Susan holds an M.A. in English and Creative Writing from the University of Buffalo and currently serves as a writing professor at Niagara University, where her courses explore the intersections of literature, myth, and the environment. Most recently, Susan has been developing coursework on women’s voices in myth, spirituality, and ecology. Her teaching and research practices directly inform her creative writing, as she often uses the classroom to test ideas that later find their way into fiction.
In addition to teaching, Susan serves as co-regional coordinator for the Jane Austen Society of North America, organizing events, lectures, and discussions that foster public engagement with literature. Her academic work on post-apocalyptic fiction, Shakespeare, and societal trauma has been published in The Scattered Pelican, and she continues to develop both scholarly and creative projects. As a novelist, Susan is currently at work on The Fig and the Rose, a Hudson Valley–based novel that brings together myth, ecology, and spirituality. Other projects include Grafting Grazia, a feminist novel of literary fiction, set in Tuscany, Rome, and Chicago; Daughter of Zeus, a retelling inspired by classical myth; Spelling Bee, in early draft stages; and a Snow White–inspired historical novel, Locus Nobilis, set at Edith Wharton’s estate in the Berkshires, The Mount. Susan also writes poetry and short fiction, which expand upon the same themes of myth, women’s voices, and liminal spaces that run through her longer works.