I’m Susan

My Arvo Thorson mystery series debuted with Washed Up [North Star Press], which was praised by Library Journal as “a smashing debut with astute observations and gorgeous prose.” The series includes Broken Down and Burnt Out. My short stories have been published in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine and other places.  The opening pages of Albert Park: a memoir in lies (forthcoming from Calumet Editions) was a winner of a Loft McKnight Artist Fellowship for Writers, a distinction of excellence and a $25,000 award open to Minnesota fine artists and writers.

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  • Recycle Your Dreams

    I turned a significant age this year, 65, and am celebrating the entire year. If life is a wardrobe, I am going through what I have been hanging onto for years, keeping the classics, removing the tattered, and rehoming the still wearable, well-loved pieces. I’m of an age where I don’t need a lot of…

  • Come See Me on March 16, 2024 in Rosemount, MN

    Come see me at the Rosemount Writers Festival and Book Fair, mingle with the book-loving public, buy books, hang out with authors, and attend optional literary workshops. All three Arvo Thorson mysteries - Burnt Out, Broken Down, and Washed Up - and my young adult novel - Naming the Stars - are available for purchase.…

  • Making a Holiday

    My purses are found this holiday season in the Minnetonka Art Centers Arts of the Holidays Show & Sale and the Textile Center’s Holiday Gallery Shop.

  • Maker Momentum

    Not yet ready for prime time (as in selling), but I am gathering momentum. Creating new designs; buying interfacing and fusible fleece by the bolt, cork by the meter and yard, zippers by the yard, hardware by the handful; submitting the best to contests; sewing three or four bags at a time; signing up for…

  • New Adventures in Creativity

    Read all about it on my new page, Pretty Things.

  • Third Story now appears in “World’s Best Mystery Magazine”

    My short story, “Tonic”, is in the July/August Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine (EQMM). Two other stories of mine have also appeared in EQMM –“Boys will be Boys”  in the December 2013 issue and “Open Ended”  in December 2015. Stephen King calls EQMM the “world’s best mystery magazine” and the magazine and its stories have won numerous prizes.…