Susan K. Perry, Ph.D.

Susan K. Perry, Ph.D. is a writer and social psychologist. After many years as a nonfiction writer, she became curious as to how the best writers accomplish their feats of creativity. With famed flow researcher Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi on her doctoral committee, she interviewed more than 75 best-selling and award-winning novelists and poets, including Jane Smiley, Billy Collins, Robert Olen Butler, Ethan Canin, and Ursula LeGuin. She later turned her dissertation into the Los Angeles Times-bestseller, Writing in Flow: Keys to Enhanced Creativity.

Susan presented a plenary talk on Creating in Flow at the Optimal Functioning Conference in Palm Springs (2000), and she contributed chapters to Faces of the Muse: How People Think, Work, and Act Creatively in Diverse Domains (Erlbaum, 2003) and Psychology of Creative Writing (Cambridge University Press, upcoming).

Among her other popular books are Loving in Flow: How the Happiest Couples Get and Stay That Way and Playing Smart. She has also written hundreds of articles, essays, reviews, and advice columns for publications such as Psychology Today, Los Angeles Magazine, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, and Woman's World, and she has been quoted widely as an expert in national media. She has taught at the UCLA Extension Writers' Program and numerous other venues, including Writers Online Workshops.

Once she realized how much fun novelists have producing their imaginary worlds, she dove into creative writing herself and is currently polishing her first novel. For a change, she dispenses love advice online, reads novels, collects bookmarks, and plays an occasional computer adventure game (the non-shooting kind) with her husband, the poet Stephen Perry.

See Susan's Writing FAQ, her reviews of books on writers, writing, and creativity, or click to find out about her work and availability as a writing consultant.
Her PT blog is Creating in Flow.