Breen, Susan 1956–

(Susan Zelony)

PERSONAL:

Born October 4, 1956, in Forest Hills, NY; married; children: four. Education: University of Rochester, B.A.; Columbia University, M.A.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Irvington, NY. E-mail—susan@susanjbreen.com.

CAREER:

Journalist, writer, and educator. Gotham Writers' Workshop, New York, NY, teacher of beginning and advanced fiction. Previously worked for Fortune magazine and then as an editor for the Foreign Policy Association.

WRITINGS:

Come Play at the Park: A Little Sturdy Page Book, illustrated by Guell Studio, Golden Books (New York, NY), 1999.

Come Play at Home: A Little Sturdy Page Book, illustrated by Guell Studio, Golden Books (New York, NY), 1999.

Entertaining for Wimps, photography by James Duncan, Sterling (New York, NY), 2003.

Creating Your Dream Bathroom: How to Plan and Style the Perfect Space, Sterling Pub. Co. (New York, NY), 2005.

Creating Your Dream Kitchen: How to Plan and Style the Perfect Space, Sterling Pub. (New York, NY), 2005.

The Fiction Class (novel), Plume (New York, NY), 2006.

Also author of Bloomer Web log. Contributor to periodicals, including Writer's Digest, American Literary Review, Chattahoochee Review, Nebraska Review, and the Writer.

SIDELIGHTS:

Susan Breen is a writer who began her career as a journalist at Fortune magazine. Eventually, Susan married and retired from professional life to stay at home and raise her and her husband's four children. Nevertheless, Breen continued to have the urge to write. "Which is not to say I wasn't happy being a suburban housewife," the author noted on her home Web page. "I loved being with my kids, I loved going to pottery classes and doing arts and crafts and watching Mister Rogers. I was amazed by the intensity of the feelings I had for my kids—the pride, the love, and also the anger. I don't think I ever really lost my temper until I became a mother, but I think that's because I never felt anything that intensely until I became a mother. It was that intensity of emotion that led me back to writing."

After several years as a homemaker, the author began writing again, including short stories, which have been published in journals, and several books. Her first books are two children's books aimed at preschoolers, Come Play at the Park: A Little Sturdy Page Book and Come Play at Home: A Little Sturdy Page Book. Both books feature the "Disney Babies" (Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and other Disney characters as children) as they visit the park to play in the sandbox, read books, and enjoy a picnic lunch and as Baby Mickey has his friends over to his house for a play group.

The author's next books are a series of "how-to" books, such as Entertaining for Wimps, which is a guide to creative, common-sense ideas for entertaining. The author's guides on planning a bathroom and a kitchen are titled Creating Your Dream Bathroom: How to Plan and Style the Perfect Space and Creating Your Dream Kitchen: How to Plan and Style the Perfect Space. In a review of Creating Your Dream Bathroom, Booklist contributor Barbara Jacobs commented that the author "excels at … giving readers … an overview of the practical matters associated with renovation and remodeling." Writing in the Library Journal, Gayle A. Williamson, in a review of Creating Your Dream Kitchen, commented that the author "dispenses practical information about real-life examples of kitchen redos."

Although Breen developed a niche in the "how-to" publishing market, the author continued to write fiction, getting several short stories published before penning her novel, The Fiction Class. Based partly on her own life and her relationship with her mother, the novel focuses on a woman's relationship with her ailing mother and the various offbeat students in the woman's writing class. (Breen teaches fiction writing at the Gotham Writers' Workshop.)

The story revolves around Arabella Hicks, who teaches a fiction class in New York but is frustrated by her lack of progress in her own writing endeavours. "Arabella is filled with self-doubt," noted a contributor to the Writing from Kiddom Web site. "She can't come up with an ending for her book because she doesn't think anything she writes will be good enough. She is constantly wondering if her students think she is a decent … teacher, and she's always worrying about the tension in her relationship with her mother."

In the book, Arabella's mother is in a nursing home, and the dutiful daughter visits her weekly even though she dreads each visit. Eventually, Arabella and her mother begin discussing Arabella's fiction class, including how her students are responding to her teaching and their work in completing their homework assignments. It is through these discussions that the mother and daughter make peace with their relationship and Arabella actually begins to look forward to visiting her mother. In the meantime, Arabella's mother, Vera, reveals that she has written a story and wants her daughter to help her come up with an ending. However, Arabella is reluctant to help her mother, thinking about her own inability to finish the stories she has written.

"There is a short story, ‘Fortune,’ that weaves its way through my novel, The Fiction Class, and that was written by me more than ten years ago and published, originally, in The Kansas Quarterly/Arkansas Review," the author noted on her home Web page. "That story haunted me and when I wrote The Fiction Class, and realized I'd need a story written by Arabella's mother, there it was, waiting for me. It gives me a chill to think about, even now."

As the novel progresses, the reader sees how Arabella's improved relationship with her mother leads to a growing relationship with her students, who become more than just mere students as the class forms a bond and its members become friends. The story delves into the students' individual personalities and foibles. "One student is known as the cross-dresser," writes Marie Hashima Lofton on the Curled Up with a Good Book Web site. "Another student is known to be the emotional one." However, one student especially stands out in Arabella's mind. He is a disruptive, older man who constantly flirts with Arabella and ends up becoming a potential love interest for her. However, the relationship reveals to Isabella a man who is not just a disruptive student, but is someone who comes to Arabella's aid when her mother's condition worsens. Throughout the book, writing exercises and homework from Arabella's classes are included.

In a review of The Fiction Class in Publishers Weekly, a contributor noted that the author "does inject a dose of originality into an otherwise familiar setup." A contributor to the Ratmammy's Books and Other Things Web site commented that the novel "was well written," adding that the author "did a good job at showing the change and growth between two women who never got along." Several reviewers noted that book starts out "slow" but encouraged readers not to be deterred. For example, Curled Up with a Good Book Web site contributor Lofton noted the slow start but added: "An intriguing aspect is the pieces of a book interspersed with the actual action of the story. It isn't until almost the end … that the author of this book is revealed."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

ARTnews, March, 2008, Morgan Falconer, "Susan Breen," p. 142.

Booklist, March 15, 2006, Barbara Jacobs, review of Creating Your Dream Bathroom: How to Plan and Style the Perfect Space, p. 14; September 1, 2007, Hilary Hatton, review of The Fiction Class, p. 52.

Library Journal, September 15, 2005, Gayle A. Williamson, review of Creating Your Dream Kitchen: How to Plan and Style the Perfect Space, p. 62; November 1, 2007, Beth Gibbs, review of The Fiction Class, p. 58.

Publishers Weekly, September 10, 2007, review of The Fiction Class, p. 36.

ONLINE

Curled Up with a Good Book,http://www.curledup.com/ (June 24, 2008), Marie Hashima Lofton, review of The Fiction Class.

Fiction Class Web site,http://thefictionclass.com (June 24, 2008).

Fictionaddiction.net,http://fictionaddiction.net/ (June 24, 2008), biography of author.

Ratmammy's Books and Other Things,http://ratmammy.blogspot.com/ (April 16, 2008), review of The Fiction Class.

Susan Breen Home Page,http://www.susanjbreen.com (June 24, 2008).

Writing from Kiddom, http://writingfromkiddom.wordpress.com/ (April 11, 2008), review of The Fiction Class.

Writingclasses.com,http://www.writingclasses.com/ (June 24, 2008), profile of author.