Susan Firer’s sixth and most recent book, The Transit of Venus, was named as an "Outstanding Work of Poetry” by the Wisconsin Library Association. Her previous books have been awarded the Cleveland State University Poetry Center Prize, the Posner Award, and the Backwaters Prize. She is a recipient of a Milwaukee County Artist Fellowship, a Wisconsin Board Fellowship, and the Lorine Niedecker Award. She is a recipient of the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee Distinguished Alumnus Award and an NEA Creative Writing Fellowship in Poetry.
Her poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Sunday Magazine, Ms. (Magazine), Chicago Tribune, Chicago Review, jubilat, Georgia Review, The Iowa Review, New American Writing, and in numerous anthologies. The University of Nebraska Press will be reissuing her fourth book,The Laugh We Make When We Fall, in 2021.