Susan Swan

How do you tell the difference between an American and a Canadian? Depends who wants to keep the largest undefended border in the world intact.

When I taught a course at York University on Canadian culture, my first year students would claim that Canada wasn’t different from America. So, I’d tell them the joke about Canadians and Americans that was making the rounds when America invaded Iraq in 2003. An American border guard stopped a man with a dual citizenship passport …

Live The Questions – Q&A for Big Girls Don’t Cry: A Memoir of Taking Up Space

The Carol Shields Prize for Fiction (CSPF): Was it hard to get the right cover? What inspired the image of lemons?

Susan Swan: Covers are like posters for your book. If you don’t get it right, fewer people will buy it, so that’s why editors and writers sweat over what works and what doesn’t. One writer I know went through 25 different covers before they were satisfied. We wanted to come up with something new. I’ll leave it to you to figure out what the pink lemon means.

CSPF: How different is writing a memoir from writing a novel?

Susan: Not as different as you might think. Both forms dramatize and distill, so you need to write actual scenes instead of reciting a litany of events. The big difference is the detailed way lawyers will check over your manuscript to ensure you aren’t compromising someone’s privacy. Memoirs can be court cases waiting to happen.

Memoir Cover Reveal

An exclusive first look at the cover of my new memoir, Big Girls Don’t Cry: A Memoir of Taking Up Space with a Foreword by Margaret Atwood, releasing May 2025 with HarperCollins Canada and Beacon Press! A memoir about what it means to defy expectations as a woman, a mother, and an artist, examining the …

Living the Questions: Should You Have Children if You Want to Write?

Years ago, a science-fiction writer named Judith Merrill told me she couldn’t write after her children left home. Without the structure children imposed on her day, she was lost. My daughter Sam transformed my day too. In order to raise her and write fiction I had to learn to say no to other people’s expectations. …

Living the Questions: What Advice Gives Writers Confidence?

Ignore the advice to write about what you know. Write about what obsesses you and what you know will transform every word you say. Why? Because what you know will come into play naturally and that’s the best way to write.

Living the Questions: Where Do Writers Live?

Anywhere that’s cheap. Writing is a lifestyle and luckily, it has perks. People often rent to writers at a discount because writers are quiet. (Well, most writers.) That’s how it was for me at the Hotel Chelsea when Jerry Weinstein ran the desk. There’s a Jerry Weinstein for every writer if you keep an eye …

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How do you tell the difference between an American and a Canadian? Depends who wants to keep the largest undefended border in the world intact.

Live The Questions – Q&A for Big Girls Don’t Cry: A Memoir of Taking Up Space

Memoir Cover Reveal

Living the Questions: Should You Have Children if You Want to Write?

Living the Questions: What Advice Gives Writers Confidence?

Living the Questions: Where Do Writers Live?