Susan Shillinglaw is Director of the National Steinbeck Center in Salinas, California. She is also a Professor of English at San Jose State University, where she was Director of the University’s Center for Steinbeck Studies for 18 years and also the 2012-13 President’s Scholar. For the past 29 years she has been a scholar and a student of John Steinbeck’s work, speaking frequently on the author’s impact and relevance.

Dr. Shillinglaw has published widely on Steinbeck, most recently Carol and John Steinbeck: Portrait of a Marriage (University of Nevada Press, 2013) and On Reading The Grapes of Wrath (Penguin, 2014) as well as A Journey into Steinbeck’s California (2006; 2011). She also wrote introductions to several of Steinbeck books for Penguin New American Library editions of Cannery Row, Of Mice and Men, A Russian Journal and The Winter of Our Discontent. Other publications include collections of scholarly essays (i.e. Steinbeck and the Environment, 1997) as well as an edition of Steinbeck’s journalism, America and Americas and Selected Nonfiction (2002).