Susan Conley is a Mainer and the author of four books, including Elsey Come Home. Her memoir The Foremost Good Fortune, was the first book she published, and it was an Oprah Magazine “Top Ten Pick,” an Entertainment Weekly “Memoir to Read,” and the winner of the Maine Literary Award for Memoir. Her novel, Paris Was the Place, came out after the memoir, and it was a People Magazine “Top Pick,” a Slate Magazine “Summer Read,” and an Elle Magazine Readers Prize Selection. Her third book was a whole other animal: a photography collaboration called Stop Here This is the Place, which was a Real Simple Magazine “Must Read” and also won the Maine Literary Award for Publishing Excellence.
Conley’s writing has appeared in other places like The New York Times Magazine, The Paris Review, The Virginia Quarterly Review, The Harvard Review, The North American Review, The New England Review, Ploughshares, and other magazines. She has received Fellowships from MacDowell , the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, The Maine Arts Commission, and the Massachusetts Arts Council. Conley grew up in Maine and has lived in Vermont, California, Boston, and China before moving back to Portland. She is currently on the faculty of the Stonecoast Writing Program at the University of Southern Maine and is the co-founder of the Telling Room, a creative writing lab for kids in Portland.
