Authors
Suzanne McConnell
Suzanne McConnell
<B>Kurt Vonnegut</B> was one of the few grandmasters of American literature, whose novels continue to influence new generations about the ways in which our imaginations can help us to live. Few aspects of his contribution have not been plumbed—fourteen novels, a collection of his speeches, essays, letters, a play—so this fresh self-portrait, written with the aid of a former student, is a bonanza for writers and readers everywhere.<BR /><BR /> Author, editor and writing teacher <B>Suzanne McConnell </B>was a student of Kurt Vonnegut’s at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop during its heyday, the period from 1965–67, when Vonnegut—along with Nelson Algren and other notable authors—was in residence, and was finishing his masterpiece, <I>Slaughterhouse Five</I>. Vonnegut and McConnell became friends, and stayed so for many years. She has published short memoirs of him in<I> The Brooklyn Rail </I>and <I>The Writer’s Digest</I>, and led a panel at the 2014 AWP conference on Vonnegut’s legacy, titled "Vonnegut’s Legacy: Writing about War and Other Debacles of the Human Condition." McConnell has taught writing at Hunter College for thirty years, and serves as the Fiction Editor of the<I> Bellevue Literary Review</I>. She lives in New York City and Wellfleet, MA, with her husband, the artist Gary Kuehn.