[2]: 287  In 1969 she was selected as a runner-up for the New Writers' Award administered by the monthly literary magazine Shōsetsu Gendai and moved to Tokyo, where she found work as a hostess, nude model, and actor.

The timing of her death is a preoccupation of "The Unfertilized Egg," a short story by Junko Hasegawa, in which the main character, Moriko, who is also thirty-six, is haunted by the fact that Suzuki, Princess Diana and Marilyn Monroe all died at the same age, before their beauty or their powers waned.

In 1975, thanks to an introduction from the science fiction author Taku Mayumura, she published her first sci-fi short story, "Trial Witch," in S-F Magazine.

She had initially met Mayumura when she made an appearance on the late-night television program 11PM in 1970, during which he suggested she try reading science fiction.

"[10] SF critic Nozomi Ōmori, a translator of Ted Chiang and Rudy Rucker, has described her 1982 story "Hey, It's a Love Psychedelic!"

[13] Although her acting career was brief, Suzuki's work was varied, and she appeared in both pink films and on stage, as a member of Tenjō Sajiki, the avant-garde theater troupe co-founded by Shūji Terayama.

In January 1971 the troupe presented "Izumi Suzuki's Avant-Garde Theater Week," during which they staged her plays ある種の予感 A Kind of Premonition and マリィは待っている Marie is Waiting.