|
Cynthia Underwood Thayer |
|
Cynthia Thayer was born in New York City in 1944, raised in Nova Scotia and migrated to Maine via Massachusetts in 1976 to farm organically. For many years she was a weaver, showing her work throughout Maine and the east coast. Ten years ago, at the age of 50, she wrote her first short story, which was published in the Antigonish Review, and was hooked on writing.
She earned her BA in British Literature from Bridgewater State College in Massachusetts, graduating Magna Cum Laude, and went on to do her graduate work in nineteenth-century British literature. While in Massachusetts, she taught high school English and theater at Bridgewater-Raynham Region High School and since living in Maine, she has taught adult education classes at Sumner High School, workshops for Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance and Schoodic Arts for All, fiction writing with Turnstone Writers’ Workshop, and fiction writing at University of Maine at Machias.
Her first novel, Strong for Potatoes, published in 1998 by St. Martin's Press, won the Rep's Choice Award, was named best new fiction by Ingram Books, and was a Barnes and Noble "Discover" book. It was released in 1999 in paperback and is available in audio.
Her second novel, A Certain Slant of Light, was published by St. Martin's Press in 2000. The condensed version was published by Reader's Digest in English, Portuguese, Danish, and Swedish.
Both books were named BookSense books.
Algonquin Books has recently purchased A Brief Lunacy, slated for publication March 18, 2005.
She is the president of Schoodic Arts for All, founding member of the Meetinghouse Theatre Lab, and a member of the Wednesday Spinners of “WEARINGWOOL naked spinners” fame.
She lives with her family on Darthia Farm in Gouldsboro, a waterfront organic farm and mail order business.
Phone: 800-285-6234 in Maine: 207 963-7771 Fax: 207-963-7789
E-mail: darthia@acadia.net###