Susan R. Matthews was born in a barracks in Fort Benning in the middle of a windstorm whose chaos has characterized her life ever since, most of which has occurred while she was paying attention to something else. She has been most recently seen in science fiction and murder mystery anthologies; her next Koscuisko novel, Warring States (whose protagonist would almost certainly have been Sorted into Slytherin the moment he set foot to flagstone at Hogwarts), is due out from independent publisher Meisha Merlin in January 2006.

Susan lives in Seattle, with her partner Maggie and two Pomeranian doggies. She has yet to quit her day job at the Boeing Company where she enjoys a regular paycheck, health benefits and other Muggle perks, and is convinced that the reason that You-Know-Who is determined that nobody kills Harry Potter but him is that Harry Potter is the final Horcrux.