Sue Booth-Forbes
BornSusan (L.) Larson
Provo, Utah
OccupationEditor and coach, English teacher
LanguageEnglish
CitizenshipUS, Ireland
Alma materBrigham Young University
Children2
RelativesClinton F. Larson (father)

Susan Booth-Forbes (formerly Paxman, née Larson), is an American-Irish teacher, writer and literary editor. She was a co-founder of the progressive Mormon women's journal Exponent II, from 1974, and its longest-serving editor, from 1984 to 1997, and involved in its long-running program of retreats. She has operated the Anam Cara Writer's and Artist's Retreat in West Cork, Ireland, for over twenty years, hosting and supporting more than 1,000 writers and other creative artists. Before her editorial career, while a high school English teacher, she was one of two plaintiffs in a successful legal action over discrimination against female staff by her employer when she was pregnant in 1971, winning a declaration of unconstitutionality in US Federal court.

Life

Early life

Susan Larson was born to Clinton F. (1919-1994)[1] and Naomi Larson (née Barlow) (1923-2010)[2] of Provo, Utah,[2] U.S.; her grandfather was the athlete Clinton Larson.[3] Her father was an academic at Brigham Young University and a poet and playwright; he was the university's poet-in-residence for many years.[4] She has one sister,[2] Diane Larson Porter,[5] a pianist, writer, and retired hospice nurse. The family were active Mormons, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Early career

Virginia

Larson studied at Brigham Young University (BYU), qualifying with a degree in English and Political Science, and with a Secondary Teaching Certificate.[6]

She started her teaching career, in Utah, in 1966, in December of which year she also married John Monroe Paxman, at the Salt Lake City Temple.[7] The couple moved to Charlottesville, Virginia in 1969, after John Paxman became a student at the University of Virginia School of Law. She held teaching posts in local schools. After being denied a routine renewal of contract as an English teacher at Albemarle High School in summer 1971 due to a pregnancy with a due date in December,[8] she, as the family's main breadwinner, had to find new work.

She took a job as an office manager of a research lab at the University of Virginia Medical School, working up to her last week of pregnancy and returning one month later.[9]

The Paxman-Gough constitutional case

Paxman, who stated that she had been surprised by the restrictive Virginia maternity rules, as those in Utah had been more flexible, and shocked when the county school board upheld the initial decision, became one of two plaintiffs in a lawsuit challenging rules across Virginia around employment discrimination due to pregnancy,[8] winning a declaration of the unconstitutionality of such rules in 1975, and damages to include lost pay, but, on appeal, concluded in 1980, losing recompense other than an entitlement to reinstatement[10] and partial cover for legal fees. While originally certified as a class action potentially including all pregnant teachers in the state,[8] it was later decertified, but after an early ruling in the case, in 1972 the discriminatory rules were dismantled statewide anyway.[10][11]

Massachusetts

The Paxmans moved to and lived for an extended period in the greater Boston area, including in Cambridge, Massachusetts.[1]

Exponent II

Paxman was a member of the team producing Exponent II, a magazine by, and largely for, Mormon women, from its inception,[12] and on the masthead from the second issue, in October 1974.[13] She remained heavily involved until 1997, and in some form after,[14] even to the present. She served as its fourth Editor[15] from spring 1984[16] until 1997,[17] as Susan L. or Sue Paxman until 1996,[18] then as Sue Booth-Forbes.[19] The magazine addressed a wide range of issues, including feminism, reproductive rights, peace campaigns and other aspects of the roles and potential of women.

Eliza Dushku

Along with several family members, Paxman served as on-set guardian (a Screen Actors Guild-mandated role) for actress Eliza Dushku, from her first serious film performance (This Boy's Life) - her mother, Judy Rasmussen Dushku, a fellow Mormon from the same region and a friend,[20] was also on the Exponent II team. In 1993 she was present for three weeks in this role during filming of True Lies, and she backed Eliza Dushku when she, many years later, alleged an off-set sexual assault by a member of the production team - which Dushku at the time reported only to her mother, a brother, and a different family friend - and commented on the overall industry situation at that time.[21]

Other work

When living in England, Booth-Forbes also worked for the Cambridge University Press.[22] Just prior to moving to Ireland, she worked as communications director for a quasi-public agency in Boston.[23]

Ireland

With a divorce, after over 30 years, due to finalise in November 1997,[6] and looking for a new direction, and having led multiple retreats linked to Exponent II, Booth-Forbes joined in a month-long literary retreat with friends, including Mary Lythgoe Bradford, in Connemara in August 1997,[24] In December 1997 she searched with her daughter and purchased a property near the small village of Eyeries in West Cork, on the Beara Peninsula, launching a residential creative retreat, Anam Cara Writer's and Artist's Retreat,[25] in June 1998. Over twenty-one years, more than 1,000 creative guests - writers, composers, choreographers, visual artists -[22] have been on retreat, leaving more than 500 books on the shelves and paintings on the walls in the common areas of the retreat.[25] The retreat itself is at the centre of a multi-acre space with more than thirty private working nooks and crannies, some on the landscaped riverbank. Booth-Forbes describes her work with some guests as that of a "literary midwife" and also says that the retreat format is partly modeled on the way her mother looked after her poet father. Several guests have dedicated work to Anam Cara and to her.[26]

Aside from her work as director of the Anam Cara Retreat, Booth-Forbes remains active in local fundraising and creative activities [27] as well as promotion and news-gathering for the local area.[28]

In 2018, Booth-Forbes launched a publishing company, Anam Cara Publishing. As of December 2020, the company has published six titles.

Personal life

Booth-Forbes has two children, three grandchildren,[27] and five nephews and nieces. She became an Irish citizen in 2012.[29]

References

  1. 1 2 "Obituary - Clinton F. Larson". Deseret News. 12 July 1994. Retrieved 9 August 2019. Date of death: 10 July 1994
  2. 1 2 3 "Obituary - Larson, Naomi". Deseret News. 21 April 2010. Retrieved 9 August 2019. Date of death: 14 April 2010
  3. ↑ "Clinton Larson papers". Brigham Young University - Library. Retrieved 9 August 2019. focuses on Clinton Larson's athletic, military, and physical education careers
  4. ↑ "Clinton F. Larson (1919-1994)". Brigham Young University - Library. Retrieved 9 August 2019.
  5. ↑ "Clinton F. Larson papers". Brigham Young University - Library. Retrieved 9 August 2019. Donated by Sue Larson Booth-Forbes and Diane Larson Porter, daughters of Clinton F. Larson and granddaughters of Clinton Larson
  6. 1 2 Kimball, Linda Hoffman (14 December 2019). "Anam Cara: Sue Booth-Forbes and her writer's and artist's retreat center in Ireland". Segullah (2005-). Retrieved 22 January 2020.
  7. ↑ "Susan Larson gives vows". Salt Lake Tribune. 18 December 1966. ...solemnized in the Salt Lake LDS Temple Wednesday (14 Dec. 1966) ... member of the Council of Seventy ...
  8. 1 2 3 "Two pregnant teachers file class action suit". The Bee. Danville, Virginia. AP (Richmond, VA). 7 December 1971. p. 3-A.
  9. ↑ "Two pregnant schoolteachers file suit alleging discrimination". The Indianapolis Star. 23 January 1972. p. Sec 7, page 6.
  10. 1 2 "2 female teachers ordered reinstated". The News-Leader. Staunton, Virginia. AP (Richmond, VA). 6 January 1980. p. 6A.
  11. ↑ "US case law - US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit- 612 F.2d 848 (4th Cir. 1975)". Justia - US Law. Retrieved 16 August 2019.
  12. ↑ Dushku, Judy (Summer 2016). "Negotiating Controversy over Forty Years". Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. Salt Lake City, Utah. 49 (2): 143–152. doi:10.5406/dialjmormthou.49.2.0143. S2CID 246621346.
  13. ↑ Bushman, Claudia L., ed. (October 1974). "(Masthead)". Exponent II. Arlington, Mass. 02174: Mormon Sisters, Inc. I (II): 19.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
  14. ↑ Emilycc (30 July 2007). "Exponent II's Annual Retreat". Exponent II. Retrieved 9 August 2019. We are excited to have Sue Booth-Forbes (formerly Paxman) as our keynote speaker this year. She moved to Ireland over ten years ago and has created a wonderful, nurturing artist's retreat in her new home.
  15. ↑ Gordon, Suzanne (25 March 1993). "Challenging the Mormon church". Boston Globe. Boston, Mass., US. pp. 53, 58. Sue Paxman (editor) .. Exponent II, a Mormon women's quarterly newspaper / original member / (and editorial and personal positions)
  16. ↑ Paxman, Susan L., ed. (1984). "(Masthead)". Exponent II. Arlington, Mass. 02174: Exponent II, Inc. 10 (3): 20.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
  17. ↑ Booth-Forbes, Sue, ed. (1997). "(Masthead)". Exponent II. Arlington, Mass. 02174: Exponent II, Inc. 20 (4): 20.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
  18. ↑ Paxman, Sue, ed. (1996). "(Masthead)". Exponent II. Arlington, Mass. 02174: Exponent II, Inc. 19 (3): 20.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
  19. ↑ Paxman, Sue, ed. (1997). "(Masthead)". Exponent II. Arlington, Mass. 02174: Exponent II, Inc. 20 (2): 20.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
  20. ↑ Koch, James (12 July 1992). "This girl's life". The Boston Globe. pp. B25-26. ...several family members who, along with Judy's close friend Sue Paxman, took turns living with Eliza on location
  21. ↑ "True Lies actress stands by claims she was 'molested' at 12". BBC News. 16 January 2018. Retrieved 12 August 2019. Sue Booth-Forbes acted as the 12-year-old actress's legal guardian while on the set of True Lies...
  22. 1 2 Mulcahy, Miriam (5 August 2017). "I want to be alone: solitary retreats for some quality me time". The Irish Times.
  23. ↑ Rovetch, Warren (2006). The Creaky Traveler in Ireland: Clare, Kerry and West Cork... (1 ed.). Boulder, CO, USA: Sentient Publications. pp. 121–122. ISBN 9781591810278. Sue explains that in the mid-1990s she was in a stress-filled job as...
  24. ↑ Eggerz, Solveig (20 October 2014). "Anam Cara, on Ireland's West Coast, a Place that Nurtures Creativity". The Writer's Guide. Retrieved 6 September 2019. ...working at a stressful job in Boston and ready to make some changes in her life. / My daughter Maren and I spent the first week of December 1997 buying Anam Cara...
  25. 1 2 O'Connell, Sandra (16 March 2013). "Steal away to write that novel". The Irish Times.
  26. ↑ "A perfect place to write". The Irish Times. 12 November 2011.
  27. 1 2 "Dispatches from Ireland – Anam Cara: A Shelter for Artists and Writers". The Bedford Citizen. 30 July 2014. Retrieved 18 August 2019.
  28. ↑ "Beara News - late 2018". Beara News. September 2018.
  29. ↑ Booth-Forbes (editor, main writer), Sue (20 May 2012). "Fabulous news!". Anam Cara Writer's and Artist's Retreat blog. Retrieved 22 August 2019. I am more than thrilled to say that I have just been granted Irish citizenship {{cite web}}: |last1= has generic name (help)
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