About Susan
AS A KID, I had no idea I wanted to be a writer, although there were plenty of clues along the way. The first clue is this: I loved words. I loved to read. I was hungry for stories.
The second clue is that my liver burned with envy when my older brother was given a green leather-bound diary with a small gold lock and tiny gold key. I was in third grade and longed for a diary of my own. Inspired by Harriet the Spy, I began to keep a secret notebook. I scribbled notes and conversations and thoughts and feelings and dreams.
Throughout high school, I kept my secret notebook. I still didn’t know I wanted to be a writer, despite another clue. In 11th grade, I learned how to write a research paper. (My topic was Eugene O’Neill’s play, A Long Day’s Journey Into Night.) I loved every step of the research and writing process. The research paper was a lesson that has served me well to this day.
At the end of 11th grade, I left high school to attend college. I LOVED college. Each semester I filled my schedule with literature classes. One semester I took a creative writing class and wrote short stories and poetry. (One of my favorite texts, assigned by one of my favorite professors was Rainer Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet.) Another semester I interned as a journalist at a local newspaper. But did I know that I wanted to be a writer? No. I hadn’t yet made the three important discoveries that every writer needs to make.
Within days of college graduation, I was offered a job teaching eighth-grade English. I said yes. Over the years, it felt good to see my students grow as writers. All this while, I was still scribbling in my journal. But now I began to think that maybe, just maybe, I should write poems and stories, too. I joined a writing group and got serious.
After eighteen years, I left the 8th grade classroom. By then I had sold a poem, several short stories, two picture books, one nonfiction book and was working on a novel. I began to dream: Could I make it as a full-time writer? A friend said, “Leap and the net will appear.” And so I leapt — right back to grad school where I earned a Ph.D in English.
And then I leapt again. At last I was a full-time writer.
My journey as a writer is the story of living the questions, as Rainer Rilke advises in Letters to a Young Poet. It’s the story of a curious mind, a mind that asks, “What if?” and “What was?” and “Why?”
It’s the story of taking the time to write. Each day, I begin by scribbling in my journal. Just as I did as a kid, I scribble notes and conversations and thoughts and feelings and dreams. I also try out story ideas. I carry a small notebook and jot notes wherever I go.
It’s the story of rejection letters. Each rejection spurred me on, telling me to dig in, to learn more about the craft, to learn more about revising, to read more, to write more, to dream more.
It’s the story of much more than I say here.
