About

Susan M. Gaines is the author of the novels ACCIDENTALS and CARBON DREAMS, and of the science book ECHOES OF LIFE. Her stories and essays have appeared in the North American Review, Missouri Review, Gettysburg Review, Nature, Best of the West, and other anthologies, and they have been nominated for two Pushcart Prizes. Gaines holds degrees in chemistry and oceanography and is the recipient of the 2018 Suffrage Science Award and of an Art in Science Fellowship at the Hanse Institute for Advanced Study for her writing about science. Raised in California, Gaines has spent much of her adult life in South America and Europe. Currently, she divides her time between Santa Cruz, CA and Bremen, Germany, where she was one of the founders of the Fiction Meets Science program.

Other Works

  • Carbon Dreams

    2022 New Edition
  • Under the Literary Microscope: Science and Society in the Contemporary Novel

    2021
  • Echoes of Life: What Fossil Molecules Reveal about Earth History

    2009
  • Carbon Dreams

    2001

Awards and Recognition

  • Suffrage Science Award, 2018
  • Art-in-Science Fellowship, Hanse Institute for Advanced Study
  • Pushcart Prize nominations, 1991, 1996