Susan Mackey is an independent art writer and curator. She earned a Bachelor’s degree in art history and women’s studies from Appalachian State University (2013) and a Master’s degree in art history, theory, & criticism from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2019). Her graduate thesis, Dreams of the South, mobilized critical race theory and contemporary photography in order to (re)interpret the plantation photographs of Clarence John Laughlin. Mackey is Burnaway magazine’s Editor-at-Large for the Carolinas. She lives in Charlotte, NC with her partner and their two cats.