Suzanne Fisher Staples Bio
• Suzanne Fisher Staples was born on August 27, 1945, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Robert and Helen Fisher.
• She was encouraged to write by her grandmother, who, according to Staples, always loved her stories.
• Staples attended Keystone College in La Plume, Pennsylvania, and Cedar Crest College in Allentown, Pennsylvania, where she earned her B.A. in 1967. Her areas of study were English Literature and political science.
• Staples has lived in many places and had a variety of jobs during her career; she worked as a journalist, foreign correspondent, editor, and consultant during the 1970s and 1980s for Business International Corporation, United Press International, the Washington Post, and the U. S. Agency for International Development. In the late 1980s she published her first young adult novel.
• She married Eugene Staples in 1980.
• In the mid 1980s she started work on the novel and it was published in 1989, then won the Newbery Honor in 1990,
• She told Dean Schneider that she also believes in the power of stories to teach people how to live and how to find mystery and magic in the world
• Staples wrote many other multicultural books such as Haveli, Dangerous Skies, Shiva’s Fire, Under the Persimmon Tree, The House of Djinn
• Staples has her critics: both Americans and Pakistanis question her right and ability, as an American woman, to accurately and compassionately depict the life of a young, poor woman of a culture with values and traditions so different from her own. Others defend Staples's work, pointing out that Staples lived for an extended period of time in the country whose culture she strives to depict.
• She is a very active lady and just came out with The House of Djinn this year.