Shantha Susman

Shantha Susman was born in New York City to an Indian and Jewish family of academics and activists. She attended Stuyvesant High School where she began cultivating her love of writing and performing, received a BA in English from Cornell University where she acted in many plays and short films, and earned an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Minnesota. Susman is the recipient of a Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant, the Gesell Award for Fiction, and the Academy of American Poets James Wright Prize in Poetry, among other awards. She has worked for almost two decades in communications for social justice campaigns, most recently as an executive vice president at BerlinRosen crafting campaigns, writing and editing for groups fighting for reproductive health, rights and justice, racial justice, voting rights and other issues.