The daughter of Louis K. Diamond. Susan Diamond, meanwhile, had graduated from Radcliffe College and gone on to obtain a master's from the University of Iowa as a Writers Workshop fellow. But she decided against fiction. After teaching a few years at Iowa and Brandeis University, she headed to New York, where she freelanced for the Village Voice, among others, and became an editor at the New Yorker. In 1967, she followed her brother to Los Angeles, where she too became smit- ten by the city. "Los Angeles is the most intellectually, culturally and socially stimula- ting place I've ever been to", she said. In 1976, Susan Diamond joined The Times and in 1981 began writing about consumer scams and unfair practices in a weekly co- lumn called "For What It's Worth". "She's always been keen about righting the scales of justice", said Phyllis Eliasberg, a former reporter at CBS-owned KCAL-TV, Channel 9. Susan's column became a must read for many businesspeople, including those at the California Trial Lawyers Assn., which honored her with its annual award. "There's nothing more satisfying than writing about cases that come to judgment", Susan said. Her years of nonfiction work on financial, legal and tax matters are now being synthesized into her fictional work. About the only thing she regrets about her new direction so far is that she agreed to change her pen name from serious old S.J. to the more reader-friendly Susan: "After al these years, I hardly know her now"