Susan Elizabeth McClelland was born in Toronto and spent part of her childhood in England. Her grandfather, a businessman; grandmother, an avid reader; her mother, a professional musician; and her father, a physical-organic chemistry professor at the University Toronto and fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, exposed Susan to traveling, politics and social issues at a young age. Despite growing up surrounded by an eclectic bunch of scientists, academics, writers and artists, it was a high school world issues class that turned Susan's attention toward becoming a journalist. A lecture on multinational companies encouraging mothers in developing countries to use concentrated milk products instead of breast-feeding their own babies, sparked in Susan the lifelong passion of giving a voice to the voiceless.

Susan went on to receive an honour's degree in political science from McMaster University, with a minor in peace studies. Her particular interest was Central American politics and liberation movements. Always drawn to children, Susan worked at the Children's International Learning Centre, a project partially funded by UNICEF Canada. The year she graduated from McMaster, Susan received a Week of the Child certificate of honour from the city of Hamilton for her work with children and the centre.

In 1998, Susan received a master's of arts in communications, specializing in print journalism from the University of Miami. She attended the university on a scholarship, and while there, Susan wrote for the Miami Herald and interned at the New York Times Florida, Caribbean and Central American bureau. Susan graduated from the University of Miami at the top of her class. She also was the only student in her program to have her work published in every issue of the Miami Herald's Neighbor's section.

Also while in Miami, Susan landed her first investigative reporting story. A Canadian consul representative introduced her to several Canadian women serving federal prison sentences for smuggling cocaine from Jamaica into the United States. A series Susan wrote on this topic was published in The Ottawa Citizen. Susan subsequently received her first investigative award from the Society of Professional Journalists (US).

After a brief stint at The Ottawa Citizen, Susan went on to Maclean's, Canada's weekly news-magazine. There she began to distinguish herself as both an investigative and lifestyles reporter. Her first investigative story at Maclean's looked at the exotic wildlife trade in North America and was nominated for a National Magazine Award. At Maclean's, Susan generated approximately 90 per cent of her own story ideas. Among other things, she was one of the first journalists to write about the trafficking of Asian and Eastern European women into North America as prostitutes and the child sex trade in Cambodia, which garnered Susan her first Canadian Association of Journalists investigative reporting award.

Susan also wrote numerous stories at Maclean's on the lifestyles of women and children. Her repertoire ranged from stories on swing clubs to child poverty in Canada; the importance of dads to UFO phenomenon in Canada; the impact of war on children to the plight of Sudanese slaves; straight edge youth culture to children conceived through sperm donation. The latter, a Maclean's cover story, was copied nearly verbatim by CBS' 60 Minutes.

As a freelancer, she has been published in Chatelaine, Canadian Family, Canadian Living, Elle, Reader's Digest, Toronto Life, the Globe and Mail, Best Health and the Walrus.

A story Susan wrote for the Walrus on Filipino domestic workers in Canada, examining the Canadian government's Live-In Caregiver Program and the Philippines labour-export policies, won the prestigious Amnesty International Media Award for Canada in 2005.

Susan's first documentary film with Peter Dale and Les Stroud, Discovery USA's Survivorman, is in post-production. She is currently co-producing her second film, The Children Time Forgot, with Sorious Samura and Ron McCullagh. The film looks at the plight of the child victims of Sierra Leone's war.

Susan has also taught magazine journalism at Centennial College. In 2007, the college implemented an investigative reporting course Susan designed. She also authored a chapter in the university and college-aged textbook, The Bigger Picture-Elements of Feature Writing.

Bite of the Mango is her first book.

Her hobbies include cooking, photography, hiking, reading and music. Most of all, though, Susan likes being surrounded by water, boating, sailing, kayaking, swimming. She loves traveling, particularly to places off the beaten track where she inevitably finds new and interesting stories and meets new and interesting people, all with a story of their own to share.