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Susan Swan

Goodreads Author

Born

in Midland, Ontario, Canada

Website

http://www.susanswanonline.com

Twitter

swanscribe

Genre

Literature & Fiction, Poetry

Member Since

December 2011

URL

https://www.goodreads.com/swanscribe

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Journalist, feminist, novelist, activist, teacher, Susan Swan’s critically acclaimed fiction has been published in twenty countries including the US, the UK, Spain, the Netherlands, and Russia. She is a co-founder of the Carol Shields Prize for Fiction, the largest literary award in the world for women.

Swan’s new book, Big Girls Don’t Cry: A Memoir about Taking Up Space, was published by HarperCollins in Canada and Beacon Press in the US in May 2025. Big Girls Don’t Cry tells the story of how Swan’s Amazonian size shaped her life. To be tall is to be big and to be big is a no-no for women of all sizes, Swan writes. Nobel Prize winner Olga Tokarczuk says of Swan’s writing that it offers “not only an enjoyable read but the chance to think an Journalist, feminist, novelist, activist, teacher, Susan Swan’s critically acclaimed fiction has been published in twenty countries including the US, the UK, Spain, the Netherlands, and Russia. She is a co-founder of the Carol Shields Prize for Fiction, the largest literary award in the world for women.

Swan’s new book, Big Girls Don’t Cry: A Memoir about Taking Up Space, was published by HarperCollins in Canada and Beacon Press in the US in May 2025. Big Girls Don’t Cry tells the story of how Swan’s Amazonian size shaped her life. To be tall is to be big and to be big is a no-no for women of all sizes, Swan writes. Nobel Prize winner Olga Tokarczuk says of Swan’s writing that it offers “not only an enjoyable read but the chance to think and reflect on the vast complex living entity that is the world.”

Swan’s other books of fiction include The Dead Celebrities Club (2019), a fascinating account of a Toronto-born tycoon jailed for fraud in the US; The Western Light (2012), a story about a girl’s love for a dubious father substitute who is also an ex-NHL star and convicted murderer; What Casanova Told Me (2004), a novel that links two women from different centuries through a long-lost journal about travels with Casanova in Italy, Greece and Turkey; Stupid Boys are Good to Relax With (1996), a collection of short stories about young women and how they relate to men; The Wives of Bath (1993), an international bestseller about a murder in a girls’ boarding school; The Last of the Golden Girls (1989), a novel about the sexual awakening of young women in an Ontario cottage country; and The Biggest Modern Woman of the World (1983), a saucy portrait of the real-life Victorian giantess Anna Swan who exhibited with P.T. Barnum.

A retired professor emerita at York University, Swan mentors creative writing students at the University of Toronto. As York’s Millennial Robarts Chair in Canadian Studies, she hosted the successful Millennial Wisdom Symposium in Toronto featuring writers and historians debating the lessons of the past. As a former chair of The Writers’ Union of Canada, Swan brought in a new benefits deal for Canadian writers and self-employed Canadians in the arts.

Susan Swan makes her home and garden in Toronto’s Annex neighbourhood. ...more

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Susan Swan's Blog

Do Big Girls Cry? Six Foot Two Writers Jane Smiley and Susan Swan Compare Notes

Jane Smiley: I think the great pleasure of your book is that it makes you understand what it feels like to exist—to come to terms with who you are, how your body works, what you look like to others, and how that shapes you. Why did you write a memoir about your height? Susan Swan: I had …

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Susan Swan’s books

Average rating: 3.34 · 1,324 ratings · 186 reviews · 8 distinct works • Similar authors

	The Wives of Bath 3.38 avg rating — 743 ratings — published 1993 — 16 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	What Casanova Told Me 3.25 avg rating — 196 ratings — published 2004 — 12 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Western Light 3.48 avg rating — 109 ratings — published 2012 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Dead Celebrities Club 3.39 avg rating — 74 ratings — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Biggest Modern Woman of the World 3.67 avg rating — 52 ratings — published 1983 — 6 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Big Girls Don't Cry: A Memoir About Taking Up Space 3.47 avg rating — 53 ratings — 8 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Stupid Boys Are Good to Relax With 3.02 avg rating — 54 ratings — published 1996 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Last of the Golden Girls 2.58 avg rating — 43 ratings — published 1993 — 6 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Susan’s Recent Updates

Susan Swan made a comment on Marc’s review of Big Girls Don't Cry: A Memoir About Taking Up Space " You can’t read my mind, Marc. That’s not a review. You need to read The Art of Fiction by John Gardner and learn more about literature before speculat ...more "
Sep 12, 2025 01:56PM · see review
Susan Swan wrote a new blog post Big Girls Don’t Cry – Q&A with Beacon Press Susan Swan has never fit inside the boxes that other people have made for her—the daughter box, the wife box, the mother box, the femininity box. Inst Read more of this blog post »
Jul 15, 2025 01:00AM · like

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Quotes by Susan Swan (?)

“all their fates are inextricably affected by their mothers’ personalities and expectations. [...] the core of the novel revolves around the struggle of the three girls to come to terms with what they feel is an unheroic identity, namely, growing up female.”
― Susan Swan, The Wives of Bath

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