Susan Beckham Zurenda taught English for 33 years on the college level and at the high school level to both AP and at-need students . Her debut novel, Bells for Eli (Mercer University Press, March 2020; paperback edition March 2021), has been selected the Gold Medal (first place) winner for Best First Book—Fiction in the 2021 IPPY (Independent Publisher Book Awards), a Foreword Indie Book Award finalist, a Winter 2020 Okra Pick by the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance, a 2020 Notable Indie on Shelf Unbound, a 2020 finalist for American Book Fest Best Book Awards, and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize for 2021. Susan has won numerous awards for her short fiction, including winning the South Carolina Fiction Prize twice. Her second novel, The Girl From the Red Rose Motel, published September 5, 2023, by Mercer University Press, has been chosen a finalist in the American Book Fest Awards, a Shelf Unbound Notable Indie 100, was highlighted in Kirkus Magazine, and nominated for a Pushcart Prize. The author lives in Sparta