Susan Breen

Susan Breen is the author of the novels Merry (Alcove Press), The Fiction Class (Plume/Headline Review UK), and the Maggie Dove mystery series (originally published by Penguin Random House/Alibi and rereleased by Under the Oak Press). Her short stories have appeared in American Literary Review, the Chattahoochee Review, Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, and Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, as well as the anthologies Best American Nonrequired Reading and Murder Most Diabolical, and she has won the Margery Allingham Short Mystery Competition. She holds a BA from the University of Rochester and an MA in Economics from Columbia University.

Teacher Profile

Susan Breen

Teacher Excerpts

The Fiction Class

Maggie Dove

Maggie Dove and the Lost Brides

Teacher Articles

12 Techniques for Getting Un-stuck

Enlivening Passive Characters

How to Deal with Criticism

Myths about Point of View

Nine Common Fiction Writing Mistakes

The Opening Paragraph

Turning Real Life Into Fiction

What Short Story Writers Can Learn from Novelists, And Vice Versa

What Writers Can Learn From Reading Mysteries

Writing What You Don't Know