Susan lives on Dharawal Country, between the escarpment and the sea, in Thirroul, a northern suburb of Wollongong. She studied BA (Communications) at UTS, Sydney, and her working life has seen her as a nursing assistant; sign laminator; Luna Park game stall attendant; waiter; ESL teacher at TAFE; English teacher in Athens; olive picker in Crete; youth hostel manager; tutor in reading and spelling; and an editorial assistant in publishing. She also had a stint in amateur theatre.

Writing

After a couple of Susan’s stories were published in uni mags, many years passed before she started sending out her work, which from 2005 began appearing in print and placing in competitions.

Her poetry collection, Waiting for the Southerly, was published in 2012, and Commended in the Anne Elder Award for a first book of poetry.

After the release of Waiting for the Southerly, Susan turned her attention back to prose, focusing initially on short fiction and microfiction (aka flash), and then on a novel.

Her collection of microfiction, Loopholes, was published in December 2016, and was a finalist in the Small Press Network’s Most Underrated Book Award (MUBA) of 2017.

This Person Is Not That Person, a collection of short stories, was published in September 2019, and released in February 2020.

Her novel, Scorched Linen, was completed in February 2020 and was signed for representation by Martin Shaw, of Shaw Literary.

Her novella, All the Unloved, was published in February 2023.

Highlights include…the award-winning story by Susan McCreery, ‘The Gardener’, with its sinister portrait of a certain kind of adolescent girl.

Kerryn Goldsworthy, Sydney Morning Herald (review of Escape, an anthology of short stories published by Spineless Wonders. ‘The Gardener’ features in This Person Is Not That Person, Susan’s new collection, out mid-2019)

Susan McCreery is a poet who knows people, their pains and their delights, as well as she knows the turning of the seasons, the ocean in its moods. The book is notable for the succession of sharp images that focus the imagination to reveal a rich world beneath the cool, breeze-ruffled surface.

 Ron Pretty (Waiting for the Southerly)

To succeed, microfiction must combine efficiency of text with immediacy of imagery and neat narrative twists, all in a space small enough for a single reading. It’s an artform that Susan McCreery shows a masterly command of.

Hilary Simmons, BOOKS+PUBLISHING (review of Loopholes)

Proofreading

For the past 20 years, Susan has worked as a proofreader for publishers such as the University of Queensland Press, HarperCollins/ABC Books, NewSouth Publishing, Murdoch Books, Allen&Unwin, Reader’s Digest, Spineless Wonders, and the bimonthly Australian Geographic (recent winner of specialist magazine for the third time).