Susan Straight’s newest novel is “Between Heaven and Here.” It is the last in the Rio Seco Trilogy, which began with “A Million Nightingales” and “Take One Candle Light a Room.” She has published eight novels, a novel for young readers and a children’s book. She has also written essays and articles for numerous national publications, including The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Nation and Harper’s Magazine, and is a frequent contributor to NPR and Salon.com.
Her story “Mines,” first published in Zoetrope All Story, was included in Best American Short Stories 2003. She won a Lannan Literary Award in 2007. She won a 2008 Edgar Allan Poe Award for her short story “The Golden Gopher.”
She is a Professor at the University of California, Riverside and lives in Riverside, California.
Books in order of publication:
Novels
Aquaboogie: A Novel in Stories. Minneapolis, Minn.: Milkweed Editions. (1991)
I Been in Sorrow’s Kitchen and Licked Out All the Pots (1993)
Blacker Than a Thousand Midnights (1995)
The Gettin’ Place (1997)
Highwire Moon (2001) – finalist for the National Book Award
A Million Nightingales (2006)
Take One Candle Light a Room (2010)
Between Heaven and Here (2012)
Mecca (2022)
Children’s books
Bear E. Bear (1995)
The Friskative Dog (2007)
Nonfiction
In the Country of Women (2019)
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