Susan Taylor Brown is the author of the award winning middle grade verse novel Hugging the Rock, which was named a Notable Children's Book, American Library Association, a Notable Children's Book in the English Language Arts, Realistic Fiction, National Council of Teachers of English. VOYA magazine's Top Shelf Fiction for Middle School Readers, and The Best Children's Books of the Year Selection, Bank Street College of Education.

Hugging the Rock was praised by Lee Bennett Hopkins, "Brown creates a poignant work dealing with a topic rare in children's literature. Readers will hug this book. I did."

Susan is also the author of the picture books Oliver’s Must-Do List and Can I Pray With My Eyes Open?, and the non-fiction book Robert Smalls Sails to Freedom. In addition Susan has published 43 books for the educational market, including 39 ESL books for the International market. More than 200 of Susan’s articles and stories have appeared in magazines for children and adults.

A popular speaker in the schools and at writing conference, she has served on the faculty for the Highlights Foundation Chautauqua Conference. She is also a former newspaper columnist for the New Orleans Times Picayune and past instructor for the Institute of Children’s Literature. Susan has been the recipient of several grants from the Arts Council Silicon Valley which allowed her to be Writer-in-Residence for the San Jose Alternative Schools At-Risk program and to teach poetry to incarcerated teens.

In addition to writing, Susan does motivational speaking on topics such as taking risks and having the courage to follow your dreams. She leads creativity workshops for writers and readers of all ages and teaches online workshops on the use of social media for authors. (More info here: http://www.susantaylorbrown.com/classes.html)

She lives in San Jose, California with her husband, Erik, her German Shepherd Cassie, and over 8,000 books. When she's not writing or reading, or blogging about reading and writing (http://susanwrites.livejournal.com) she's on Twitter (@susanwrites) After hours she spends her time training Cassie for her work as a therapy dog and working in her native plant garden.