Susan Van Kirk was born in Galesburg, Illinois, and received her education at Knox College and the University of Illinois, where she earned a BA in history and an M.Ed in secondary education, respectively. Van Kirk had a long and distinguished career in education, teaching for a total of forty-four years at Monmouth High School and Monmouth College.
Van Kirk's writing career began with a creative nonfiction memoir, "The Education of a Teacher (Including Dirty Books and Pointed Looks)," which was published in 2010. The book is a collection of stories about her teaching experiences, including a notable account of a book challenge in her high school class to a Kurt Vonnegut book. Her first mystery novel, "Three May Keep a Secret," was published in 2014 and marked the beginning of her cozy series, The Endurance Series. The series is set in a small, Midwest town called Endurance and features Grace Kimball, a retired school teacher, as the main character. The series includes "Three May Keep a Secret," "Marry in Haste," "The Locket: From the Casebook of TJ Sweeney," "Death Takes No Bribes," and "The Witch's Child," all of which have been republished by Harlequin Worldwide Mystery.
In addition to The Endurance Series, Van Kirk has also written a standalone mystery, "A Death at Tippitt Pond," and a new series, the Art Center Mysteries. The first book in the series, "Death in a Pale Hue," was published in June 2022, and the second book, "Death in a Bygone Hue," was released in June 2023. Van Kirk is a member of Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime and has served as the past president of the Guppy Chapter, an online chapter of Sisters in Crime. She is represented by Dawn Dowdle of the Blue Ridge Literary Agency.