Lucy Sante

Lucy Sante (formerly Luc Sante; born May 25, 1954) is a Belgian-born American writer, critic, and artist. She is a frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books. Her books include Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York (1991).

Lucy Sante
BornLuc Sante
(1954-05-25) May 25, 1954
Verviers, Belgium
OccupationWriter, critic, artist
EducationColumbia University
Notable awardsGrammy Award for Best Album Notes (1998)
Guggenheim Fellowship (1992)
Whiting Award (1989)

Biography

Born in Verviers, Belgium, Sante migrated to the United States in the early 1960s. She attended school in New York City, first at Regis High School in Manhattan and later at Columbia University from 1972 to 1976;[1] due to several incompletes and outstanding library fines, she did not take a degree. Since 1984 she has been a full-time writer. Sante worked in the mailroom and then as assistant to editor Barbara Epstein at The New York Review of Books. She became a regular contributor there, writing about film, art, photography, and miscellaneous cultural phenomena, as well as book reviews.[2]

Her books, include Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York (1991), a non-fiction book documenting the life and politics of lower Manhattan from the mid-19th century to the early 20th century;[3][4][5] Evidence (1992),[5] the autobiographical The Factory of Facts (1998), Walker Evans (1999), Kill All Your Darlings: Pieces 1990-2005 (2007), Folk Photography (2009), and The Other Paris (2015). She co-edited, with the writer, her former wife,[6] Melissa Holbrook Pierson, O. K. You Mugs: Writers on Movie Actors (1998), and translated and edited Félix Fénéon's Novels in Three Lines (2007) for the New York Review Books (NYRB) series.

In the early 1980s, she wrote lyrics for the New York City-based band The Del-Byzanteens.[7] Sante wrote the text for Take Me To The Water: Immersion Baptism In Vintage Music And Photography, a collection of historical photos of American baptismal rites, published by Dust-to-Digital in 2009.[8]

Having taught in the Columbia MFA writing program, Sante now lives in Ulster County, New York, and teaches writing and the history of photography at Bard College.

Personal life

She lived as a male until announcing on September 20, 2021, that she was transitioning to female. She wrote on her Instagram account: "Yes, this is me, and yes, I am transitioning–I have joined the other team. Yes, I've known since at least age 11 but probably earlier and yes, I suppressed and denied it for decades.... I started...hormone replacement therapy in early May....You can call me Lucy (but I won't freak out if you misgender me) and my pronoun, thankyouverymuch, is she."[9] In February 2022 she wrote an essay in the magazine Vanity Fair explaining her transition at almost 70 years old.[10]

Publications

Original text
  • Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York. Macmillan, 1991. ISBN 978-0-374-19414-7.
  • Evidence (1992)
  • The Factory of Facts (1998)[11]
    • The first chapter is available online.[12]
  • The Unknown Soldier (short story, 1998)[13]
  • Walker Evans (1999)
  • Kill All Your Darlings: Pieces 1990-2005 (2007)
  • Folk Photography: The American Real-Photo Postcard, 1905–1930 (2009)[14]
  • Take Me To The Water: Immersion Baptism In Vintage Music And Photography (2009)
  • The Other Paris (2015)[15]
  • Beastie Revolution - Beastie Boys Book - Chapter 2 - Spiegel & Grau (2018)
  • Maybe the People Would Be the Times (2020)
  • Nineteen Reservoirs (2022)[16]

Editor

Translator
  • Félix Fénéon's Novels in Three Lines (2007)[17]
  • "Beastie Revolution", Beastie Boys Book, Random House Audio (2018) – voice recording

Exhibitions

While Sante began creating art in the 1960s, she had her first gallery show in 2020 at the James Fuentes Gallery.[18]

Awards and honors

References
  1. "Phil Kline '75 | Columbia College Today". www.college.columbia.edu. Retrieved January 20, 2022.
  2. "New York Review of Books". 2006.
  3. "Down and Dirty : LOW LIFE: Lures and Snares of Old New York, By Luc Sante (Farrar, Straus & Giroux: $27.50; 414 pp., illustrated)". Los Angeles Times. September 29, 1991. Retrieved February 6, 2022.
  4. Rubin, Hanna (September 29, 1991). "New York Seedy". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved February 6, 2022.
  5. Schoemer, Karen (February 21, 1993). "Lowlife: It's a Life". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved February 6, 2022.
  6. "Contemporary Authors Online". Farmington Hills, Michigan: Gale. 2009.
  7. Kellman, Andy (n.d.) The Del-Byzantines, Allmusic.com, retrieved April 9, 2014
  8. "Take Me To The Water: Immersion Baptism In Vintage Music And Photography". Dust-to-Digital. April 26, 2009. Archived from the original on March 2, 2015. Retrieved March 5, 2015.
  9. Sante, Lucy [@luxante] (September 19, 2021). "I have been shilly-shallying about this long enough". Retrieved September 22, 2021 – via Instagram.
  10. "On Becoming Lucy Sante". Vanity Fair. January 20, 2022. Retrieved May 2, 2022.
  11. Di Piero, W.S. (March 8, 1998). "In the Flea Market of the Mind". New York Times. Retrieved September 26, 2021.
  12. Sante, Luc. "The Factory of Facts: Chapter One". New York Times. Retrieved September 26, 2021.
  13. "The Unknown Soldier". This American Life. Retrieved September 25, 2021.
  14. Garner, Dwight (January 15, 2010). "The Reading Life: Postcards From the Edge". New York Times. Retrieved September 25, 2021.
  15. Haskell, Molly (October 30, 2015). "'The Other Paris', by Luc Sante". New York Times. Retrieved September 25, 2021.
  16. Garner, Dwight (August 8, 2022). "How New York City Got Its Fresh Water". The New York Times.
  17. Johnson, Marilyn (September 2, 2007). "Haiku Journalism". New York Times. Retrieved September 24, 2021.
  18. Steinhauer, Jillian; Heinrich, Will; Schwendener, Martha (August 19, 2020). "3 Art Gallery Shows to See Right Now". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved August 20, 2020.
  19. "Luc Sante, 1989 Winner in Nonfiction". Whiting Foundation. Retrieved September 23, 2021.
  20. "Luc Sante". John Simon Guggenheim Foundation. Retrieved September 24, 2021.
  21. "Award Winner: Luc Sante". American Academy of Arts and Letters. Retrieved September 24, 2021.
  22. "Grammy winners, Anthology of American Folk Music". Grammy. Retrieved March 5, 2015.
  23. "2010 Infinity Award: Writing". International Center of Photography. February 23, 2016. Retrieved September 24, 2021.
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