Suzannah Lessard
Suzannah Terry Lessard is an American writer of literary nonfiction. She has written a memoir, reportorial pieces, essays, and opinion pieces.
Life
Lessard was born in Islip, New York to John Ayres Lessard and Alida Mary. She is the great-granddaughter of architect Stanford White. She has taught at Columbia School of the Arts, Wesleyan University, The New School, George Mason University, George Washington University, and Goucher College MFA in Creative Non-fiction.She was one of the first editors of the Washington Monthly from 1971 to 1974.
From 1975 to 1995 she was a staff writer at The New Yorker. She has also published in The New York Times Magazine, Architectural Record, Architectural Digest, The Wilson Quarterly and Harvard Design Magazine.
Awards and honors
- 1995 Whiting Award
- 2003 Mark Lynton History Prize, Mapping the New World: An Inquiry into the Meaning of Sprawl
- 2001-2002 Fellowship at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington D.C.
- 2002-2003 Jenny McKean Moore Fellowship for creative non-fiction, at George Washington University
Works
Her next book, The View From a Small Mountain: Reading the American Landscape, was published in 2017.
In 2019, Lessard published The Absent Hand: Reimagining Our American Landscape, which Michael Kimmelman described as "thoughtful, exquisitely written collection of interconnected essays."