Quay Words presents Susanna Crossman: Home is Where We Start

About

To celebrate the upcoming paperback release of her critically acclaimed memoir, we are excited to welcome Susanna Crossman.

About Home is Where We Start

In the late seventies, six-year-old Susanna moved with her mother and siblings to a utopian commune in rural England. For over fifteen years, she lived inside a crumbling mansion with fifty adults and children, trying to remake the world.

Decades later, with the benefit of hindsight, she returns to her own childhood with pressing questions. What happens to children when we try to abolish the family? What is it really like to be the product of a social experiment? And how can we criticise the damage caused by revolutions while retaining a belief in the power of change? Part personal memoir, part critical analysis, Crossman turns to leading thinkers in philosophy, sociology and ethics to examine the many meanings of family and home.

About Susanna Crossma:

Susanna Crossman is an essayist and award-winning fiction writer. Her memoir, Home is Where We Start, was published by Fig Tree, Penguin, in 2024. Her new novel, The Orange Notebooks, will be published by Bluemoose Books in 2025. She has recent work in Aeon, The Guardian, Vogue, Paris Review, and more. A published novelist in France, she regularly collaborates with artists and film-makers.

Currently, when she's not writing, she works internationally as a lecturer and clinical arts-therapist. Susanna has run writing and creativity seminars on three continents (Sarah Lawrence College (NY, USA), Kangwon National University (South Korea), University of Botswana, Universit Rennes 2 (FR), EDF and more). Born in the UK, Susanna Crossman grew up in an international commune and has lived in France for over half her life.