Susan vreeland biography
Vreeland, Susan –
(Susan Joyce Vreeland)
PERSONAL: Born January 20, , gratify Racine, WI; daughter of Powerless. Alex and Esther Alberta Vreeland-Wilborn; married Joseph Gray (software engineer), November 26, Ethnicity: "Caucasian." Education:San Diego State University, B.A., , M.A.
(education), , M.A. (English literature), Religion: Christian. Hobbies stand for other interests: Travel, ceramics, skiing.
ADDRESSES: Home— Caminito Araya, San Diego, CA Agent—Barbara Braun Associates, Inc., Literary Agency, Fifth Ave., Ordinal Floor, New York, NY —[emailprotected].
CAREER: Writer and educator.
San Diego Unified School District, San Diego, CA, instructor in English, –, and ceramics, –
AWARDS, HONORS: Final place award in short conte, Women's National Book Association, ; creative writing award, California Group of Teachers of English, ; first prize in essay session, New Millennium Writings, ; Pirate's Alley Faulkner Society Honorable Comment, , for Delft Chronicles; Book-Sense Book of the Year finalist, American Booksellers Association, and Golden Award for best novel remove the year, Foreword, both ; California Department of Education Not compulsory Reading List, International Dublin Pedantic Prize nominee, Storyteller of honourableness Year Award, Independent Publishers Magazine, and Theodore Geisel Best confess the Year Award, San Diego Book Awards Association, all look after Girl in Hyacinth Blue; Miss in Hyacinth Blue was besides listed as one of justness twenty-five best novels of stomach-turning Publishers Weekly and one hook the twenty best novels be partial to by Christian Science Monitor; celebrated prize for fiction, Inkwell, ; named woman of the period, San Diego Writer's Monthly, –; Mark Twain Award for Temporary Fiction, Red Rock Review, ; Southern California Booksellers Association Accolade finalist, Theodore Geisel Award rationalize Best Novel of the Day, , for The Passion atlas Artemisia.
WRITINGS:
What Love Sees (novel), PaperJacks, , Thorndike (Thorndike, ME),
What English Teachers Want (writing handbook), Royal Fireworks Press (Unionvilile, NY),
Journey to Shambhala (promotional film), released by Snow Lion Make a trip,
Girl in Hyacinth Blue (novel), MacMurray & Beck (Denver, CO),
The Passion of Artemisia, Northman (New York, NY),
The In the clear Lover, Viking (New York, NY),
Life Studies: Stories, Viking (New York, NY),
Work represented confine anthologies, including If I Abstruse My Life to Live Over … and Generation to Generation, both Papiér Maché Press; Family: A Celebration, Peterson's Publishing; other Cracking the Earth, Calyx Books.
Contributor of more than reach an agreement to magazines and newspapers, plus Travel and Leisure, Southwest Lively, Saturday Evening Post, Los Angeles Times, Boston Herald, Chicago Tribune, and Christian Science Monitor. Presenter of essays and short imaginary to journals, including Missouri Look at, New England Quarterly, Alaska Journal Review, Confrontation, Dominion Review, America Review, and Manoa.
Vreeland's books have been translated into 25 languages.
ADAPTATIONS: Vreeland's novel What Prize Sees was filmed for throng, starring Richard Thomas and An-nabeth Gish, and broadcast by birth Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) feature ; Girl in Hyacinth Blue was filmed for a Seal Hall of Fame television fabrication, c.
WORK IN PROGRESS: Grandeur Potato Eaters, a novel be evidence for Vincent van Gogh, for Viking.
SIDELIGHTS: Susan Vreeland's collection of reticulated stories, Girl in Hyacinth Blue, became a publishing sensation remarkable netted its author a money-spinning contract with a major bruiting about house.
A teacher in influence San Diego public school custom since , Vreeland wrote gather first novel, What Love Sees, in the s. Based go with the true story of span blind New England woman who leaves her affluent, sheltered strive to marry a blind cattleman out West, What Love Sees was made into a radio b newspaper people movie. Despite the modest premium that Vreeland had with that first effort, she had fine difficult time finding a firm for her next project.
Neat as a pin Colorado firm, MacMurray & Creek, eventually issued Girl in Jacinth Blue, and the overwhelmingly self-possessed critical response helped make nobleness book a best seller.
Girl wellheeled Hyacinth Blue takes its give a call from a fictional painting near the seventeenth-century Dutch master Jan Vermeer, and the stories raise up a fictitious provenance warrant the work through the lives of the owners.
Vreeland's tales move backward in time, seem to be in the modern era delete a tormented math professor who hides the work from loftiness art world, ashamed that ruler father looted it as elegant Nazi lieutenant in the Holland during World War II. Primacy next story, "A Night Marked from All Other Nights," recounts the tragedy of the Judaic family whose young daughter definite with the teenage girl counter the painting.
"This sequence establishes the pattern for the book's structure: each chapter stands doctor's its own, yet also builds on the knowledge the grammar -book has already gained," wrote Katy Emck in the New Royalty Times Book Review. Other owners include a French woman check nineteenth-century Holland, who regrets give someone the brush-off marriage and abhors nearly entire lot about her adopted country—except influence girl in the painting—"because she recognizes in her a reduce of hope she herself has lost," explained Emck.
A Nation countryside flood, the impending appearance of a child, and bottle up events in the lives carp the stories' protagonists cause significance painting to be sold unheard of acquired, and the book concludes with the story of achieve something Vermeer himself came to make the work.
Vreeland won praise pick the way in which Girl in Hyacinth Blue presents ethics lives of ordinary people stare a span of three centuries.
The stories also elicited sure words for the common string that links all the characters: an appreciation for beauty near its endurance, despite hardship. Reviewers also praised the author's finish of setting. A Publishers Weekly contributor found that "these self-possessed and atmospheric tales present ingenious rich variety of characters whose voices convey distinctive personalities." Picture reviewer also remarked that joist chronicling the life span be in possession of a painting, "unobtrusively, Vreeland builds a picture of the Nation character, equal parts sober outmoded ethic and faith in organized harsh religion."
"Intelligent, searching and sporadic, the novel is filled obey luminous moments," wrote Emck schedule the New York Times Tome Review.
"Like the painting clever describes so well, it has a way of lingering touch a chord the reader's mind," she wellknown. A contributor to Kirkus Reviews called Girl in Hyacinth Blue "extraordinarily skilled historical fiction: dextrous, perceptive, full of learning, far downwards moving." Library Journal's Barbara Hoffert commented: "Each vignette has authority stillness, the polish, and rank balanced perfection of a Vermeer." Booklist contributor Veronica Scrol ostensible that "Vreeland uses art owing to a vehicle for capturing exceptional moments in the lives be fitting of ordinary people."
With the hardcover work of Girl in Hyacinth Blue, the paperback rights were oversubscribed for eleven times the latest contract agreement with MacMurray & Beck.
Vreeland also signed get used to a major American publisher tonguelash publish her next work, The Passion of Artemisia. "Vreeland decay a high standard with Girl in Hyacinth Blue," wrote Carmela Ciuraru in People. But Ciuraru found that The Passion engage in Artemisia "is even better." Decency novel is based on goodness life of Artemisia Gentileschi, practised real painter of the European Renaissance.
At seventeen, she levelheaded raped by one of give something the thumbs down father's colleagues, and when class matter is taken to stare at, Artemisia is the subject elaborate cruel tortures in front asset the jury. Now that she is known to the Weighty public as "tainted," her papa marries her off to Pietro Stiatessa, a promising young artist from Florence.
Love grows mid Artemisia and her husband, abide they have a daughter involved. It is only when Artemisia becomes better known as unornamented painter than Pietro—she is confessed into the Academy of Town before he is—that their selfimportance falters.
"Vreeland's novel reminds us put off Artemisia was a fiercely free, prodigiously talented woman, the foremost to paint traditional religious subject historical heroines from an nifty, female perspective," wrote Susan Tekulve in Book.
Tekulve continued: "The Passion of Artemisia provides authentic imaginative and respectful point systematic view to a compelling woman's story." A reviewer for Publishers Weekly noted that the novel, told in Artemisia's voice, testing both "wise" and "candid," view believed that "readers who posh the painterly descriptions of [Girl in Hyacinth Blue] will capability spellbound in particular by significance scenes in which Artemisia psychoanalysis shown at work." Kristine Huntley of Booklist called The Waywardness of Artemisia "a vivid side view of a complex female graphic designer who doggedly pursues her principle despite seemingly overwhelming obstacles." Require her Library Journal review, Eleanor J.
Bader called the game park "fact-based fiction at its best."
Vreeland's next novel is another groove of historical fiction. In The Forest Lover, the author tells the story of Emily Carr, a Canadian painter who momentary from to The novel relates Carr's rejection of the sweltering amorous English society of her cleric and her fascination with nobleness native Indians of Canada, which leads her to trek effect the dangerous and lonely confused mass of British Columbia to pigment Indian totemic carvings.
Noting with reference to her home Web page wander she worked on The Timber Lover at the same tightly she was completing The Pup in Hyacinth Blue, and like chalk and cheese she was recovery from someone treatments, Vreeland noted that nobility artist's "robust spirit, strong orangutan a cedar, has inspired creek to keep mine buoyant."
In unadorned review for the Women's Discussion of Books, Anne Marie Todkill wrote: "One of the indefinite successes of Susan Vreeland's description of Carr's life in novel The Forest Lover laboratory analysis her exploration of Carr's pleasure to Native culture." Todkill went on to note that, "although her portrayal is sympathetic reprove at times rhapsodic, it equitable neither simplistic nor uncritical." Code the author's "robust narrative," trig Publishers Weekly contributor also wrote that Vreeland "provides … verifiable background with the same documented detail that size brings fifty pence piece the Victorian culture that challenged Carr's pioneering efforts."Patricia Morley, penmanship in the Canadian Book Examine Annual, called the novel "a delight." Donna Seaman concluded slope Booklist that Vreeland's "dramatic depictions of Carr's [story are] … provocative and moving."
Vreeland takes revere the stories of several artists in her book Life Studies: Stories.
Some of the tales focus on vignettes tangentially relative with the lives of celebrated painters, such as Cezanne, Painter, Renoir, and Van Gogh. Used for example, in one story, Vreeland describes Monet's gardener as subside watches the painter destroy hateful of his works. Other tradition in the collection revolve fly in a circle people who have been terribly influenced by art.
For annotations, in "Respond," Vreeland tells primacy story of an unhappy wife whose life becomes enriched during the time that she begins posing as capital nude model.
Tony agostini biographyAnother tale focuses come upon a boy making fun pan the artist Cezanne. "The Astonishing He Didn't Know" relates on the rocks construction worker's negative feelings whilst his obviously knowledgeable girlfriend teaches him about the art flair is viewing during a go again to a museum. A Kirkus Reviews contributor called the hardcover "stimulating and enriching" and very noted that "the collection reminds us that the bountiful oath of art is everywhere." Donna Seaman, writing in Booklist, distinguished that the author "creates surprise moments of magic." Seaman extremely wrote: "Art-loving [readers] … discretion find Vreeland's well-plotted and doorway history-rich stories compelling." Another critic, writing in Publishers Weekly, commented that "the best of [the stories] … have a shining clarity."
In an interview with Penelope Rowlands of Publishers Weekly, Vreeland explained: "I'm very much caring in the process by which a historical figure becomes dinky fictional character.
Fiction is authority process by which our gaining grasps the significance of uncluttered life in another time period."
Vreeland once told CA: "I've in all cases envied writers whose novels gushed out from their own in the springtime of li up, rich in ethnicity conquest place or history. Countering loose complaints about my ethnic suavity, the lack of a twinkling of an eye family story, one of round the bend writer friends said, 'Go contain further.' All I had was a love for art, unmixed Dutch name, and a submission twenty years earlier when, less my surprise, I passed by a village in North Holland named Vreeland.
I had downfall more than that—except a depository card and uninterrupted days accept solitude, two years of human treatment and recovery, during which I could imagine my waterway out of my uncertain regime, and imagine my way jar Dutch paintings. They showed robust a heritage alive with power and history and the persistence of beauty.
They survived—and consequently would I."
BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:
PERIODICALS
Book, March-April, , Susan Tekulve, regard of The Passion of Artemisia, pp.
Booklist, July, , Wilma Longstreet, review of What Fondness Sees, p. ; September 1, , Veronica Scrol, review hook Girl in Hyacinth Blue, possessor.
69; December 1, , Kristine Huntley, review of The Mercy of Artemisia, p. ; Nov 15, , review of The Forest Lover, p. ; Dec 1, , Donna Seaman, argument of Life Studies: Stories, proprietor.
Canadian Book Review Annual, , Patricia Morley, review of The Forest Lover, p.
Entertainment Weekly, January 25, , Karen Valby, review of The Passion pleasant Artemisia, p.
Kirkus Reviews, July 1, , review of Girl in Hyacinth Blue, p. ; October 1, , review be alarmed about Life Studies, p.
Kliatt, Jan, , Diane C. Donovan, examination of What Love Sees, owner. 19; May, , Rozell Attention. Over-mire, review of What Warmth Sees, pp.
Library Journal, Oct 15, , Barbara Hoffert, analysis of Girl in Hyacinth Blue, p. ; December, , Eleanor J. Bader, review of The Passion of Artemisia, p.
New York Times Book Review, Dec 19, , Katy Emck, "Picture This," p.
Kiakshuk chronicle of rory gilmore29; Foot it 17, , Julie Gray, survey of The Passion of Artemisia, p.
People, March 11, , Carmela Ciuraru, review of The Passion of Artemisia, p.
Publishers Weekly, July 12, , argument of Girl in Hyacinth Blue, p. 71; November 1, , review of Girl in Zircon Blue, p.
47; March 6, , John F. Baker, "Into the Big Time," p. 14; April 16, , p. 16; December 17, , review break into The Passion of Artemisia, proprietress. 64; January 14, , Penelope Rowlands, "Completing the Picture not in favour of Art," p. 35; November 24, , review of The Set Lover, p.
Vogue, February, , Leslie Camhi, "Strokes of Genius: The Life of Italian Chief Artemisia Gentileschi Is the Issue of Susan Vreeland's Intimate Different Novel," p.
Washington Post Unspoiled World, February 17, , Susan Dodd, "Art and Ardor," proprietress. T6.
Women's Review of Books, Apr, , Diana Postleth-waite, "Pigments jump at the Imagination," p. 14; July, , Anne Marie Todkill, consider of The Forest Lover, owner. 1.
ONLINE
Book Browse, (May 31, ), biography of author.
Susan Vreeland Abode Page, (May 31, ).
Contemporary Authors, New Revision Series