Works by
Suzanne Hudson
(Writer)

Fiction

• In the Dark of the Moon (2005)
  In 1962, in Albany, Georgia, Martin Luther King, Jr., tries and fails in his first attempts at nonviolent resistance. Rural churches harboring voter registration workers are routinely torched by Night Riders. Ku Klux Klan activities are at a peak, and law enforcement is often an accomplice.
  
  Kansas Lacey is twelve years old, intensely curious about a world she devours through National Geographic magazines and endless questions for the adults in her life. She has lived near Albany in Sumner, Georgia, with her grandparents and their hired help, since her mother’s suicide years earlier. The Lacey family is prominent and respected, but riddled with an unspoken history of insanity, repression, addiction, and violence. Kansas catalogues these secrets as she uncovers them, determined to find out where she came from and why her mother killed herself.
  
  With a big heart and an unflinching eye, Suzanne Hudson has given us a powerful coming-of-age story set against the backdrop of the dawning Civil Rights movement; the story of a girl who believes that in piecing together her history she will somehow figure out who she wants to become.

• In a Temple of Trees (2003)
  In Suzanne Hudson's rich, absorbing first novel, Cecil Durgin, a twelve-year-old African-American orphan, witnesses a murder at an exclusive hunting camp in the West Alabama woods. Decades later, he is still haunted by this dark secret and becomes involved in an unstoppable chain reaction leading, ultimately, back to the truth. In a Temple of Trees is a spellbinding story of prejudice and lies, and their devastating aftermath on the powerful and meek, husbands and wives, the living and the dead.

Non-fiction

• Writing About Theatre and Drama (2005)
  Writing About Theatre and Drama covers everything from matters of style to forms of essays used in writing about theater. Beginning with a discussion of the theatrical review, the text covers the forms of essays used in writing about theatre, research, matters of style, structure, and vocabulary.

• Thinking and Writing in the Humanities (2003) by Molly LeClair and Suzanne Hudson
  Thinking and Writing In the Humanities guides students through the process of planning, drafting, revising, and editing analytical and argument essays and research papers in the humanities. Writing in the humanities demands not only the basics of college-level composition but also instruction in the pursuit of critical inquiry. Thinking and Writing In the Humanities provides a thorough, user-friendly handbook that challenges and stimulates students to attain high standards in their compositions in ways they find accessible and relevant. The text allows humanities instructors to present their students with challenging writing assignments and to expect focused, insightful papers in return without having to spend valuable class time teaching composition techniques.

• The Art of Writing About Art (2001) by Nancy Noonan and Suzanne Hudson
  The Art of Writing About Art is designed for ease of use and can serve as a quick reference for students writing various types of essays, research papers, exhibition reviews, or even examinations. The premise of the book is that students in all disciplines, not just English, should be required to write well and that their instructors should hold these writing assignments to high standards. The Art of Writing About Art not only emphasizes skills in college-level composition, but also in verbalizing the experience of art-the historical, social, economic, and political forces that shape art and artists; art theory; and the interplay between artist and viewer.

• How to Write About Theatre and Drama (1999)
  Combining basic composition and critical inquiry into the discipline of theatre, How to Write About Theatre and Drama meets the fundamental needs of beginning theatre students to learn the unique and varied forms of theatre and drama in their role in our cultural heritage. Beginning with a discussion of the theatrical review, the text covers the forms of essays used in writing about theatre, research, matters of style, structure, and vocabulary.

Short Stories

• Opposable Thumbs (2001)
  While certainly evocative of Flannery O'Connor -- that old workhorse of the South--and her dark humor, Hudson's stories also evoke empathy for the characters and their situations, no matter how bizarre. Who would ever think to empathize with an incestuous father who's gotten his daughter pregnant? Or with two redneck drunks jabbering their racism and solipsistic pity? Or, on a lighter note, with a teenage boy barricading himself behind loud music as his family argues over possession of a prize mink coat? And when Hudson presents us with two girls, one white and one black, facing the first school desegregation, empathy moves into tragedy, the tragedy that has haunted this nation for living memory and beyond.