Susan owes her existence to the convergence of two strong lines of women of diverse socio-economic backgrounds: one, a working single mother of modest origins and unlimited love of family; the other flew small planes and met Amelia Earhart on a Chicago airfield. Her own mother returned to journalism after raising her kids, serving as a stringer for the NYT for years. Susan appreciates her mother’s insistence on proper grammar much more now than when she was younger.

Susan’s dream of becoming Perry Mason never materialized, although she did manage to emulate his physique. After briefly working at a firm, she practiced mostly environmental law, serving in two State Attorneys General and one County Attorney Office, as well as the Department of Justice.

She also wrote for a national biweekly criminal law publication. As the unofficial science writer, she interviewed forensic experts in many fields and created a short ballistic evidence guide for lawyers. During another period, she taught ESL and Legal Writing to adult learners at two community colleges, true labors of love from which she learned much more than she taught.

Since 2016, she’s been fully immersed in her creative side, first earning an Acting Diploma from The National Conservancy of Dramatic Arts in DC, followed by an MFA in Writing from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. Working on her first writing assignment—making a list of books which most impacted her life—she was surprised to find inscriptions from her late mother encouraging her to be a writer. One was dated after she was already in law school, shattering a long held belief that her mother had wanted her to be a lawyer. She is now happily doing what she wanted to do all along. When not writing or reading, she is an avid (though unskilled) bird and nature watcher from which she draws inspiration for all aspects of her life.

Susan earned a B.A. from Brown University and her J.D. from Case Western Reserve University. Her MFA (Writing - Mixed Genre) is from the Vermont College of Fine Arts.