susan taylor chehak
PublicationsAs Kathryn Dow
“Dow’s ambitiously imaginative debut novel questions the very nature of reality… [a] diverting exploration of metaphysical concepts. Winsome and smartly playful.” —Kirkus Reviews
When her father bumps his head and collapses, in Linwood, Iowa; June, 2006, Alma doesn't know what to do. And then she does.
Fiction
Mouse Wendler's account of her father's disappearance in Linwood, Iowa, June 2006.
"Chehak's prose provides a seamless, calm flow to a novel whose elements of love and murder ripple enticingly, fully surfacing only gently, only eventually, in the most satisfying kind of storytelling." -Booklist
"Haunting . . . Clodine Wheeler is the bemused narrator who strings together brilliant beads of descriptive phrases as she sorts through her memories . . . Chehak skillfully depicts small-town meanness and ironic generosity . . . . Her mesmerizing tale has classic resonances." – Publishers Weekly
"A dark tale of obsession among the posh ranks of a midwestern town... Chehak's poetic style exposes the passionate longings beneath the mannered sterling-and-crystal patina of Cedar Hill life; she renders both violence and love with an unflinching eye and casts a mournful spell." -Vogue
"Chehak is a very accomplished storyteller, always in control of her narrative, which moves ahead with grace and speed. But it's not only the plot that matters to this writer. It's the telling little details, particularly of teenage angst and of domestic life that makes the novel rich... SMITHEREENS is a novel fully worthy of the title thriller. It's hard to put down. It has a kind of dark allure." - The Los Angeles Times
“In Susan Taylor Chehak’s skilled hands, Iowa becomes the seething, steamy setting for a tale of pure evil… This is a marvelous, creepy story.” -The Kansas City Star
Short Stories
Now available at Amarillo Bay
Now available at Juked
available online at Folly
available online at
Word Riot
Now available at Guernica Magazine
read it on your Kindle, or your Kindle App
Online Projects
Nonfiction
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Susan Taylor Chehak is a graduate of the University of Iowa Writers Workshop and the author of five novels, including Smithereens, The Story of Annie D., and Harmony. Her short stories have appeared in Folio, Coe Review, Guernica Magazine, and The Adirondack Review, among other places. As her pseudonymous alter-ego, Kathryn Dow, Susan has recently published a new novel: The Great Disappointment, A Confession, as an e-book from Foreverland Press. Kathryn's other ongoing projects include All The Lost Girls a website devoted to exploring the lost girl archetype and the grip her story continues to have on our cultural imagination; In Hollow Hill, where she documents evidence for the existence of goblins in the 60 acres of undeveloped woodland at the edge of Nowhere, in Linwood, Iowa; and The Foreverland Chronicles, where she assists Susan in creating detailed narrative record of Foreverland and its denizens. At present, Kathryn is at work on a new novel, the first in a projected trilogy, about a world in which everyone over the age of 27 has disappeared. Susan is also the driving force behind Foreverland Press, an e-book publisher devoted to bringing back the backlists of fine writers who might have otherwise been overlooked. Other of her online projects include, What Happened To Paula, a collaborative web-based investigation into the as yet unsolved murder of a former schoolmate, and The Truth About Paula O., a blogged memoir of Susan's ongoing 12-year investigation into the Paula Oberbroeckling murder case. Susan has taught fiction writing in the low residency MFA program at Antioch University, Los Angeles, the UCLA Extension Writers' Program, the University of Southern California, and the Summer Writing Festival at the University of Iowa. She grew up in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, has spent a lot of time in Los Angeles, lives occasionally in Toronto, and at present calls Colorado home. |
