Susan Isaacs

Susan Isaacs (born December 7, 1943) is an American novelist and screenwriter. She was born in Brooklyn, New York, educated at Queens College, and worked as a senior editor at Seventeen magazine. She married Elkan Abramowitz, a lawyer, in 1968 and in 1970 left work to stay at home with her newborn son, Andrew. Three years later, in 1973, she gave birth to her daughter Elizabeth. She freelanced during this time, writing political speeches and magazine articles. She now lives on Long Island with her husband.

Her first novel, Compromising Positions, was published in 1978. It was chosen as a main selection of the Book of the Month Club and was, like all of her subsequent novels, a New York Times bestseller. Her fiction has been translated into thirty different languages all over the world. In 1985, she adapted her own novel for the screenplay of the film Compromising Positions, which starred Susan Sarandon and Raul Julia. She wrote and co-produced Touchstone Pictures’ Hello Again, a 1987 comedy starring Shelley Long and Judith Ivey. In addition to writing books, essays, and screenplays, Isaacs has reviewed books for The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, and Newsday. Isaacs has also written about politics and First Amendment issues.

Isaacs serves as a chairman on the board of Poets & Writers and is a past president of the Mystery Writers of America. She is a member of The Creative Coalition, National Book Critics Circle, PEN, the International Association of Crime Writers, the American Society of Journalists and Authors, and the Adams Round Table. She sits on the boards of the Walt Whitman Birthplace Association, the Queens College Foundation, the North Shore Child and Family Guidance Association, and the Nassau County Coalition Against Domestic Violence.