Susan Elliot Wright is the bestselling author of five novels, most recently All You Ever Wanted (Simon & Schuster, 2022). Susan has a keen interest in maternal mental health and has touched on this in all her novels. Her 2019 novel, The Flight of Cornelia Blackwood, which is about one woman’s experience of postpartum psychosis, was critically acclaimed. She is particularly interested in the experience of mothers in the postnatal period. Her earlier novels and short stories often centre around the relationships between parents and adult children, and her fiction typically explores the darker side of parent-child relationships.
Setting is an important aspect of Susan’s fiction and she likes to write about people in relation to the natural landscapes they inhabit, both in terms of place, and weather conditions. The sea features in three of her novels.
Before turning to fiction, Susan worked in journalism, writing hundreds of health and parenting features for women’s magazines. She also wrote ten nonfiction books on health-related topics for Hodder Wayland and Sheldon Press.
Susan has an MA in Writing from Sheffield Hallam University where she was an associate lecturer until recently, and is now a visiting lecturer. She is passionate about teaching creative writing and loves helping new writers to develop and hone their skills. In addition to her university teaching, she mentors other writers and runs writing workshops locally.
Susan’s previous jobs include civil servant, barmaid, cake decorator, market researcher, FE English tutor and chef. She grew up in south-east London, but now lives in Sheffield with her husband and a lab/collie mix called Norman.
