Susan Conley
Academic Degrees
- MFA, San Diego State University
- BA, Middlebury College
Profile
Susan is the author of five critically acclaimed books, including her newest, best-selling novel Landslide, named a New York Times Book Review "Editor’s Choice," a TODAY Show “Summer Read,” and a "Best Book" by Good Morning America, The New York Post, Medium, Bustle, Biblio Lifestyle and others. Her previous, best-selling novel, Elsey Come Home, was a "Best Book" at Oprah Magazine, Marie Claire, Pop Sugar, Huffington Post, Southern Living, Fodors and others, and was also an "Editor’s Choice” pick at Amazon. Her writing has appeared in magazines and journals including The New York Times Magazine, The Paris Review, Lithub, The Virginia Quarterly Review, and The Harvard Review. She’s been awarded multiple fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, as well as fellowships from the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, The Maine Arts Commission, and the Massachusetts Arts Council. She's won the Maine Book Award and the Maine Award for Publishing Excellence and has been a featured Tedx Speaker, where her talk the "Power of Story," has been viewed widely. She’s taught at colleges and international art-residencies including Emerson College, Colby College, The University of Massachusetts, as the Jack Kerouac Visiting Fellow, The Haystack School, The Spannochia Foundation, La Napoule Foundation, and The Beijing Hutong. She lives in Portland, Maine, where she is the co-founder and prior executive director of the Telling Room, a youth creative writing lab that believes in the power of story to change lives and communities.
Areas of Scholarship
Literary fiction; Autofiction; Personal, Lyric, and Hybrid essays; Memoir; Multi-media collaborations
Recent Publications
Landslide, a novel (Knopf 2021)
Elsey Come Home, a novel (Knopf 2019)
Stop Here This is the Place, a poetry/photography collaboration (Downeast Books 2016)
Paris Was the Place, a novel (Knopf 2013)
The Foremost Good Fortune, a memoir (Knopf 2010)
Book Excerpts in The New York Times Magazine, Oprah Magazine, The Daily Beast, She Writes, and Maine Magazine
Creative Activity
I am currently working on a new novel about women’s friendship and sex and male power and betrayal.
Awards and Recognition
Two MacDowell Colony Fellowships
Bread Loaf Writers Conference Fellowship
Massachusetts Arts Council Fellowship
Jack Kerouac Visiting Writer Fellowship, UMASS Lowell
Maine Arts Commission Literary Fellowship
Elle Magazine Readers Prize Selection
Maine Literary Award for Publishing Excellence
Maine Literary Award Winner for Memoir
Portland Press Herald’s “Women to Watch in Maine”