Susan Straight (born October 19, 1960) is an American writer. She was a National Book Award finalist for the novel Highwire Moon in 2001.
Susan Straight attended John W. North High School in Riverside, California and took classes at Riverside Community College while in high school. She went on to earn a scholarship to the University of Southern California and, in 1984, earned her M.F.A. from the University of Massachusetts Amherst's MFA Program for Poets & Writers. She co-founded the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing & Writing for the Performing Arts program at University of California, Riverside, where she is currently a Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing and the director of the graduate program.
Straight 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. Her story "Mines", first published in Zoetrope: All-Story, was included in The Best American Short Stories 2003.
Straight lives in Riverside, California. She has three daughters.
—— (1991). Aquaboogie: A Novel in Stories. Minneapolis, Minn.: Milkweed Editions. ISBN 9780915943593.
—— (1993). I Been in Sorrow's Kitchen and Licked Out All the Pots.
—— (1995). Blacker Than a Thousand Midnights.
—— (2006). A Million Nightingales.
—— (2010). Take One Candle Light a Room.
—— (2012). Between Heaven and Here.
In the Country of Women (2019)
Essays, reporting and other contributions
Race: An Anthology in the First Person (essay, "Letter to My Daughters") (1997)
Mothers Who Think: Tales of Real-Life Parenthood (essay, "One Drip at a Time") (1999)
When Race Becomes Real: Black and White Writers Confront Their Personal Histories (essay, "Country Music") (2002)
Life As We Know It: A Collection of Personal Essays from Salon.com (essay, "Love Me, Love My Guns") (2003)
Dog Is My Co-Pilot: Great Writers on the World's Oldest Friendship (essay, "Brave and Noble Is the Preschool Dog") (2003)
Some of My Best Friends: Writers on Interracial Friendships (essay, "Cartilage") (2004)