Happy Birthday, Susan Griffin

Born January 26, 1943, Los Angeles, CA

Today, the Best American Essays newsletter celebrates the eighty-second birthday of essayist, poet, playwright, novelist, and pioneering ecofeminist Susan Griffin. Among the many awards and accolades her work has received, her book A Chorus of Stones The Private Life of War was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and her play Voices received an Emmy.

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Susan Griffin photographed by Lynda Koolish, no date.

“I love that moment in writing when language falls short. There is something more there. A larger body. Even by the failure of words I begin to detect its dimensions. As I work the prose, shift the verbs, look for new adjectives, a different rhythm, syntax, something new begins to come to the surface.”

Susan Griffin at UC Berkeley in 2013, unknown photographer

“Each time I write, each time the authentic words break through, I am changed. The older order that I was collapses and dies. I lose control. I do not know exactly what words will appear on the page. I follow language. I follow the sound of the words, and I am surprised and transformed by what I record.”

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Susan Griffin’s first nonfiction book was the seminal ecofeminist work Woman and Nature: The Roaring Inside Her (Harper & Row, 1978; reissued by Cornerstone, 2016). A Chorus of Stones: The Private Life of War (Doubleday, 1992) was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. What Her Body Thought. A Journey Into the Shadows (HarperOne, 1999) is a meditative chronicle of chronic illness that blends memoir, cultural criticism, and social history.

First published essay:

• “Rape: The All-American Crime,” Ramparts Magazine, 1971.

Select nonfiction bibliography:

• Wrestling with the Angel of Democracy: On Being an American Citizen, Trumpeter, 2009.

• The Book of the Courtesans: A Catalogue of Their Virtues, Crown, 2002.

• What Her Body Thought: A Journey Into the Shadows, HarperOne, 1999.

• The Eros of Everyday Life: Essays on Ecology, Gender and Society, Knopf Doubleday, 1996

• A Chorus of Stones: The Private Life of War, Anchor Doubleday, 1993.

• Woman and Nature: The Roaring Inside Her, Harper & Row, 1978.

See also:

Visit Susan Griffin’s website

Watch/listen to A Woman Thinks About War, 2021.

Watch (or read) this interview with Susan Griffin in Outwords, 2017.

Watch Ecology and Social Justice, UC Berkeley, 2013. A series of four classes.

Watch The Courtesans of Paris and the Paris of Courtesans, UC Berkeley, 2010. A series of four classes.

Watch Susan Griffin on Empathy, Empathy Documentation Project, 2008.

Read Susan Griffin on Following the Sound of Words, Literary Hub, 2023.

Read Judith Hertog’s interview with Susan Griffin in TriCycle. The Buddhist Review, 2023.

Read “This Is Susan Griffin, Hear Her Roar,” an interview with Susan Griffin in Early Bird Books, 2015.

Read “Made From This Earth: A Conversation Toward Healing,” an interview with Susan Griffin in Inquiring Mind, 1987.