Susan Minot (rhymes with “Sign-it”) is an award-winning novelist, short-story writer, poet, playwright and screenwriter. She also paints watercolors and makes collages. 

She was born in Boston and grew up in Manchester-by-the-sea, Massachusetts with six siblings who are all artists. 

Her first novel Monkeys (1986) was published in a dozen countries and won the Prix Femina Étranger in France. She wrote the screenplay for Bernardo Bertolucci’s “Stealing Beauty” (1995.) Her novel Evening, nominated for the LA Book Award, was a worldwide bestseller and became a major motion picture in 2007. Her stories have received O. Henry Awards, and inclusion in many anthologies, including The Best American Short Stories. Her eighth book, a collection of stories, Why I Don’t Write, was published in 2020.

Her daughter, Ava, was born in 2001. She currently teaches in the graduate writing program at Stony Brook University and privately at her kitchen table. She lives in both New York City and on North Haven, an island off the coast of Maine.

Honors, Citations, Prizes:

Pushcart Prize 1985, “Hiding” (Grand Street)

Prix Femina Étranger in France 1987 (Monkeys, trans. Mouflets)

Best American Short Story 1984, 1985

O. Henry Award:  1985, 1989, 2011

Best American Travel Writing 2001,  “This We Came to Know Afterwards” (McSweeney’s)