Winner of the 2009 Steel Toe Books Prize in Poetry (Editor's Choice), written by the author of Buddha's Dogs, which was selected by Ed Hirsch as the winner of the Four Way Books Intro Prize "The poems in Susan Browne's Zephyr are grounded in the mysteries of this terribly known, outrageously funny and sad world. With an expert sense of language and narrative, this intrepid poet cranks her highbeams to rummage 'humanity's basement, the murk inside the mammalian heart' and unearths each dark, radiant truth." -- Dorianne Laux
Born in Long Beach, California, Susan Browne has lived most of her life in the Bay Area. Her poetry has appeared in Ploughshares, Subtropics, River City, The Mississippi Review, Gargoyle, Margie, American Life in Poetry, and other literary journals and anthologies, such as 180 More, Extraordinary Poems for Everyday, edited by Billy Collins, and Ordinary Genius by Kim Addonizio. Her awards include prizes from the Chester H. Jones Foundation, the National Writer's Union, the Los Angeles Poetry Festival, and the River Styx International Poetry Contest. Her work was nominated for a Pushcart Award. Selected as the winner of The Four Way Books Prize by Edward Hirsch, her first book, Buddha's Dogs, was published in 2004. She also has a word/music CD with poet Kim Addonizio, Swearing, Smoking, Drinking, & Kissing, available from cdbaby.com.
Her poems have recently appeared on Garrison Keillor's Writer's Almanac and Ted Kooser's American Life in Poetry. Her second book of poetry, Zephyr, won the Editor's Prize at Steel Toe Books (www.steeltoebooks.com)
