SUSAN EMSHWILLER was raised in Levittown on Long Island, N.Y., by writer Carol Emshwiller and sci-fi illustrator, avant-guard filmmaker Ed Emshwiller.

 Susan got her BFA from Syracuse University in painting and printmaking, then switched to film and got her Masters from California Institute of the Arts where she studied under Alexander Mackendrick (Man in the White Suit, Sweet Smell of Success).  She has had a career, her “day job”, for many years as set decorator, working with David Mamet, Michael Apted, Graeme Clifford, and notably working with Robert Altman on The Player, (in which she is a featured actress) Short Cuts, Kansas City, and Cookie's Fortune.

Decorating movies, she found herself having fun, making money, being creative, traveling on locations around the world, and suddenly --- SCREECH, she put heels to the gravel and skidded to a stop.  

“Wait a minute!  This isn’t what I want to do!” 

She immediately picked a date, lined up a crew and equipment, and backed herself into a corner to make a film.   And it was bliss.   Breakfast Messages won numerous festival awards and was shown on Z channel and A&E.

Wanting to continue writing and directing without film’s expense, Susan joined the MET Theater and was part of the workshop for several years.   She has written and directed several plays including critically acclaimed and award winning "Brush Stokes", based on paintings of Edward Hopper. 

While continuing to write spec scripts and scripts for herself to direct, she has written scripts-for-hire including screenplays for Amy Madigan, Bill Pullman, and co-written the Academy Award winning film Pollock for actor/director Ed Harris. Her comic/thriller The Furnace won the Hollywood Gateway Screenplay Contest Grand Prize.