Happily settled in the Rochester, NY, area with her husband and two young sons, Susan Gilbert-Collins is always a little homesick for her home state of South Dakota. That’s probably why a lot of her fiction is set there, including her first novel, Starting from Scratch.

Susan’s short fiction has appeared in The North American Review, Confrontation, The Greensboro Review, Prairie Schooner, and other literary journals. Her stories have been finalists in Glimmer Train competitions and nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Along the way, Susan has freelanced in technical writing and test development, taught English as a Second Language, worked briefly in grants and development, and studied at Oberlin and the University of Minnesota to put off the inevitable (a real job).

And before any of that, she spent the summer between high school and college as the worst pizza deliverer in the history of South Dakota.