Born in Long Beach, California, Susan Browne has lived most of her life in the Bay Area. Her poetry has appeared in Ploughshares, Subtropics, River City, The Mississippi Review, Gargoyle, Margie, American Life in Poetry, and other literary journals and anthologies, such as 180 More, Extraordinary Poems for Everyday, edited by Billy Collins, and Ordinary Genius by Kim Addonizio.  Her awards include prizes from the Chester H. Jones Foundation, the National Writer's Union, the Los Angeles Poetry Festival, and the River Styx International Poetry Contest. Her work was nominated for a Pushcart Award. Selected as the winner of The Four Way Books Prize by Edward Hirsch, her first book, Buddha’s Dogs, was published in 2004. She also has a word/music CD with poet Kim Addonizio, Swearing, Smoking, Drinking, & Kissing, available from cdbaby.com. 

Her second book of poetry, Zephyr, won the Editor's Prize at Steel Toe Books (www.steeltoebooks.com), and will be published in the fall, 2010.

Susan teaches at Diablo Valley College in Pleasant Hill, California, and at Esalen Institute. She offers private workshops in poetry at her home in Oakland. Currently, she is working on a memoir.