Susan McIlvaine Kenney (born April 28, 1941) is an American novelist, short story writer, literary critic, and educator.^[1] She is best known for her novels In Another Country and Sailing, as well as her Roz Howard mystery series.^[2] Her work has received major literary awards, appeared in anthologies and been reviewed widely in national media.^[3] Kenney taught literature and creative writing at Colby College for over three decades, and her fiction, essays and reviews have appeared in literary journals, leading magazines and newspapers.

Kenney was born in Summit, New Jersey on April 28, 1941^[4], the first child of Virginia Tucker McIlvaine, a college graduate with B.A. in English and Music, and James Morrow McIlvaine, a college graduate with a B.A. in Mathematics and Logic and a JD  law degree from NYU.^[5] At that time he was newly employed in a promising line of work with the Sun Oil Company, starting with the management of a service station in Elizabeth, NJ.^[6]

Kenney was a high-achieving secondary school student, graduating with the second-highest grade average in her class, SAT scores above 1200, and recognition as a National Merit Scholarship Finalist.^[7] She was active in journalism and athletics, serving as assistant editor of the school newspaper, writing a column for the Skaneateles Press, and competing in track and field, and she earned college credit by successfully completing Advanced Placement examinations in literature and history.^[8]

In the fall of 1959 with the extra college-level credits she had earned in high school, Susan matriculated as a second quarter freshman at the Northwestern University College of Liberal Arts and Sciences with a double major in English Literature and Concentration in Creative Writing.^[9] In her second quarter in the winter of 1960 she enrolled in the first of the four creative writing courses she would complete in her years at Northwestern.^[7] In the ensuing three years she would complete her Creative Writing Major while also fulfilling her requirements for the English major by the spring of 1963.^[10]

In the spring of 1962 she published her first short story, Loss^[3], and was later awarded the J Scott Clark prize for excellence in creative writing.^[9] Her writing agenda included a curated fiction writing class with visiting writer and poet Stephen Spender in her senior year. Along with these activities she was also a member of the Speakers Committee of the then widely known annual Northwestern University Symposium, hosting and introducing such writers as Saul Bellows and Theodore Roethke. She was also student editor of the Tri-Quarterly magazine and invited into Phi Beta Kappa in her junior year.^[11]

Kenney left Northwestern a quarter early at the end of March 1963, having fulfilled all the credits necessary for her to graduate with her degree, She went back home to Skaneateles to take care of her mother and younger siblings, later graduating in absentia with honors that May.^[8]

Kenney had been accepted to at Cornell University Graduate School but held off until things settled down at home and later that year took a summer job working as a writer-editor for the Department of the Interior in Washington D.C. In August of 1963 she decided to take up the offer of her Woodrow Wilson Graduate Scholarship and enrolled at Cornell^[8], where she went on to earn an M.A. and Ph.D. in English and American Literature (prose fiction, medieval literature, 19th and 20th‑century literature).^[9] During her time there, she was a teaching assistant for five different professors, a tutor and a library worker and she met her longtime advisor Professor James McConkey and Writer Alison Lurie, who would become her friends, supporters and mentors for the next forty years, as she turned back to writing fiction. ^[12]

After earning her M.A. and Ph.D from Cornell, in 1968 Kenney joined the faculty at Colby College in Waterville, Maine in 1968, rising to the rank of full professor as she taught English and American literature, fiction and other creative writing for more than thirty years.^[13] In 1993 she was honored with the Charles A. Dana Professor of Creative Writing Chair, retiring as Emeritus in 2007.^[7] At several periods in her career she served as director of the college’s Creative Writing Program, teaching classes and mentoring students as well as sharing executive duties, such as coordinating the Visiting Writers series, introducing guest writers and other responsibilities. In the 90s she also served a three year term as the Chair of the Humanities Division.^[9]

Kenney first gained widespread attention with the award-winning novel In Another Country (Viking Hardcover, Penguin Contemporary Authors paperback), which consists of six interwoven stories chronicling the life of Sara Boyd and her family.^[14] The novel explores Boyd’s experiences of loss and crisis, including the sudden death of her father, her mother’s recurring mental breakdowns, and her husband’s life-threatening illness.^[15] The work was honored with the Quality Paperback Book Club New Voices Award and has appeared in multiple editions, including hardcover, paperback, large print, and book club editions.^[3] She continued the Boyd family story in the sequel Sailing, which follows Sara^[2] and her husband Phil as they confront successive crises, highlighting contrasting responses to fear and adversity and exploring themes of perseverance, hope, and emotional endurance.^[16] Kenney also authored the novella Escape^[13], which examines Sara’s teenage years and her understanding of her mother’s past, providing a narrative bridge to the events depicted in In Another Country.^[3]

In addition to her literary fiction, Kenney has established a reputation in mystery fiction with the Roz Howard/Alan Stewart series.^[17] The series begins with Garden of Malice^[18], in which English professor Roz Howard investigates a series of sabotages and potential murders on the estate of Lady Viola Montfort-Snow, navigating the eccentricities of residents and dangerous botanical knowledge.^[19] The second installment, Graves in Academe, depicts Roz confronting a serial killer at Canterbury College whose murders parallel events in literature, blending academic scholarship with suspenseful investigation.^[20] The third book, One Fell Sloop, follows Roz and Alan Stewart as they encounter a suspicious death while sailing off the coast of Maine, engaging in a complex “locked-room” style mystery.^[21] Kenney also published the shorter mystery Aunt Agatha Leaving, in which Roz solves a decades-old case during a sailing excursion, reviewed as the most popular work in Goodreads. The Roz Howard series was initially published in hardcover and paperback editions, and though these titles are now out of print all of them can be found online.^[17]

Kenney has also contributed non-fiction works to several anthologies, including “Fragments: A Portrait of My Father” memoir reconstructing her father’s life up to age 48, from photographs, letters, and other surviving artifacts following his sudden death, published in Carolyn Anthony’s Family Portraits: Remembrances by Twenty Distinguished Writers.^[22]

For decades, Kenney also wrote reviews and essays for The New York Times Book Review^[23], Newsday, Down East Magazine, the Boston Globe and others, covering genres from books for children books to fiction and non-fiction by contemporary authors, contributing to literary discourse.^[9]

Her longer fiction has been reviewed in national press outlets; for example, In Another Country received attention in the Must Reads section of Time Magazine, highlighting the emotional depth and interconnected narrative structure of her work.^[24]

She has served as a judge for nation wide writing contests such as the National Book Awards, judged entries alongside other award‑winning authors, and helped  to encourage young writers throughout the state.^[3]

Kenney was married in 1964 to Edwin J. Kenney, Jr, a Professor of English at Colby College until his death in 1992.  The couple had two children, a son and a daughter.^[25] She later married Anthony J. Corrado, a retired professor of government at Colby College. The couple resides in central Maine, where Kenney continues to write and engage in literary activities.^[26]

• Woodrow Wilson Fellowship^[1] 

• J. Scott Clark Creative Writing Prize 1962^[9]
•  O. Henry Award: First Prize Story for "Facing Front" 1982^[27]
• National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Creative Writing, 1983–1984^[28]
• New Voice Literary Award, In Another Country,1985^[3]
• ALN Notable Books of the Year, for In Another Country, 1985^[29]
• New York Times Notable Paperback of the Year, for Sailing 1989^[30]
• Escape, a Novella” special Mention in Pushcart Prize Awards 2005^[9]

• Garden of Malice. Penguin Group USA. 1992. ISBN 978-0-14-016966-9.
• Graves in Academe. Penguin Books. 1986. ISBN 978-0-14-009386-5.
• One Fell Sloop. Viking. 1990. ISBN 978-0-670-83537-9.

• In Another Country. Penguin Books. 1985. ISBN 978-0-14-007407-9.
• Sailing. Viking. 1988. ISBN 978-0-670-81229-5.

• Wesley McNair, ed. (2005). "The Death of the Dog and Other Rescues". Contemporary Maine fiction: an anthology of short stories. Down East Enterprise Inc. ISBN 978-0-89272-693-6.