Susan Lilley is a Florida native. Her poetry and nonfiction have appeared in American Poetry Review, Gulf Coast, Poet Lore, The Southern Review, Drunken Boat, Saw Palm, Hippocampus, The Florida Review, Sweet, Slipstream, and other journals. Her two chapbooks are Night Windows and Satellite Beach, and she has contributed to The Gloria Sirens blog. She is a past winner of the Rita Dove Poetry Award and has held a State of Florida Individual Arts Fellowship.
Her MFA is from Stonecoast at University of Southern Maine. She has taught at University of Central Florida and Rollins College, and taught literature and writing at Trinity Preparatory School in central Florida. Susan was named the city of Orlando’s first Poet Laureate and served joyfully from 2017-2021. Her most recent collection, Venus in Retrograde, was published by Burrow Press.