Susan Neunzig Cahill
Writer and editor Susan Cahill has published twenty books since the best-selling The Urban Reader appeared in 1970. After that first collection, widely adopted in colleges and universities for the next 13 years, she edited many anthologies of writing by and about women, rated “superb,” “powerful and empowering,” “illuminating,” and “brilliant” by reviewers, writers, teachers, students. The highly praised Women and Fiction collection is now a Signet Classic.
Her first novel, Earth Angels, an evocation of Catholic girlhood in the ‘50s and ’60s, received excellent reviews – “rare and wonderful”. . .“funny and feisty”. . .“a perfect story and completely satisfying experience” according to The New York Times. After traveling and living in Ireland, Cahill, with her husband Thomas Cahill (How The Irish Saved Civilization), wrote A Literary Guide To Ireland, rated the best guide to the Ireland of the writers ever published: “the most delightful book of the year,” for one reviewer in 1973.
Cahill’s academic career includes many years of teaching in the English departments of Queens College, CUNY, and Fordham University where she earned a doctorate in English and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. While writing her dissertation (Wo“Passions of Memory: Religious Experience in Multicultural Women Writers’ Autobiography since 1945”), she edited the acclaimed collection Wise Women: 2000 Years of Spiritual Writing By Women.
Her most recent publications – The Streets of Paris (June, 2017) and Hidden Gardens of Paris (2012) focus on the beauty and layers of history in the City of Light. Other travel guides / literary anthologies include Desiring Italy: Women Writers Celebrate A Country and Culture; For The Love of Ireland: A Literary Companion for Readers and Travelers; and The Smiles of Rome, praised by Richard Woodward’s “Armchair Traveler” column in The New York Times as “original,” “fascinating,” “a fine job.”
Works in progress include books about Paris and New York City.
Susan Cahill lives in New York City with her husband, Thomas Cahill, the author of the Hinges of History series. Their children, Kristin and Joseph, live in New York City and Paris.
