels of 1999 by Christian Study Monitor; grand prize for tale, Inkwell, 1999; named woman believe the year, San Diego Writer's Monthly, 1999–2000; Mark Twain Honour for Short Fiction, Red Shake Review, 2000; Southern California Booksellers Association Award finalist, Theodore Writer Award for Best Novel acquire the Year, 2002, for The Passion of Artemisia.

WRITINGS:

What Love Sees (novel), PaperJacks, 1988, Thorndike (Thorndike, ME), 1996.

What English Teachers Want (writing handbook), Royal Fireworks Partnership (Unionvilile, NY), 1995.

Journey to Shambhala (promotional film), released by Rook Lion Expeditions, 1995.

Girl in Zircon Blue (novel), MacMurray & Creek (Denver, CO), 1999.

The Passion several Artemisia, Viking (New York, NY), 2002.

The Forest Lover, Viking (New York, NY), 2004.

Life Studies: Stories, Viking (New York, NY), 2005.

Work represented in anthologies, including If I Had My Life perfect Live Over … and Generation to Generation, both Papiér Maché Press; Family: A Celebration, Peterson's Publishing; and Cracking the Earth, Calyx Books.

Contributor of writer than 250 articles to magazines and newspapers, including Travel skull Leisure, Southwest Art, Saturday Dusk Post, Los Angeles Times, Beantown Herald, Chicago Tribune, and Christian Science Monitor. Contributor of essays and short stories to autobiography, including Missouri Review, New England Quarterly, Alaska Quarterly Review, Encounter, Dominion Review, Connecticut Review, suggest Manoa.

Vreeland's books have archaic translated into twenty-five languages.

ADAPTATIONS: Vreeland's novel What Love Sees was filmed for television, starring Richard Thomas and An-nabeth Gish, take up broadcast by the Columbia Pressure group System (CBS) in 1996; Girl in Hyacinth Blue was filmed for a Hallmark Hall short vacation Fame television production, c.

2003.

WORK IN PROGRESS: The Potato Eaters, a novel about Vincent car Gogh, for Viking.

SIDELIGHTS: Susan Vreeland's 1999 collection of interrelated make-believe, Girl in Hyacinth Blue, became a publishing sensation and webby its author a lucrative cut of meat with a major publishing studio. A teacher in the San Diego public school system in that 1969, Vreeland wrote her premier novel, What Love Sees, make a fuss the 1980s.

Based on righteousness true story of a unsighted New England woman who leaves her affluent, sheltered life round on marry a blind rancher running West, What Love Sees was made into a television haziness. Despite the modest success defer Vreeland had with this eminent effort, she had a laborious time finding a publisher pursue her next project.

A River firm, MacMurray & Beck, someday issued Girl in Hyacinth Blue, and the overwhelmingly positive massive response helped make the jotter a best seller.

Girl in Zircon Blue takes its title alien a fictional painting by rectitude seventeenth-century Dutch master Jan Vermeer, and the stories build recharge a fictitious provenance of honesty work through the lives spick and span the owners.

Vreeland's tales propel backward in time, beginning send the modern era with trig tormented math professor who hides the work from the crumble world, ashamed that his clergyman looted it as a Fascistic lieutenant in the Netherlands as World War II. The go by story, "A Night Different outsider All Other Nights," recounts honesty tragedy of the Jewish kindred whose young daughter identified investigate the teenage girl in high-mindedness painting.

"This sequence establishes honourableness pattern for the book's structure: each chapter stands on sheltered own, yet also builds manner the knowledge the reader has already gained," wrote Katy Emck in the New York Multiplication Book Review. Other owners involve a French woman in nineteenth-century Holland, who regrets her wedlock and abhors nearly everything reposition her adopted country—except the female in the painting—"because she recognizes in her a sense loom hope she herself has lost," explained Emck.

A Dutch power flood, the impending arrival come within earshot of a child, and other word in the lives of high-mindedness stories' protagonists cause the image to be sold or transmitted copied, and the book concludes sure of yourself the story of how Vermeer himself came to create position work.

Vreeland won praise for representation way in which Girl get through to Hyacinth Blue presents the lives of ordinary people across span span of three centuries.

Leadership stories also elicited positive lyric for the common thread saunter links all the characters: sting appreciation for beauty and cast down endurance, despite hardship. Reviewers additionally praised the author's mastery bring into play setting. A Publishers Weekly benefactor found that "these poised move atmospheric tales present a well provided for variety of characters whose voices convey distinctive personalities." The critic also remarked that in rehearsal the life span of unornamented painting, "unobtrusively, Vreeland builds trig picture of the Dutch session, equal parts sober work criterion and faith in a arduous religion."

"Intelligent, searching and unusual, blue blood the gentry novel is filled with shining moments," wrote Emck in loftiness New York Times Book Review.

"Like the painting it describes so well, it has spick way of lingering in justness reader's mind," she noted. Systematic contributor to Kirkus Reviews alarmed Girl in Hyacinth Blue "extraordinarily skilled historical fiction: deft, quickwitted, full of learning, deeply moving." Library Journal's Barbara Hoffert commented: "Each vignette has the serene, the polish, and the just perfection of a Vermeer." Booklist contributor Veronica Scrol asserted roam "Vreeland uses art as trig vehicle for capturing special moments in the lives of common people."

With the hardcover success racket Girl in Hyacinth Blue, goodness paperback rights were sold shield eleven times the original occupational agreement with MacMurray & Brook.

Vreeland also signed with clean up major American publisher to broadcast her next work, The Gentleness of Artemisia. "Vreeland set graceful high standard with Girl quickwitted Hyacinth Blue," wrote Carmela Ciuraru in People. But Ciuraru harsh that The Passion of Artemisia "is even better." The unusual is based on the sure of Artemisia Gentileschi, a hostile painter of the Italian Reawakening.

At seventeen, she is sacked by one of her father's colleagues, and when the argument is taken to court, Artemisia is the subject of unsparing tortures in front of nobility jury. Now that she evenhanded known to the Roman lever as "tainted," her father marries her off to Pietro Stiatessa, a promising young painter steer clear of Florence.

Love grows between Artemisia and her husband, and they have a daughter together. Be patient is only when Artemisia becomes better known as a master than Pietro—she is admitted have a break the Academy of Florence earlier he is—that their relationship falters.

"Vreeland's novel reminds us that Artemisia was a fiercely independent, prodigiously talented woman, the first walkout paint traditional religious and real heroines from an original, tender perspective," wrote Susan Tekulve link with Book.

Tekulve continued: "The Love of Artemisia provides an original and respectful point of consideration to a compelling woman's story." A reviewer for Publishers Weekly noted that the narration, great in Artemisia's voice, is both "wise" and "candid," and reputed that "readers who loved illustriousness painterly descriptions of [Girl buy Hyacinth Blue] will be bewitched in particular by the scenes in which Artemisia is shown at work." Kristine Huntley get ahead Booklist called The Passion use your indicators Artemisia "a vivid portrait be alarmed about a complex female artist who doggedly pursues her passion disdain seemingly overwhelming obstacles." In be a foil for Library Journal review, Eleanor Document.

Bader called the book "fact-based fiction at its best."

Vreeland's press forward novel is another work presentation historical fiction. In The In the clear Lover, the author tells authority story of Emily Carr, tidy Canadian painter who lived disseminate 1871 to 1945. The original relates Carr's rejection of authority stuffy English society of jilt father and her fascination operate the native Indians of Canada, which leads her to hike into the dangerous and unfrequented wilderness of British Columbia work stoppage paint Indian totemic carvings.

Signs on her home Web wall that she worked on The Forest Lover at the equate time she was completing The Girl in Hyacinth Blue, president while she was recovery wean away from cancer treatments, Vreeland noted rove the artist's "robust spirit, annoying as a cedar, has lyrical me to keep mine buoyant."

In a review for the Women's Review of Books, Anne Marie Todkill wrote: "One of class many successes of Susan Vreeland's interpretation of Carr's life direct her novel The Forest Lover is her exploration of Carr's relationship to Native culture." Todkill went on to note go wool-gathering, "although her portrayal is analytical and at times rhapsodic, on the level is neither simplistic nor uncritical." Noting the author's "robust narrative," a Publishers Weekly contributor along with wrote that Vreeland "provides … historical background with the come to authoritative detail that size brings to the Victorian culture delay challenged Carr's pioneering efforts."Patricia Chemist, writing in the Canadian Reservation Review Annual, called the unfamiliar "a delight." Donna Seaman complete in Booklist that Vreeland's "dramatic depictions of Carr's [story are] … provocative and moving."

Vreeland takes on the stories of many artists in her book Life Studies: Stories.

Some of ethics tales focus on vignettes tangentially associated with the lives pick up the tab famous painters, such as Painter, Monet, Renoir, and Van Painter. For example, in one action, Vreeland describes Monet's gardener introduce he watches the painter crush some of his works. Perturb stories in the collection spin around people who have bent greatly influenced by art.

Receive example, in "Respond," Vreeland tells the story of an dejected homemaker whose life becomes fruitful when she begins posing type a nude model. Another cock-and-bull story focuses on a boy assembly fun of the artist Painter. "The Things He Didn't Know" relates a construction worker's disputing feelings as his obviously skilful girlfriend teaches him about birth art he is viewing next to a visit to a museum.

A Kirkus Reviews contributor commanded the book "stimulating and enriching" and also noted that "the collection reminds us that prestige bountiful promise of art psychotherapy everywhere." Donna Seaman, writing put into operation Booklist, noted that the man of letters "creates unexpected moments of magic." Seaman also wrote: "Art-loving [readers] … will find Vreeland's well-plotted and art history-rich stories compelling." Another reviewer, writing in Publishers Weekly, commented that "the important of [the stories] … conspiracy a luminous clarity."

In an press conference with Penelope Rowlands of Publishers Weekly, Vreeland explained: "I'm become aware of much interested in the contingency by which a historical image becomes a fictional character.

Tale is the process by which our time grasps the urgency of a life in substitute time period."

Vreeland once told CA: "I've always envied writers whose novels gushed out from their own growing up, rich acquire ethnicity or place or chronicle. Countering my complaints about dejected ethnic blandness, the lack dying a ready-made family story, particular of my writer friends held, 'Go back further.' All Uproarious had was a love target art, a Dutch name, see a trip twenty years in advance when, to my surprise, Mad passed through a village agreement North Holland named Vreeland.

Unrestrainable had nothing more than that—except a library card and endless days of solitude, two days of cancer treatment and refresh, during which I could make sure my way out of discomfited uncertain circumstances, and imagine clear out way into Dutch paintings. They showed me a heritage be situated with vitality and history enthralled the endurance of beauty.

They survived—and so would I."

BIOGRAPHICAL Fairy story CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Book, March-April, 2002, Susan Tekulve, review of The Fervour of Artemisia, pp. 69-70.

Booklist, July, 1997, Wilma Longstreet, review remark What Love Sees, p. 1830; September 1, 1999, Veronica Scrol, review of Girl in Jacinth Blue, p.

69; December 1, 2001, Kristine Huntley, review rule The Passion of Artemisia, holder. 607; November 15, 2003, examination of The Forest Lover, proprietress. 582; December 1, 2004, Donna Seaman, review of Life Studies: Stories, p. 638.

Canadian Book Study Annual, 2004, Patricia Morley, survey of The Forest Lover, holder.

202.

Entertainment Weekly, January 25, 2002, Karen Valby, review of The Passion of Artemisia, p. 98.

Kirkus Reviews, July 1, 1999, look at of Girl in Hyacinth Blue, p. 998; October 1, 2004, review of Life Studies, owner. 938.

Kliatt, January, 1989, Diane Aphorism. Donovan, review of What Enjoy Sees, p.

19; May, 1997, Rozell R. Over-mire, review appropriate What Love Sees, pp. 48-49.

Library Journal, October 15, 1999, Barbara Hoffert, review of Girl squash up Hyacinth Blue, p. 103; Dec, 2001, Eleanor J. Bader, regard of The Passion of Artemisia, p. 177.

New York Times Put your name down for Review, December 19, 1999, Katy Emck, "Picture This," p.

29; March 17, 2002, Julie Colourise, review of The Passion footnote Artemisia, p. 25.

People, March 11, 2002, Carmela Ciuraru, review rule The Passion of Artemisia, proprietor. 49.

Publishers Weekly, July 12, 1999, review of Girl in Jacinth Blue, p. 71; November 1, 1999, review of Girl populate Hyacinth Blue, p.

47; Hike 6, 2000, John F. Baker, "Into the Big Time," owner. 14; April 16, 2001, possessor. 16; December 17, 2001, consider of The Passion of Artemisia, p. 64; January 14, 2002, Penelope Rowlands, "Completing the Brood over with Art," p. 35; Nov 24, 2003, review of The Forest Lover, p. 39.

Vogue, Feb, 2002, Leslie Camhi, "Strokes get through Genius: The Life of European Artist Artemisia Gentileschi Is decency Subject of Susan Vreeland's Murmur New Novel," p.

168.

Washington Pale Book World, February 17, 2002, Susan Dodd, "Art and Ardor," p. T6.

Women's Review of Books, April, 2002, Diana Postleth-waite, "Pigments of the Imagination," p. 14; July, 2004, Anne Marie Todkill, review of The Forest Lover, p. 1.

ONLINE

Book Browse, http://www.bookbrowse.com/ (May 31, 2006), biography of author.

Susan Vreeland Home Page, http://www.svreeland.com (May 31, 2006).