Susan Kenney

Education

Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois: B.A. with distinction, honors in English Literature and Composition (Creative Writing)

Cornell University: M.A.; Ph.D., fields of study, English and American Literature: prose fiction, medieval literature, 20th century

Areas of Expertise

• Detective fiction

• 20th-century fiction and literature

• Memoir and autobiography

• Virginia Woolf textual studies
• Creative writing, fiction 

Personal Information

Susan was born in New Jersey, and spent her childhood in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and New York State. She graduated from Northwestern University Phi Beta Kappa with a B.A. and honors in English Literature and Creative Writing, and holds a Ph.D. in English and American Literature from Cornell University.

She is the author of three Roz Howard mysteries, GARDEN OF MALICE, GRAVES IN ACADEME, and ONE FELL SLOOP, as well as the novels IN ANOTHER COUNTRY and SAILING. Her short story “Facing Front” was chosen for first place in the 1982 PRIZE STORIES: THE O. HENRY AWARDS, and her novel IN ANOTHER COUNTRY won the Quality Paperback Book Club New Voices Award in 1985.

Her essays and short stories have appeared in Epoch, The Hudson Review, McCall©s, Ladies Home Journal, Redbook, and Family Circle, as well as several anthologies. She has written numerous reviews for The New York Times Book Review as well as the Boston Globe, Newsday, and Down East Magazine. She is presently working on a sequel to IN ANOTHER COUNTRY and SAILING.

Other work in progress includes several Roz Howard mystery novels. Her most recent publication in this field is a Roz Howard short story entitled “Aunt Agatha Leaving” published in the anthology series, MaliceDomestic.

HONORS, PRIZES, FELLOWSHIPS, AND AWARDS:

Phi Beta Kappa; J. Scott Clark Creative Writing Prize; Woodrow Wilson Fellowship; New York State Regents Graduate Fellowship; Woodrow Wilson Dissertation Fellowship; First Prize 1982:The O. Henry Awards, “Facing Front”; National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Creative Writing, 1983-1984; New Voice Literary Award, In Another Country, 1985.

In Another Country chosen as one of the ALN Notable Books of the Year and the New York Times Notable Books of the Year, 1984.

Sailing cited as 1989 New York Times Notable Paperback of the Year.

Publications

Sailing, Viking, April 1988, Literary Guild edition, 1988, Penguin paperback, 1989. large print, Swedish and Danish editions, l991.

One Fell Sloop, Viking-Penguin, 1990. Mysterious Book Club, German, Japanese editions; Penguin paperback, 1991.

Garden of Malice, Scribners, October 1983; Ballantine paperback, 1984; British, German, Japanese and large print editions; reissued in Penguin paperback l994.

In Another Country, novel, July 1984; Quality Paperback Book club edition, 1984, Penguin paperback, 1985. British hard and softcover editions, large print, Swedish, Danish, and Dutch editions.

Graves in Academe, Viking, October 1985; Penguin paperback, 1986.Large print, British softcover, Danish, German and Japanese editions.

Short Stories:
“Loss,” Northwestern TriQuarterly, Fall 1962.
“Mirrors,” Epoch, Fall 1975.
“The Birthday Party,” McCall’s, March 1978.
“Facing Front,” Epoch, Winter 1980, reprinted in Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards 1982.
“Precious Moments,” McCall’s, April 1982.
“Sailing,” Hudson Review, Fall 1982; nominated for the General Electric-CCLM Young Writers Prizes, 1982.
“A Place I’ve Never Been,” The Hudson Review, Winter, 1984.
“In Another Country,\” Boston Globe Magazine, February 10, 1984.
“Hallways,” longer version of earlier story, Ladies Home Journal, July, 1984.
“The Death of the Dog and Other Rescues,” Epoch, Spring-Summer, 1984.
“In Case You Don’t Come Back,” The Hudson Review, Summer, 1985.
“The Last Birthday Cake, Family Circle, October 4, 1985.
“The Well,” McCall’s, September, 1986.
“Nativity,” Ladies Home Journal, December, 1986.
“Sailing,” revised version of earlier story, Boston Globe Magazine, November 22, 1987.
“The Checkup,” Redbook, February, 1988.
“The Idea of Boats,” TheYacht, Summer l988
“The Most Beautiful Woman in the World,” short story/memoir, Boston Globe Magazine, May 17, l992.
Murder in the Wind, Lombard Marketing, January l993: a short mystery story which forms the basis for a jigsaw puzzle.
“The 50 Percent Solution, with others, a spoof mystery story serialized in Colby Magazine, 1998
“Aunt Agatha Leaving, Malice Domestic, (New York: Avon Books, 1999)

Stories in Anthologies:
“The Shadow Child,” in The Eloquent Edge, edited by Margery Wilson and Kathleen Lignell, 1990. Nominated for Pushcart Prize, 1990.
“The Death of the Dog and Other Rescues,” reprinted in Companion Pieces, ed. Michael Rosen, Doubleday, 1990.
“Mirrors,” reprinted in English as a Second Language Reader’s Anthology, 1991

Personal essays, Memoirs, General Non-fiction:
“The House by the Lake,” autobiographical sketch, Ladies Home Journal, July 1985.
“Building Lightning Number One:” profile, Woodenboat, December-January, 1983.
“Fragments:A Portrait of My Father,” memoir, in Family Portraits, ed. Carolyn Anthony, (Doubleday & Co., October, 1989). Collection as a whole cited in Best American Essays 1990.
“What I Like About New England: Driving in Maine,” essay-sketch, New England Monthly, October, 1989.
“For Those in Peril on the Sea: A Meditation,” personal essay in The Quotable Moose, ed. Wesley McNair, (Hanover, NH: University of New England Press, 1994).
“Ringing the Net,\” personal essay in Between Friends, ed. Mickey Pearlman, (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1994).
A House of Books: My Bookhouse, personal essay in The Most Wonderful Books, an anthology of essays about childhood reading edited by Michael Dorris and Emily Buchwald, (Milkweed Editions, 1997).

Scholarly articles, Papers, Essays, Introductions:
“Why did Virginia Woolf Commit Suicide?” a paper delivered to the Cornell University Group for Applied Psychoanalysis, January 1972.
“A Room of One’s Own Revisited:Women in Literature,” University of Michigan Papers in Women’s Studies, Vol. 1, no. 2 (Summer 1974).
“Two Endings: Virginia Woolf’s Suicide and Between the ActsUniversity of Toronto Quarterly, Vol. XLIV, No. 4 (Summer 1975), 265-289.

“Why wasn’t Virginia Woolf Analyzed?” a paper delivered to the Cornell University Group for Applied Psychoanalysis, April, 1975.

Preface to Charlotte M. Yonge’s The Daisy Chain.Garland Library of Children’s Classics, 1975.

Bibliographical Note to Lewis Carroll’s Rhyme? and Reason?. Garland “Virginia Woolf’s Madness and her Fiction,” a Mellon Lecture given at Colby College, November 19, 1975.

Preface to Juliana Ewing’s Mrs. Overtheway’s Remembrances, Garland Library of Children’s Classics, 1976.

“Virginia Woolf and The Art of Madness,” (with E. J. Kenney, Jr.), Massachusetts Review, Spring 1982.

May Sarton’s Journals and A Reckoning; Puckerbrush Review, Summer, 1992

Reviews:
“Growing Up a Winner,” review of Ramona Forever, by Beverly Cleary, New York Times Book Review, (NYTBR) November 11, 1984.
“Writing the Second Novel: A Symposium,” brief contribution, NYTBR, February 24, 1985.
“Paradise with Snake,” review of Annie John, a novel by Jamaica Kincaid, NYTBR, April 7, 1985.
“The Agatha Puzzle Made Clear,” review of Agatha Christie, A Biography by Janet Morgan, Boston Sunday Globe, June 9, 1985.

Review of “Moon Tiger, The Night Flight, A Winter Journey, Winter Magic,” four children’s books, NYTBR, November 17, 1985.

“Inside the Real Maine?” essay-review of Inside Vacationland: New Fiction from the Real Maine, Down East Magazine, Special Issue, January, 1986.

“Return of the Comet Man,” review of I Been There Before, a novel by David Carkeet, NYTBR, January 26, 1986.

“Beacon Blanket Book Bag,” review of The Funeral Makers, a novel by CathiePelletier, NYTBR, June 1, 1986.

Review of The Not-Just-Anybody Family, by Betsey Byars, NYTBR, June 15, 1986.

Front page review of A Client Called Noah, by Josh Greenfeld, NYTBR, February 6, 1987.

“Looking for Doctor Right,” review of Doctors and Women, a novel by SusanCheever, NYTBR, December 6, 1987.

“‘Following My Own Bent,'” review of Onward and Upward: a Biography of Katherine S. White, by Linda H. Davis, Down East Magazine, September 1987.

“The Family That Forgot Christmas,” review of Tidings, a novel by William Wharton, NYTBR, December 6, 1987.

“Three Maine Mysteries,” essay-review, Down East Magazine, July 1988.

Review of Silver, a novel by Hilma Wolitzer, Newsday, July 7, 1988.

What Happened at the Mall,” review of In the Heart of the Whole World, a novel by John Rolfe Gardiner, NYTBR, October 2, 1988.

“Eat Your Nice Maggots, Herbert,” review of The Grotesque, a novel by PatrickMcGrath, NYTBR, May 28, 1989.

“Man Meets Boat Meets Hurricane,” review of Spartina, a novel by John Casey, NYTBR, June 25, 1989.

“Fall River Legends,” review of What We Had by James Chace, NYTBR,June 17, 1990.

“Golf? Transcendental?” review of The Lies Boys Tell, a novel by Lamar Herrin,NYTBR, October 20, 1991.

“‘I’m One of the Ones It Was Done To!'” review of Violence, a novel by RichardBausch, NYTBR, January 29, l992.

Review of Cold Times, a novel by Elizabeth Jordan Moore, Down East, Summer l992.

“Holed up in the Roxy”, review of Kicking Tomorrow, a novel by Daniel Richler, NYTBR, September l992.

“Love Among the Lobsters,” review of Blue Moon, a novel by Luanne Rice, NYTBR, September 12, l993.

“Death Comes to the Professor,” review of Literary Murder, a novel by Batya Gur, NYTBR, December 26, l993.

“Sometimes a Great Ocean,” review of Alongshore, by John R. Stilgoe, NYTBR, July 3, l994.

“Their Fellow Americans,” review of Snow Falling on Cedars, a novel by David Guterson, NYTBR, October 16, l994

“Shades of Difference,” review of The Wedding, a novel by Dorothy West, NYTBR, February 12, l995

“Gone Fishing,” review of Light Years, a memoir by Le Anne Shreiber, NYTBR, September 15, l996

“Crimes of the Heart,” review of The Weeight of Water, a novel by Anita Shreve, NYTBR, January 19, l997