Suzanne Strempek Shea
Photo by Saoirse Herlihy
About
Suzanne Strempek Shea’s twelve books include novels, memoirs, two biographies, and an anthology. Winner of the 2000 New England Book Award, which recognizes a literary body of work’s contribution to the region, Suzanne began writing fiction in her spare time while working as a reporter for the Springfield (Massachusetts) Newspapers and The Providence Journal.
Her freelance journalism and fiction have appeared in newspapers and magazines including The Boston Globe, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Irish Times, Yankee, Golf World, Down East, The Bark, Organic Style, and ESPN the Magazine. She was a regular contributor to Obit magazine.
Photo by Tommy Shea
Books
Selling the Lite of Heaven
The unnamed narrator, ingenuous yet unflappable, is the 32-year-old daughter of Polish immigrants who throughout life have slathered her in Vicks and mild exasperation. Still living under her parents’ roof, she is abandoned not at the altar but for the altar as her fiance leaves her for the priesthood. Attempting to sell her engagement ring through the newspaper classifieds, she meets a string of browsers, and her future.
Songs From a Leadlined Room
Songs from a Lead-Lined Room is a memoir rooted in truth and raw experience, with a sure and compelling voice. The lead-lined room is the radiation therapy unit where Suzanne was treated for breast cancer and is one of the settings of this diary she kept over those six and a half weeks, sharing her despair, confusion, and fear as well as the compassion and caring of her friends, her husband, and her fellow patients.
Shelf Life
While recovering from radiation therapy, Shea heard from a friend who was looking for help at her bookstore. Shea volunteered, seeing it as nothing more than a way to get out of her pajamas and back into the world. But over next twelve months, from St. Patrick’s Day through Poetry Month, graduation/Father’s Day/summer reading/Christmas and back again to those shamrock displays, Shea lived and breathed books in a place she says sells “ideas, stories, encouragement, answers, solace, validation, the basic ammunition for daily life.”