Susan Terris was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri. She has a B.A. degree in English literature from Wellesley College and an M.A. from San Francisco State University.
Ms.Terris has written poetry since she was an undergraduate in classes being taught by Richard Wilbur, David Ferry, and Philip Booth. Her writing career, however, began in the field of children's fiction. She had 21 books published by New York houses such as Doubleday, Macmillan, Scholastic, and Farrar, Straus & Giroux. During the same period, she also wrote poetry and had poems published from time to time. About 20 years ago, Ms.Terris began to find herself consumed by the writing of poetry. Since then she's written and published only poetry.
In 2008, Time Being Books published CONTRARIWISE, a poetry book about men and women who are or were obsessed, in one way or another, with the lives of children. Ms. Terris' poetry books include: NATURAL DEFENSES (Marsh Hawk Press, 2004), FIRE IS FAVORABLE TO THE DREAMER (Arctos Press 2003), CURVED SPACE (La Jolla Poets Press 1998). Her chapbooks include: BLOCK PARTY (Pudding house Publications), SONYA, THE DOLL-WIFE (Conflux Press), MARRIAGE LICENSE (Pavement Saw Press), POETIC LICENSE (Adastra Press), EYE OF THE HOLOCAUST(Arctos Press), and ANGELS OF BATAAN (Pudding House Publications).
In the last few years, Ms.Terris has had more than 300 poems in close to 100 journals and magazines including The Journal, Field, Ploughshares, Shenandoah, Beloit Poetry Review, Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, Iowa Review, Volt, and Prairie Schooner. She's had work in more than a dozen on-line sites, including Blackbird Online, In Posse Review, Blue Fifth Review, Pedestal Magazine, Poetry Daily, & Verse Daily. She has a poem from Field published in PUSHCART PRIZE XXXI.
For seven years, Susan Terris was the co-editor, with CB Follett, of an annual anthology RUNES, A Review Of Poetry. Now that RUNES is no longer publishing, she is co-poetry editor, with Ilya Kaminsky, of In Posse Review.
Other recent projects include working with David St. John and Cole Swensen on a W.W. Norton anthology AMERICAN HYBRID and collaborating with Elizabeth Swados –- composer, playwright, director, producer – on a jazz music version of her book ANGELS OF BATAAN,
Susan Terris lives in San Francisco with her husband David. They have three children and twelve grandchildren. Ms. Terris' favorite activities include reading, hiking, and canoeing.
Photo: Susan Terris
Susan Terris
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