Crowley, Suzanne 1963- (Suzanne Carlisle Crowley)

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Crowley, Suzanne 1963- (Suzanne Carlisle Crowley)

Personal

Born November 19, 1963, in Uvalde, TX; daughter of Acree (an architect) Corinne (a teacher and homemaker) Carlisle; married Daniel J. Crowley; children: Caitlin, Lauren, Cameron. Education: University of Texas at Austin, B.J., 1986. Hobbies and other interests: Oil painting, playing piano, reading, art collecting.

Addresses

Home—Southlake, TX. Agent—Stimola Literary Studio, 306 Chase Ct., Edgewater, NJ 07020. E-mail—[email protected].

Career

Author and artist. Worked as a copywriter for Austin Homes and Gardens (magazine), Austin, TX; freelance magazine writer. Founder of Crowley Interiors (art business).

Member

Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators.

Awards, Honors

Best Children's Books of the Year selection, Bank Street College of Education, Children's Literature Honor Book designation, Texas State Reading Association, and Notable Book selection, International Reading Association, all for The Very Ordered Existence of Merilee Marvelous.

Writings

JUVENILE NOVELS

The Very Ordered Existence of Merilee Marvelous, Greenwillow Books (New York, NY), 2007.

The Stolen One, Greenwillow Books (New York, NY), 2009.

OTHER

(As Suzanne Carlisle Crowley) Paisley, Mosaic Press (Cincinnati, OH), 1990.

Also contributor to magazines.

Sidelights

Texas native Suzanne Crowley sets her debut work of young-adult fiction, The Very Ordered Existence of Merilee Marvelous, in the Lone Star State. The novel "is a heartfelt collage of my experiences growing up in Texas," Crowley explained on her home page, adding: "Someone once said that an author's first book is invariably semiautobiographical, and [in my case] it's true."

Crowley was born in 1963 in the small town of Uvalde. She was raised in Austin and, later, Houston, where she graduated from high school. After earning a bachelor's degree in journalism at the University of Texas, Crowley worked as a copywriter for Austin Homes and Gardens, an interior-design magazine. Around that time, she married her husband, Daniel Crowley; the couple lived in Washington, DC, California, and Florida before returning to Texas with their children.

Over the years, Crowley wrote magazine articles and attempted a pair of historical romances before aiming at an entirely different audience. "As a little girl I wrote children's stories," she remarked in a Cynsations online interview with Cynthia Leitich Smith. "They started out on notebook paper, folded and illustrated, later evolving into handmade, hardback picture books, and then finally chapter books typed on a cheap typewriter, which I've kept through the years." The author continued, "After 9/11, I wanted to go in a new direction—back to my roots of writing children's stories. I especially wanted something my young children and future grandchildren could read."

One of Crowley's primary inspirations for The Very Ordered Existence of Merilee Marvelous was her teenage daughter, Caitlin. "She is somewhere high on the autism spectrum … and has always been an unusually gifted and unique child, almost like a savant in many ways," the author told Smith. "She went through many obsessions but was in love with dragons at the time I started thinking about writing a children's novel. She drew dragons on everything—her homework, tests, any piece of paper she came into contact with."

Crowley also noted that the setting for her novel, the West Texas town of Jumbo, is a fictionalized version of Marfa, Texas, which has gained fame for the unexplained "ghost lights" that appear there at night. "I've seen the Marfa Lights myself, and they are indeed magical," Crowley stated in an interview on the Look Books Web log. "I knew when I saw them they would make an appearance somewhere in the book and they did, becoming a symbol for hope and magic in the world."

The Very Ordered Existence of Merilee Marvelous centers on Merilee Monroe, a highly intelligent thirteen year old who rarely speaks, lives according to exact schedules, and obsesses about dragons. Though Merilee avoids contact with other people, she forms a strong bond with Biswick, a youngster damaged by fetal alcohol syndrome who arrives in town with his father, a visiting poet. Writing in Booklist, Ilene Cooper stated that Crowley "makes an impressive debut with a story that captures the human condition," and a contributor in Kirkus Reviews observed that in The Very Ordered Existence of Merilee Marvelous the author's "pleasantly smooth prose creates an overall tenderness despite Merilee's personal need for distance."

Biographical and Critical Sources

PERIODICALS

Booklist, September 1, 2007, Ilene Cooper, review of The Very Ordered Existence of Merilee Marvelous, p. 118.

Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, February, 2008, Deborah Stevenson, review of The Very Ordered Existence of Merilee Marvelous, p. 245.

Kirkus Reviews, August 1, 2007, review of The Very Ordered Existence of Merilee Marvelous.

Kliatt, September, 2007, Claire Rosser, review of The Very Ordered Existence of Merilee Marvelous, p. 9.

Publishers Weekly, September 3, 2007, review of The Very Ordered Existence of Merilee Marvelous, p. 59.

Voice of Youth Advocates, August, 2007, Ruth Cox Clark, review of The Very Ordered Existence of Merilee Marvelous, p. 237.