Susan Shillinglaw

Susan Shillinglaw is a Professor of English at San Jose State University, Scholar-in-Residence at the National Steinbeck Center in Salinas and a visiting instructor in Holistic Biology. For the past 18 years, she has taught Steinbeck courses, edited a Steinbeck journal and published on Steinbeck—her children complain that she can turn any conversation around to John Steinbeck, man or his work. Her keen interest in all things Steinbeckian shapes her new book, A Journey into Steinbeck’s California, which examines the impact of place on Steinbeck’s creative vision.

She has published many essays on Steinbeck as well as introductions to Of Mice and Men, Cannery Row, and A Russian Journal for the Penguin New American Library. She is currently working on a new introduction to The Winter of Our Discontent, one of Steinbeck’s most problematic texts (and inspired by an early 1960’s quiz show scandal). She is also working on a short biography of Steinbeck and another on his first wife, the feisty and creative Carol Henning Steinbeck.

Professor Shillinglaw was born in Iowa , grew up in Colorado, graduated from Cornell College in Iowa, and received her PhD at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. Her first job was in Buffalo, New York , and she has been in California since 1984. In 2003, 30 years after graduating from Cornell College , she was recognized as the "distinguished undergraduate" from her class—her most meaningful award.