A surfing teen in Orange County, California, Susan Compo was betrayed by her writer’s nature when friends selected the Beach Boys’ 'In My Room' as her song. Glam and then punk rock further complicated matters, and she published a fanzine, Blank Generation, straight outta quintessentially suburban Tustin. A fleeting turn in the documentary DOA found Susan bubbling like a homecoming queen about the merits of the Sex Pistols’ Tulsa appearance.

During the 1980s and 1990s, Susan moved back and forth between LA and London, writing about music for Spin, Mojo and other magazines, as well as exploring its echoes in her fiction. She also furthered her passion for soccer - Duncan Campbell decried she "almost counts as an honorary Englishwoman as she is probably the only woman novelist in LA fully conversant with English soccer." She wrote for Match of the Day and later FourFourTwo magazine. Other pieces about various oddball subjects have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Independent (UK) and assorted travel and lifestyle publications.

Praise for Compo's fiction has come from Timothy Leary, Hubert Selby, Jr., Alex Cox, Henry Rollins and Pamela Des Barres but her personal favourite occurred when she read with Charles Bukowski in Long Beach, California. "I like you," he offered. "You’re a pretty girl with a dirty mind." Her books touch on the marginal line between fact and fiction. The first collection, Life After Death and Other Stories, featured a tale about a Cure fan that eventually prompted Robert Smith to fret over his fictional fate while reading the story in bed. She has taught writing - both fiction and non - at the University of Southern California and California Institute of the Arts, and is the author of WARREN OATES: A WILD LIFE (University of Kentucky). When asked if she wrote gonzo, she replied, "Never intentionally."

Life After Death and Other Stories (1990)
Malingering (1993)
Pretty Things (2001)
Warren Oates: A Wild Life (2009)