Casey, Susan 1962–

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Casey, Susan 1962–

PERSONAL: Born 1962, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

ADDRESSES: Home—New York, NY. Office—Time, Inc., 1271 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020-1393.

CAREER: Editor and writer. Outside magazine, former creative director; Time, Inc., former editor of Sports Illustrated Women, former editor-at-large, currently development editor.

WRITINGS:

The Devil's Teeth: A True Story of Obsession and Survival among America's Great White Sharks, Holt (New York, NY), 2005.

Contributor to periodicals, including Sports Illustrated, Esquire, Time, and Fortune.

SIDELIGHTS: A development editor for Time, Inc., Susan Casey found inspiration for her first book, The Devil's Teeth: A True Story of Obsession and Survival among America's Great White Sharks, not in a magazine assignment, but in watching a British Broadcasting Corporation television documentary. As she related in an interview for the Web site BookBrowse, she "was riveted by the sight of two men in the tiniest boat, surrounded by great white sharks the size of minibuses. The scene was surreal—the jagged, ferocious landscape, the black water, the sheer Hadean ambiance. And then to discover that this alien place was within San Francisco city limits!" This scene led her to the Farallon Islands, twenty-seven miles off the coast of northern California. The ocean around these islands hosts the world's largest and densest population of great white sharks during the autumn months, and provides a natural laboratory for scientists to study this species, about which little is known.

Casey went west in 2003 to discover for herself the world of the great white shark and the biologists of the Great White Shark Project who bravely study it. In her resulting book, "Casey creates compelling portraits of the legendary predators, as well as of the scientists," according to People contributor Heidi Jon Schmidt. Casey's book is filled with information about sharks, the bleak Farallon Islands, and frightening tales involving attempts to tag these watery predators. Casey followed the biologists in their daily routines studying these sharks and became increasingly involved in the project herself. Andrew Johnston, writing in Entertainment Weekly, praised Casey's "skillfully wrought descriptions of nature's inscrutable fury." A Publishers Weekly reviewer also commended the book, writing that Casey's "suspenseful narrative perfectly matches the drama and mystery of these islands, their resident sharks and the scientists who love them."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Entertainment Weekly, June 10, 2005, Andrew Johnston, review of The Devil's Teeth: A True Story of Obsession and Survival among America's Great White Sharks, p. 113.

People, June 20, 2005, Heidi Jon Schmidt, review of The Devil's Teeth, p. 53.

Publishers Weekly, May 23, 2005, review of The Devil's Teeth, p. 71.

Sunset, June, 2005, Katie Tamony, "Backyard Sharks," p. 12, Susan Casey, "The Jagged Edge," p. 28.

Time, October 11, 2004, Susan Casey, "Protecting a Predator," p. 23.