Spider Song

Susan Alexander is a lifelong writer who has worked as a lawyer and law professor. She now focuses primarily on writing. Susan grew up in Chicago, where she attended public schools before going on to earn degrees in political science at Washington University in St Louis (AB with highest honors) and Northwestern University (MA). She then chose to work towards social justice through law at Harvard University and earned a law degree at Harvard Law School. Susan began her legal career as a law clerk to a U.S. district judge in Chicago (Julius J. Hoffman, who famously presided over the "Chicago 7" trial, but who also offered his law clerks valuable experience deciding important legal issues). Susan then garnered a Reginald Heber Smith Fellowship, working as a public interest lawyer for two years: First, at the Chicago Legal Aid Bureau's Appellate and Test Case Division; second, at the National Legal Program on Health Problems of the Poor, located at UCLA Law School. Susan continued her work as a public interest lawyer at the Legal Aid Society of San Diego and the National Institute for Consumer Justice, based at the University of Michigan Law School. While at Michigan, Susan began her teaching career, focusing on teaching law students legal analysis and writing. She later taught poverty law at the University of San Diego School of Law. She moved on to teaching legal analysis and writing for two years at IIt/Chicago-Kent College of Law and a total of four years at Northwestern University School of Law. Susan has served as an arbitrator since 1990 and has worked as an associate and a knowledgeable source on writing at three Chicago law firms. She has also created You Can Write Better, a consulting business that helps practicing lawyers sharpen their writing skills. She is a lifelong writer whose writing has appeared in a wide range of publications, including major newspapers like the San Francisco Chronicle, the Chicago Tribune, and the Chicago Sun-Times, as well as a number of professional journals like the Hastings Law Journal, the Buffalo Law Review, and the Cooley Law Review. Susan's novels, "A Quicker Blood" (2009) and "Jealous Mistress" (2011), have garnered high praise in customer reviews appearing online. Her short story, "Neglect," was a prizewinner in Chicago Lawyer magazine's first annual fiction contest. The protagonist in "Jealous Mistress" is loosely based on Susan, and the novel, a mystery, depicts her life as the mother of two young daughters in a North Shore suburb of Chicago who temporarily leaves her demanding legal career so she can spend more time with her young children. The mystery plot is, of course, total fiction. Susan launched a blog, Susan Just Writes, in 2012 and has added a new post about once a month since 2012. The posts include commentary on the passing scene, travel, politics, movies, books, and an array of other topics. Some recent posts: "A day without a drug commercial"; "Pockets!"; "The last straw(s)"; "High heels are killers"; "Of mice and chocolate"; "They're my blue jeans, and I'll wear them if I want to"; "Down and hot in Paris and London,";"Watching the movie 'Z': A tale of two Hoffmans"; "Let's lobby Congress to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act" Susan's new novel, "Red Diana," is a psychological thriller that explores themes like the desire for revenge, the burden of guilt, the tyranny of unethical lawyers and corrupt judges, the parent-child relationship, the shattering pain of loss, and the many routes survivors take to deal with their loss.