Suzanne Scanlon is an American writer of fiction and memoir. She was born and raised in Aurora, Illinois in 1971. Her father, a doctor, and her mother, a nurse, were born and raised Irish Catholic in Chicago.

She attended Barnard College where she studied theater and literature. For many years, she worked as an actress, until leaving New York to move to Central Illinois to study creative writing with David Foster Wallace and others at Illinois State University. She later received an MFA in creative writing from Northwestern University.

Her debut novel, Promising Young Women, was well received and recently translated into French.

Her second book, Her 37th Year, an Index, began as a short story which won The Iowa Review award for short fiction. She expanded the story into a novel, published in 2015. It was also well received and translated into Swedish. Both books deal with mental illness and feature a woman protagonist considering life after institutionalization, among other themes.

Scanlon has also contributed to anthologies such as A Kind of Compass: Stories on Distance, edited by Belinda McKeon and put out by Tramp Press in Ireland. She’s written for The Guardian, Granta, The Believer, Fence, Lit Hub, and others.

In 2024, Scanlon published her first work of nonfiction, a memoir, Committed: On Meaning and Madwomen. The book was named a Best Book of the Year The New Yorker, Vox, LitHub, NYLON, Bustle, and The Millions. A Korean translation is forthcoming.

Suzanne Scanlon lives in Chicago with her husband and son. She teaches creative writing at the School of the Art Institute.