Steinberg, Susan

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Steinberg, Susan

PERSONAL:

Education: Maryland Institute, College of Art, B.F.A., 1990; University of Massachusetts, Amherst, M.F.A., 2000.

ADDRESSES:

Office—University of San Francisco, 2130 Fulton St., San Francisco, CA 94117. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Writer. University of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, associate professor of English, department cochair. Alan Collins Scholar in Fiction, Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, 2001.

WRITINGS:

The End of Free Love (short stories), FC2 (Tallahassee, FL), 2003.

Hydroplane (short stories), FC2 (Normal, IL), 2006.

Contributor to periodicals, including Gettysburg Review, Quarterly West, Conjunctions, Boulevard, New Letters, Denver Quarterly, and the Massachusetts Review. Fiction editor of Pleiades: A Journal of New Writing.

SIDELIGHTS:

Susan Steinberg is a writer. She started her higher education studies at the Maryland Institute, College of Art, earning a bachelor of fine arts degree in 1990. She continued her graduate studies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, completing a master of fine arts degree in 2000. Steinberg works at the University of San Francisco as an associate professor of English. She also serves as the department cochair. In 2001 she also served as the Alan Collins Scholar in Fiction at the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference. Steinberg has contributed articles to a number of periodicals, including the Gettysburg Review, Quarterly West, Conjunctions, Boulevard, New Letters, Denver Quarterly, and the Massachusetts Review. She is the fiction editor of Pleiades: A Journal of New Writing.

Steinberg published her first book, The End of Free Love, in 2003. The collection of short stories uses form as an equally important element as the content of the stories. She mixes together prose and verse throughout the collection. The common thread between the stories is one that features a character with a damaged mind.

Matthew Kirkpatrick, reviewing the book on the Bookslut Web site, noted that "in a short story, readers often demand a clear, concrete path. In The End of Free Love, Steinberg freed herself somewhat from this obligation, but occasionally she swerves a little too far off the road. There's nothing that absolutely doesn't work, only times when a story or stylistic choice didn't quite stand up to the rest of the collection." Kirkpatrick observed, though, that the book is "interesting." Doug Pond, writing on the PopMatters Web site, stated: "Conceptual fiction is often about itself ultimately, and The End of Free Love is no exception." Pond commented that "the stories themselves are rich—and demanding—enough to force you to read them simultaneously as fiction and poetry," adding that "the stories are arranged thoughtfully. As much as they jump all over stylistically, they progress thematically from troubled adolescence toward jaded adulthood, with some exceptions. While the book is full of different voices, it gives an impression of a single lifespan."

Pond recalled that "when you finish the tough task of reading one of Steinberg's stories, you can look forward to the more pleasurable experience of thinking and wondering about it. I tried to rush through the first step to get on with the second, but obviously it didn't work. It's a constant temptation, though."

In 2006 Steinberg published her second book, Hydroplane. This collection of roughly a dozen short stories centers of themes of mania and obsession. Steinberg also includes themes of loneliness, urgency, and desire. Occasionally, other themes or settings overlaps between the stories, but they are not intended to link together.

A contributor to the Diagram 7.3 Web site, mentioned that the book "offers an intense reading experience, because of the project and her vision, her version of story." The same contributor said that "the power of the voice here is dazzling, virtuoso at times, and has much to offer any sort of reader or writer." The contributor concluded that "there is sufficient power in Steinberg's sentences, each one like a little big bang creating its own consciousness or echo, to push me or you to the keyboard. Which is a pretty big victory from my point of view." A contributor to Publishers Weekly said that the stories "buzz with a tangible erotic tension." The same contributor remarked: "Experimental but never opaque," the author's "stories seethe with real and imagined menace." Booklist contributor Emily Cook recorded that the author "walks a delicate line here between real life and hidden association … and she does so with ease."