Susan Bywaters is a poet, librettist, and writer based in New York City. Her most recent libretti, including Threesome with Angela Yang (Boston Opera Collaborative), An ending with Samuel Beebe (Strange Trace), The Windows with Elizabeth Gartman (Guerilla Opera), Daughter of God with Christopher Bell (LOAM), and My Wife is a Ghost (in collaboration with the Bard College Composition program in an initiative led by Missy Mazzoli) have been commissioned by companies and schools across the US. Her darkly comedic opera It is a Comfort to Know, composed by Elizabeth Gartman, was a runner-up in the Beth Morrison Projects Next Gen in 2022; this is following the success of their prior collaboration on [Weight], featured in Beth Morrison Projects Next Generation in May of 2021 and the recipient of the William Schuman Award for Most Outstanding Score from BMI Foundation in the same year. In 2026, she was named the recipient of the Lotos Foundation Prize in the Arts and Sciences for her work as a librettist. Also a playwright, poet, and prose writer, Susan has collaborated on over fifteen art songs and chamber works, and is writing a collaborative experimental memoir titled The Long Shadows with the women in her family.