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Susan Maxwell
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Author Biography
Author Biography
Author Bio v.1 (449 words, 2,820 characters)
Author Bio v.1 (449 words, 2,820 characters)
Susan Maxwell is an independent author and scholar who writes literary/slipstream, fantasy, and mystery fiction, and academic non-fiction on themes related to archives and literature. She has published five novels and a collection of short stories, with short stories and poetry also appearing in magazines and anthologies.
Maxwell’s 'Necrologue' was the title story of the 2004 Lambda Award-winning anthology edited by H. Sandler, and her first published novel Good Red Herring (Little Island) was included in the Irish Times Best books of 2014 for children and young adults.
Born near Tullamore in Ireland, Maxwell has fitted her writing activities around work as a professional archivist that took her to Dublin, Belfast, London, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, The Hague, and back to Ireland in 2015.
She studied English Literature and History for her BA from NUIG, before going on to postgraduate study in Archives at UCD. She returned to the books later, combining study with full-time work (and novel-writing), and gained a PhD from Northumbria University for research on archives and the margins.
In 2014 Little Island Books published the novel Good Red Herring for the Young Adult market, though as with most of Maxwell's work, it does not fit entirely comfortably into generic or age-related categories. The book is set in a fictional low-fantasy world that is both imaginary and deeply rooted in Ireland.
Further, independently published, books followed this debut—A Wild Goose Hunt (a sequel to Good Red Herring), and And the Wildness, set in the same fictional 'Hibernia Altera' universe; the short story collection Fluctuation in Disorder and the novel Hollowmen, slipstream works aimed at an adult rather than a universal readership; and most recently, Death at Hallowtide, a mystery novel set in a contemporary Ireland tinged with the supernatural.
As well as fiction, Maxwell writes academic / non-fiction material on themes related to archives and literature; her chapter on the archival aspects of the short stories of M.R. James and of Henry James' The Turn of the Screw is included in Cocks and Renshaw (eds.) Literature, the Gothic and the Reconstruction of History: The Past as Nightmare (Routledge: 2025).
Maxwell has served on fiction and non-fiction juries for the British Fantasy Awards and reviews regularly for the BSFA Review and for Inis, the magazine of Children’s Books Ireland. Literary influences come mostly from speculative and modernist fiction, the author being particularly fond of Flann O'Brien, Italo Calvino, Samuel Beckett, and Virginia Woolf.
Maxwell is also an artist who has exhibited her work in various venues in Ireland and Britain. When not writing, or painting, or being an archivist, she can be found in the vegetable patch, listening to music, reading books, watching old detective series, or catching up on sleep.
Author Bio v.2 (250 words, 1,587 characters)
Author Bio v.2 (250 words, 1,587 characters)
Susan Maxwell is an independent author and scholar who writes literary/slipstream, fantasy, and mystery fiction. She has published five novels and a collection of short stories, with short stories and poetry appearing in magazines and anthologies.
Maxwell’s 'Necrologue' was the title story of the 2004 Lambda Award-winning SFFH anthology, and her first published novel Good Red Herring was included in the Irish Times Best books of 2014 for children and young adults.
Maxwell has fitted her writing activities around work as a professional archivist in Ireland, England, and The Netherlands, also squeezing in a PhD on archives and the margins.
In 2014 Little Island Books published Good Red Herring, set in a low-fantasy world that is both imaginary and deeply rooted in Ireland. The sequel, A Wild Goose Hunt, was self-published, as was And the Wildness, set in the same overarching 'Hibernia Altera' universe. The short story collection Fluctuation in Disorder and the novel Hollowmen are slipstream literary works; Death at Hallowtide is a mystery novel set in a contemporary Ireland tinged with the supernatural.
Maxwell writes non-fiction on themes related to archives and literature; her chapter on works of M.R. James and Henry James is included in Cocks and Renshaw (eds.) Literature, the Gothic and the Reconstruction of History: The Past as Nightmare (Routledge: 2025).
Maxwell is a regular juror for the British Fantasy Awards and reviewer for the BSFA Review and Inis, the magazine of Children’s Books Ireland. Literary influences come mostly from speculative and modernist fiction.
Author Bio v.3 (149 words, 938 characters)
Author Bio v.3 (149 words, 938 characters)
Susan Maxwell is an independent author and scholar who writes literary/slipstream, fantasy, and mystery fiction. She has published five novels and a collection of short stories, and her work has appeared in magazines and anthologies. Her latest book is Death at Hallowtide (2025).
The short story 'Necrologue' was the title story of a 2004 Lambda Award-winning anthology, and her novel Good Red Herring was included in the Irish Times Best books of 2014 for children and young adults. Subsequent books are published independently.
Born near Tullamore in Ireland, Maxwell has worked as a professional archivist in Ireland, the UK, and the Netherlands. She holds a PhD from Northumbria University and writes non-fiction on themes related to archives and literature.
She has served on fiction and non-fiction juries for the British Fantasy Awards and reviews regularly for the BSFA Review and for Inis, the magazine of Children’s Books Ireland.
Author Bio v.4 (24 words, 178 characters)
Author Bio v.4 (24 words, 178 characters)
Susan Maxwell is an award-winning independent author and scholar who writes literary/slipstream, fantasy, and mystery fiction, and non-fiction related to archives and literature.
Contact and Online Links
Contact and Online Links
Mastodon mastodon.ie/@BiblioRefuses
Bluesky @bibliorefuses.bsky.social
LibraryThing www.librarything.com/author/maxwellsusan-1
Goodreads www.goodreads.com/author/show/37361169.Susan_Maxwell
Facebook www.facebook.com/BiblioRefuses
YouTube www.youtube.com/@biblioref
Pinterest pinterest.com/SusanMaxwellAuthor
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Awards and Distinctions; Praise/Reviews (selection)
Awards and Distinctions; Praise/Reviews (selection)
2004: Lambda Award (Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror category): short story 'Necrologue' was the title story of the winning anthology.
2014: Irish Times best books of 2014 for children and young adults (Good Red Herring, a “wickedly offbeat fantasy detective story.”)
Good Red Herring
“Imagine a book like a Pogues concert! Chaotic, powerfully creative, wonderful, whilst utterly exasperating at times, littered with classic and classical Irish references all united in a glorious cacophony of intense delight and beauty. Well this is it! … [T]his story is as sustaining as buttered fruit-cake with all the glory of a besieged post office. You can last out days in it. There in an intense, almost magical devotion to incidental detail that easily leads the reader away from the plot into a fantastic landscape with a bizarre yet strangely familiar society…” (Nigel Robert Wilson)
"This is the kind of book I absolutely love – it creates a dense world for the reader to move through, makes few if any concessions in terms of explaining itself, trusting that you're smart enough to work it out. … The nearest comparison I can think of is Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirrlees meets The Dalkey Archive by Flann O'Brien…" (Karina Clifford)
And the Wildness
“Gorgeous and hilarious and profound.” (Siobhán Parkinson)
Book Information: click cover images for details
Book Information: click cover images for details
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