SUSAN VREELAND

Internationally known best-selling author, Susan Vreeland, three-time winner of the Theodor Geisel Award, is known for historical fiction on art-related themes. Her story collection, Life Studies, (2005) reveals Impressionist and Post-Impressionist painters from points of view of people who knew them and shows that ordinary people can have profound encounters with art. Girl in Hyacinth Blue (1999, Finalist for Book Sense Book of the Year) traces an alleged Vermeer painting through the centuries revealing its influence on those who possessed it. It has become part of the curriculum for many schools and universities, and was made into a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie. The Passion of Artemisia, (2002) illuminates the inner life of Artemisia Gentileschi, Italian Baroque painter, the first woman to make her living solely by her brush. The Forest Lover (2004) follows the rebel Canadian painter, Emily Carr, into the British Columbia wilderness to paint the native totemic carvings of the people she loved. Vreeland's novels have been translated into twenty-five languages.

I didn't grow up longing to be a writer. In fact, the urge, strong as it is, is relatively recent. After graduating from San Diego State University, I taught high school English in the San Diego City Schools since 1969, adding ceramics in 1986, retiring in 2000 after a 30-year career. Concurrent with teaching, I began writing features for newspapers and magazines in 1980, taking up subjects in art, travel, education, and skiing, and publishing 250 articles.

My short fiction has appeared in Ploughshares, The Missouri Review, New England Review, Confrontation, Alaska Quarterly Review, Calyx, Crescent Review and other journals.

Awards include: San Diego Book Awards' Theodor Geisel Award and Best Novel of the Year, 2005, for Life Studies. Book Sense Reading Group Pick, for The Forest Lover, 2004. San Diego Book Awards' Theodor Geisel Award and Best Novel of the Year, 2002, for The Passion of Artemisia. Book Sense Year's Favorites, for The Passion of Artemisia, 2002. International Dublin Literary Award, Nominee, for Girl in Hyacinth Blue, 2001 Book Sense Book of the Year Finalist, American Booksellers Association, Girl in Hyacinth Blue, 1999. Independent Publisher Magazine, Storyteller of the Year, for Girl in Hyacinth Blue, 1999. Foreword Magazine's Best Novel of the Year, for Girl in Hyacinth Blue, 1999. San Diego Book Awards' Theodor Geisel Award and Best Novel of the Year, 1999, for Girl. San Diego Writer's Monthly Magazine, Woman of the Year, 1999-2000. Inkwell Magazine's Grand Prize for Fiction, 1999. Pirate's Alley William Faulkner Prize, Honorable Mention for Girl in Hyacinth Blue, 1998.