Susan Witting Albert


 

Susan Witting Albert

 

 

 

 

The Illinois Connection

Susan Albert was born Susan Witting in Chicago, grew up in downstate Illinois,  attending Danville High School.  By the time she was 21 she was the mother of three and a freshman in college. She earned a bachelors degree from the University of Illinois.  Her academic success led to a PhD from the University of California in Berkeley.  She achieved tenure teaching English at the University of Texas going on to become a college administrator and vice president at SWT.

Her second love (after being a mother and now great grandmother) is her writing. In the 1980s she started following a childhood dream and became a ghost writer. There is a long list of children book series that she contributed to - the most famous is the Nancy Drew mystery series under the penname Carolyn Keene. She also started writing for Country Living Gardener magazine. 

 

By the 1990’s she and her husband,Bill, decided to leave their respective careers to write full time.  They have co-written the Robin Paige Victorian Mysteries, set in the Late Victorian era. Susan Albert is also the author of The Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter, a series of mysteries featuring author Beatrix Potter.

Susan Albert is a strong advocate of woman rights and creative work life style choices. She wrote the nonfiction Work of Her Own, and Writing from Life: A Journal of Self-Discovery for Women. The second nonfiction work led to on-line writing workshops designed to encourage female authors called Story Circle.

 

 

A Word about Awards

  The first book in the China Bayles series, Thyme of Death was both an Agatha Award and an Anthony Award nominee.  The Agatha Awards has been presented annually since 1989 at a "fun fan" convention sponsored by Malice Domestic® a professional organization saluting the traditional mystery--books best typified by the works of Agatha Christie. The genre is defined as mysteries which contain no explicit sex or excessive gore; and usually featuring an amateur detective, in a confined setting, and  characters who know one another.  The World Mystery Convention confers the Anthony Awards at Bouchercon, a convention for mystery fans held every year in October. The names of the award and the conference honor Anthony Boucher, pen name of William Anthony Parker White.

 

 

China Bayles Read-Alikes 

 

IIf you like Susan Witting's writing and the China Bayles series in particular, you'll also probably enjoy books by these authors:

 

Alexander McCall Smith

Anthony Elgin

Diane Mott Davidson

Joyce Levene

Jerrilyn Farmer