Prominent gender, writing, language, and cultural critic, Dr. Susan Osborn is the author of two critically acclaimed books and dozens of essays, articles, scholarly papers, and book reviews. Her nonfiction books, creative works, and journalistic writing routinely earn praise for their discerning intelligence in tackling difficult subjects. Osborn served as Director of The Writing Center of Princeton, and for many decades, she taught gender, writing, and literature at Rutgers University, Douglass College, the New School for Social Research, and SUNY-New Paltz. She earned her A.B. from Vassar College; her Ph.D. from Rutgers University; and she completed additional graduate work at University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University’s Teacher’s College, and Bank Street College of Education.

Early on in her career, Osborn also served as the Research Director for the New Jersey Center for Research on writing, and she has been awarded writing residencies by the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Byrdcliffe, and Dorset Colony House, as well as grants from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts and Rutgers University.
Over the years, Osborn has written extensively for popular and scholarly journals, and her literary criticism, essays, articles, and book reviews have appeared in The New York Times, The Village Voice, The Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Chicago Sun-Times, Newsday, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Chicago Tribune, American Book Review, The San Francisco Chronicle, Louisville Courier-Journal, The American Scholar, Sojourner, Belles Lettres, Modern Fiction Studies, Rhetoric Review, Womanews, and dozens of other outlets.

Osborn has been interviewed by NPR’s Marty Moss-Coane on Radio Times and her most recent book of essays, Elizabeth Bowen: New Critical Perspectives was hailed by The Irish Review as “a tour de force.”

Osborn has also worked as a coordinator for the Douglass College/Rutgers University branch of the United Nations Global 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence campaign. In that capacity, Osborn works to mobilize resources, devise strategies, and facilitate dialogue around annual themes such as sex trafficking and ending violence against women in the context of climate change. As a volunteer community organizer for Saprea, a national organization dedicated to “liberating …society from child sexual abuse,” Osborn works with local resources to develop group events devoted to discussing sexual violence against girls and women.

Because of Osborn’s work as both a writer and advocate, over the course of her career she has spoken at over a hundred literary and political symposia and conferences, universities and colleges, as well as literary events in the United States and Europe, including in Basel, Cork, Sussex, and Budapest. She has likewise presented her work at many bookstores and book clubs across the country.

Work in Progress: When she was two, the author’s mother was struck down by polio. Marjorie survived, but her left leg was severely withered and partially paralyzed.