Susan Muaddi Darraj

Susan Muaddi Darraj is an award-winning writer of books for adults and children. She won an American Book Award, two Arab American Book Awards, and a Maryland State Arts Council Independent Artists Award. In 2018, she was named a 2018 USA Artists Ford Fellow. Her novel, Behind You Is the Sea (Harper Collins 2024), follows a community of Palestinian American immigrants in the city of Baltimore. Susan Muaddi Darraj’s previous novel, A Curious Land: Stories from Home, was named the winner of the AWP Grace Paley Prize for Short Fiction. For children, she has written numerous YA biographies, as well as the Farah Rocks chapter book series, the first to feature an Arab American protagonist. Susan lives in Baltimore, Maryland, and teaches English and creative writing at Harford Community College and the Johns Hopkins University.