Suzannah Lessard

Suzannah Terry Lessard (born December 1, 1944)^[1][2] is an American writer of literary nonfiction. She has written a memoir, reportorial pieces, essays, and opinion pieces.

Suzannah Lessard
Born	Suzannah Terry Lessard (1944-12-01) December 1, 1944 (age 80) Islip, New York, U.S.
Occupation	Writer
Nationality	American
Genre	Non-fiction
Notable awards	Whiting Award (1995)
Parents	John Ayres Lessard Alida Mary White
Relatives	Stanford White (great-grandfather)

Life

Lessard was born in Islip, New York to John Ayres Lessard and Alida Mary (White).^[1] She is the great-granddaughter of architect Stanford White.^[3] 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.^[4]

She was one of the first editors of the Washington Monthly from 1971 to 1974.^[5] From 1975 to 1995 she was a staff writer at The New Yorker.^[6] 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^[7]

Fellowships

• 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

She is the author of the critically acclaimed memoir, The Architect of Desire: Beauty and Danger in the Stanford White Family (1996).

Her next book, The View From a Small Mountain: Reading the American Landscape, was published in 2017.^[8]

In 2019, Lessard published The Absent Hand: Reimagining Our American Landscape, which Michael Kimmelman described as "thoughtful, exquisitely written collection of interconnected essays."^[9]

Anthologies

• Elaine Greene, ed. (2006). "The Luxury of Order". If These Walls Could Talk: Thoughts of Home. Sterling Publishing Company, Inc. ISBN 978-1-58816-611-1.