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My first novel, This Will Go Down on Your Permanent Record, is out from Featherproof Books!

Check out a great review of the book in the Nashville Scene, and this fun interview with me at Venuszine.com.

And the fab folks over at Switchback Books have this to say:

"I finished Susannah Felts' debut novel, This Will Go Down on Your Permanent Record, in a day and a half, couldn't put it down. Here's why: this book is going to make a difference in young women's lives. Count on it.

If any of you are teaching, whether high school or intro to creative writing or fiction workshop, I'd keep Felts' novel in mind. The protagonist, a young woman named Vaughn, is a high school student in Nashville and a burgeoning photographer—a sort of everywoman's Asher Lev. Felts manages to recreate the essence of adolescence... Not just the awkwardness that we all remember, but also all the accompanying small thrills and fears about which I, for one, had forgotten. And she does it through the eyes of a young artist who's beginning to ask important questions about just what being an artist means. Fabulous!

One of the things that I like most about Felts' book is that, in contrast to other recent books with protagonists in high school, it doesn't feel like it's trying too hard to be something it's not, to be clever or trendy... it feels organic and true. Nuff said. Permanent Record is mos def worth checking out, recommending to your students, buying for your nieces. Read it.

Oh, and p.s. Major props to FP for getting local poster- and fine-artist Diana Sudyka to do the cover. Brownie points for reals."

Here's the book's back cover synopsis to whet yr appetite:

"At the beginning of a lonely summer, 16-year-old Vaughn Vance meets Sophie Birch, and the two forge an instant and volatile alliance at Nashville's neglected Dragon Park. But when Vaughn takes up photography, she trains her lens on Sophie, and their bond dissolves as quickly as it came into focus. Felts keenly illuminates the pitfalls of coming of age as an artist, the slippery nature of identity, and the clash of class in the New South."

And here's what some great writers have said about it:

"THIS WILL GO DOWN ON YOUR PERMANENT RECORD is an incredibly intimate, thoughtfully written novel, a kind of snapshot rendered in glimmering prose, one perfect record of the daydreams and nightmares of everyone's years in high school." --Joe Meno, author of Hairstyles of the Damned

"Susannah Felts's poignant debut novel tackles one of the toughest questions that follows us into adulthood: What does true friendship look like? Through Vaughn's camera lens, Felts shows us that the answer is ugly, beautiful, and everything in between." -- Hillary Frank, author of I've got a pizza to eat so I better keep this short. Better Than Running at Night and I Can't Tell You

"I know those kids hanging out by the dragon. I wanted to be those kids. Susannah Felts perfectly captures the teen struggle: wanting to be different, wanting to fit in." -- Julie Halpern, author of Get Well Soon

My fiction and essays have appeared in The Sun, Pindeldyboz, Another Chicago Magazine, Quarterly West, McSweeney's (on the Web), THE2NDHAND, and elsewhere. And hark! A new short story is up at Please Don't (www.please-dont.com).