I grew up on small family farms in Sullivan County, Tennessee, and McDowell County, North Carolina, as the daughter of public school teachers and the granddaughter and grandniece of educators, homemakers, farmers, and furniture builders. I've had a love of books, words, family, place, nature, and the interconnectedness of life from an early age. 

I retired in May 2023 as Professor of English and the Director of the Creative Writing Program, after 33 years of teaching at Carson-Newman University, in East Tennessee, at the foothills of the Smoky Mountains. My particular areas of expertise were poetry, Appalachian literature, and contemporary American poetry and literature. After extensive study of piano performance as a teenager, I earned my BA in Photography from Carson-Newman College, where I was the editor of the college's student literary journal. I earned my MFA in Creative Writing/Poetry from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where I studied under Fred Chappell and Robert Watson. I earned my PhD in English (American literature and Poetry emphasis) from Florida State University.

I am a poet and a writer of fiction. My latest poetry collection, SPLINTER, was published in 2023 by Madville Publishing. Iris Press published my poetry collection, THE BOOK OF AWE, in 2018. I also have two published chapbooks of poetry; FROM (2010) and LOVE AND OTHER HUNGERS (2014). In 2004 I won the Tennessee Arts Commission Literary Grant for GENESIS ROAD, a novel which I later revised and published with Madville Publishing in 2022. Kirkus Reviews gave GENISIS ROAD a glowing “starred review.” I continue to write poetry and short fiction, and I have enjoyed having my work published in a wide variety of publications and venues (see the Publication Record section of this web site). From 2013 to 2015 I was a frequent poetry guest of the recurring live radio broadcast show, "Tennessee Shines," on WDVX, in Knoxville, which continues to occasionally replay the archived reading of my long rant poem, Holler. I have given many public poetry readings in dozens of venues and locations, and welcome the opportunity to share my work with new audiences.

I live in Jefferson City, Tennessee, with my husband, David Underwood, a visual artist and Professor of Art at Carson-Newman University. Together we have traveled extensively throughout the United States, and have also done some limited travel in Canada and Europe. We've visited more than 150 of the National Parks and Monuments in the USA, and are avid supporters of our National Park system. In the summer of 2014 my husband and I together founded a new small publishing company, Sapling Grove Press, with the goal of publishing a small number of intriguing books of Appalachian literature and art, and as serving as a facilitator for promoting the varied and rich positive culture of the region. After publishing a handful of quality books, we decided to put Sapling Grove Press on hold (maybe forever?) in late 2023, to pursue our own individual writing and art making pursuits.

I am honored to have this “starred review” of my novel, GENESIS ROAD, on Kirkus Reviews:

GENESIS ROAD

BY SUSAN O'DELL UNDERWOOD ‧ RELEASE DATE: JUNE 21, 2022

“A novel explores whether a road trip across America with a gay friend will put a troubled woman’s life back together.

Glenna Daniels’ life is a big mess. Twice married and with a third divorce pending, she has a miscarriage after trying hard to get pregnant. Then her father—and what a piece of work he is—accidentally burns her house down and perishes in the fire. Desperate, she gets in touch with her old friend Carey, a gay history professor. She is in Eastern Tennessee; he is in Atlanta. They met in the third grade and became fast friends and allies. Off they go on a road trip to the West Coast and back. Carey is carrying his own grief: His husband, Stan, died a couple of years ago. What follows is a travelogue (Yosemite, Yellowstone, Canyon de Chelly, the Gateway Arch) with wide-ranging commentary. They visit gay friends of Carey’s in San Francisco. Along the way, Glenna tortures herself with the secret of the miscarriage, which she finally confesses to Carey, allowing her healing to begin. Glenna and Carey start searching for happiness, and the details of their journey are both intriguing and believable. Underwood is a first-rate writer with a collection of poetry, The Book of Awe(2018), to her credit. One mark of a superb novelist is a dogged digging into characters and events, seeing things from all sides. In short, she is thoughtful and not afraid to spend four or five pages on an important scene, which she does time and again. And she gives readers arresting phrases, such as “the brain’s hot little terrarium of regret” and “Carey pushed out of the tent like a hatchling.” In fact, she has a poet’s love for words and the grounding of a moralist without being oppressively moralistic. The audience will find Glenna and Carey immensely appealing and will be convinced that they will remain lifelong pals.

A luminous tale of friendship; readers will be excited to travel with these complex characters.”

— Kirkus Reviews