Susan Straight attended
John W. North High School in
Riverside, California and took classes at
Riverside Community College while in high school. She went on to earn a scholarship to the
University of Southern California and, in 1984, earned her M.F.A. from the
University of Massachusetts Amherst's
MFA Program for Poets & Writers. She co-founded the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing & Writing for the Performing Arts program at
University of California, Riverside, where she is currently a Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing and the director of the graduate program. Straight has published eight novels, a novel for young readers and a children's book. She has also written essays and articles for numerous national publications, including
The New York Times,
Los Angeles Times,
The Nation and ''
Harper's Magazine, and is a frequent contributor to NPR and Salon. Her story "Mines", first published in Zoetrope: All-Story, was included in The Best American Short Stories 2003''. == Personal life ==