Sue Repko
writer, editor, gun violence prevention advocate
About
Sue Repko is a freelance writer, editor, urban planner, and gun violence prevention advocate. She holds an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars, a master’s in city and regional planning from Rutgers University, and a B.A. in psychology from Princeton University. Her essays have been named notable three times in The Best American Essays and won a Maine Literary Award for short nonfiction. Her work has appeared in Hippocampus Magazine, Brevity Blog, The Southeast Review, Hazlitt, Aquifer: The Florida Review Online, Princeton Alumni Weekly and elsewhere. She recently completed Standoff: Memoir of a Gunsmith’s Daughter about her relationship with her father and an unintentional shooting that resulted in the death of a neighbor.
Since 2018 Sue has been a volunteer with Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America as the Be SMART Lead for the state of Maine; she is also an Everytown Survivor Fellow. In these capacities, she has testified before the Maine legislature, published op-eds and letters to the editor, trained other volunteers, and shared a message about the safe storage of firearms with parents, pediatricians, medical students, law enforcement, and the general public. She is currently being trained as a Racial Justice Peer Coach for Moms Demand Action.
Latest Posts
Joan Didion has died and I am sad.
Of all the remembrances about Didion that are flooding my social media feed and news sites in the past 24 hours, what has stuck with me the most was the acknowledgment by Francine Prose in a piece at WHYY, Philadelphia’s NPR affiliate, that Didion’s anxiety is always on the page, that even for all her intelligence and sharp observations and commentary, she was an anxious person and this quality infused her work.
“Pandemic Thoughts, Racing” published in The Keeping Room
I am so grateful to The Keeping Room for publishing my essay, "Pandemic Thoughts, Racing." I've been so immersed in finishing my memoir that I have not had an essay published in a while. Feels good to have this out in the world -- something unrelated to my memoir....
On yard sales and learning to love unwanted things: an online reading
I recently had a recording of a reading go live as part of the Local Writers Read series. The series features writers from Maine, and was sponsored by LA Art Walk, which takes place monthly during warm weather months in Lewiston/Auburn, cities in Maine. Due to the...
