Susan Swan
susan-swan.bsky.social
Susan Swan
@susan-swan.bsky.social
Bluesky convert. Author, journalist, co-founder of Carol Shields Prize for Fiction. New book: Big Girls Don’t Cry: A Memoir about Taking Up Space published in Canada and the US May 2025 My website: http://www.susanswanonline.com
The fearless Tara Henley interviews me about vigilante sex, hating the opposite gender, secret Seventies diaries and more on her podcast Lean Out tarahenley.substack.com @harpercollinsca.bsky.social @beaconpress.bsky.social
November 19, 2025 at 8:11 PM
Hi everyone, I’m spending most of my time these days on Instagram. Check me out under biggestmodernwriter. Here’s an early holiday greeting with my cat Alice who doesn’t think much of photo sessions & thanks for your support.
November 12, 2025 at 3:13 PM
@b-hmn.bsky.social September 18 my husband Patrick Crean & I received Orders of Canada, his for editing, and me for my contribution to Canadian writing and cofounding the Carol Shields Prize for Fiction. Its motto says: they desire a better country @beaconpress.bsky.social @gayleking.bsky.social
September 22, 2025 at 6:46 PM
Celebrated screen writer Susan Coyne is shopping around her TV pilot of my memoir Big Girls Don’t Cry @beaconpress.bsky.social @harpercollinsca.bsky.social @authorsguild.org
September 12, 2025 at 2:26 PM
Reviews are getting harder & harder to get but here’s a link with no pay wall to a good one for Big Girls Don’t Cry reviewcanada.ca/magazine/202... @beaconpress.bsky.social
September 9, 2025 at 4:18 PM
People are reading my memoir as far away as Kazakhstan. Here’s Joseph Hafner, York U’s Dean of libraries reading it out loud as part of a flash mob during an international conference. What crazy fun!
August 26, 2025 at 6:03 PM
Thanks for the plug. I’m with Dutch critic Conny Steenman Marcusse (the one in the hat)who gave it a thumbs up. NB. We’re staying out of the sun!
August 12, 2025 at 7:32 PM
Novelist Jane Smiley & I compare growing pains in her Lit Hub Q&A June 20 about my memoir Big Girls Don’t Cry @harpercollinsca.bsky.social @beaconpress.bsky.social share.google/KvrGe4qwLFXx...
June 23, 2025 at 4:52 PM
Author Shelley Saywell interviewed me about my new memoir Big Girls Don’t Cry in historical Queenston where artists @sharonokun.bsky.social and Adam Markovic have transformed an old school into a cultural hub
June 22, 2025 at 7:16 PM
The worst is happening!
June 12, 2025 at 8:48 PM
My biggest beef with myself? I told CBC’s Next Chapter that I need to stop going down every rabbit hole on social media to argue with everyone I disagree with.

www.cbc.ca/listen/live-...

#biggestmodernwriter #canadianwriter #harpercollinscanada #beaconpress #author #biggirlsdontcry
June 10, 2025 at 5:02 PM
“I think people want to be seen more… having a voice and being heard.” I wrote this memoir to understand how size had shaped my life.
June 8, 2025 at 11:03 PM
To be big is a no-no for women… but we’re taking up space regardless. Get my new memoir Big Girl Don’t Cry anywhere you get books to learn how I overcame that shame and to take up my space. @oprah-winfrey.bsky.social @harpercollins.bsky.social @beaconpress.bsky.social
June 2, 2025 at 5:32 PM
For more information, visit www.susanswanonline.com
May 30, 2025 at 11:55 PM
Big Girls Don’t Cry, A Memoir about Taking Up Space, will be in the stores May 27 in both Canada and the US.

Join us May 27 at the Tranzac Club at 6:30pm to celebrate the release party with an exclusive Q&A about the memoir hosted by author Sheila Heiti.
May 19, 2025 at 4:37 PM
Don’t miss the next Avie Bennett Lecture on April 25 at the Isabel Bader Theatre.

Get a ticket at www.eventbrite.ca/e/literature...
April 18, 2025 at 4:04 PM
Don’t forget to join us on Zoom tonight at 7 pm when I interview Claire Messud about her latest novel The Strange Eventful History. Her epic about three generations of a globalist family with a shameful secret offers some answers.

Register at gillerprize.ca/giller-book-...
April 16, 2025 at 1:32 PM
Waiting for reviews of a new book gives authors the willies. Do they really like it, you wonder. (Writers are notorious for remembering only the bad reviews & not the good.) Here’s the first review and it’s positive. Hooray!
Read more at 
everythingzoomer.com/zed-book-club/2025/04/08/spring-quartet/
April 9, 2025 at 3:40 PM
I’m excited to share the short list of the Carol Shields Prize for Fiction today. Only in its third year and it’s already become a major international literary award!
Read more exclusively with People Magazine: tinyurl.com/4fukycvm
Prize co-founded by Susan Swan, Don Oravec, and Janice Zawerbny.
April 3, 2025 at 2:50 PM
It’s a thrill to see this write-up in CBC books about my memoir, Big Girls Don’t Cry, coming out this May with Harper Collins Canada & Beacon Press in the US. I can’t wait to share it with you. You can pre-order it at www.harpercollins.com/products/big... and at www.beacon.org/Big-Girls-Do...
March 8, 2025 at 10:51 PM
Over a decade ago when a group of Canadian and American women and one feminist man started working on the Shields Prize we never dreamed that in just three years it would become a major English language literary prize. Congratulations to every writer on the 2025 long list.
March 7, 2025 at 4:18 PM
Recently, I’ve been having nightmares about America under Trump. So I wrote this poem. Send me your dreams if you’re having them too.
March 3, 2025 at 10:07 PM
I’m excited to share a sneak preview excerpt from my upcoming Memoir, Big Girls Don’t Cry, published by HarperCollins Canada and Beacon Press in the US.
February 24, 2025 at 12:00 AM
I’m with one of my oldest friends Mary Susanne Lamont at Parquet. The pub date was moved from April to May when US publisher Beacon Press bought it.
#canlit #memoir #canadianmemoir #books #literature #book #publishingdate #comingsoon #biggirlsdontcry #literary #writing #writer
February 3, 2025 at 4:38 PM
FOR THE LOVE Of A CAT
Yesterday: After I tripped helping my arthritic cat up on the bed.
Today: Alice and I are happy again.

#cat #catowner #ilovemycat #writersandtheircats #cats #accident #catsofinstagram #catlife #instacat #catstagram #catgram
January 21, 2025 at 10:50 PM