Suzanne Farrell Smith

I am a writer, editor, and teacher based in New York. I have work published or forthcoming in The Kenyon Review, The Writer’s Chronicle, Post Road, Hippocampus Magazine, Anderbo, Connotation Press, PANK, Muse & Stone, In the Fray, and elsewhere.

Much of my writing is a hybrid of psychology, neuroscience, and memoir, chronicling my attempts to excavate lost childhood memory, to supplement the only two events I remember from my childhood—my father’s death and a house fire. I’ve studied memory from all angles: neuroscientific, psychological, social, metaphorical. Sometimes I sense that I know less about memory now than when I began.

Writing might never sustain me economically. That’s most definitely not why I write. Writing sustains me in every other way. Not only the act of writing, but the communities that celebrate the written word, that celebrate the ways in which people think and explain their thinking. Six years ago I founded a writing group called Salon Esse. Writers meet once a month to share new work. (No critique allowed. Just sharing.) I’m a core member of Floating House Women Writers, a workshop group that talks weekly and retreats together once a year. And there’s Vermont College of Fine Arts. A dreamy place, a dynamic, ongoing supplier of encouragement and motivation.

My husband and I have lived in a pre-war, 700-square-foot apartment near the United Nations for over a decade. It didn’t completely become our home until we adopted two kittens in 2009. In summer 2012 we welcomed another newbie to our home, a baby boy. There’s a lot going on in every square foot.

Thanks for visiting! Share anything you like. I’m particularly eager to read your thoughts on memory.

Suzanne