Originally from Portland, Oregon, Suzanne Matson received a BA in English from Portland State University in 1981, an MA in English and Creative Writing in 1983 from the University of Washington, and a PhD in English in 1987, also from Washington, where she was awarded the Robert B. Heilman Dissertation Prize, an Academy of American Poets Prize, and the Susannah McMurphy Fellowship. Since 1988 she has taught at Boston College where she is a full professor and the chair of the English department.
A recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Massachusetts Cultural Council and the American-Scandinavian Foundation, Matson’s most recent novel is The Tree-Sitter, published by W. W. Norton in both hardcover and paperback (2006). Her previous two novels, also from Norton and reissued in paperback by Ballantine, are A Trick of Nature (2000) and The Hunger Moon (1997).
Her books of poems are Durable Goods (1993) and Sea Level (1990), published by Alice James Books. Many of the poems collected in these volumes were previously published in journals including The American Poetry Review, Poetry, The Boston Review, Poetry Northwest, The Southern Poetry Review, Harvard Review, Indiana Review, and Shenandoah.
Her autobiographical, literary, and op-ed essays have appeared in periodicals such as The New York Times Magazine, The Boston Globe, Child, The Seattle Times, The American Poetry Review, Harvard Review, and Mid-American Review.
She lives in Newton, Massachusetts with her husband and three sons.
