About Susan

Hi, I’m Sue

People ask me all the time how I can write so many books, so fast.  My answer is –  “I have no idea.”

The truth is, my writing ability started a long time ago, when I first became aware that I didn’t talk like the other kids. I had a lisp. For a child named Susan, or Thuthan as I pronounced it, that was a big problem. Whenever I said my name, the kids laughed their heads off. The problem only got worse when I started school. As soon as we learned to read, the nuns would make us stand up and read a paragraph at a time. When it was my turn, I would say things like, “Onth upon a time,” and the whole class would erupt in snickers. I would feel so ashamed that I would blush, then blush for having blushed. In other words, by the tender age of seven, I was already a trainwreck.

And then I learned to write. It was magical. When I wrote the word T-R-E-E, it meant that green thing on the front lawn. B-I-R-D meant the birds that flew in and out of the tree. L-E-A-V-E-S meant the leaves that fell off every fall (and we had to rake if we wanted our allowance). My little mind put two and two together. “I can make this paper talk,” I told myself. “And it doesn’t have a lisp.”

For the first time in my life, I had found a way to communicate without a lisp and I couldn’t stop “talking”! I would tell people off on paper, “paint pictures” on paper (what I later learned is called fiction), talk to Jesus on paper, and once even invited the Blessed Mother to appear to me on my twelfth birthday (she declined). Needless to say, by the time I grew out of my embarrassing lisp, writing was as natural to me as brushing my teeth (only a lot more fun).

Needless to say, I’ve never had a problem writing stories. My problem is in not writing stories.

But that doesn’t mean I took my writing abilities it for granted. From my earliest days, I always believed writing was a gift from God. Even during my years away from the Church, I would joke to my friends, “Writing for me is like one long Communion with God” (even though I hadn’t been to Communion in years.)

At the age of 23, I read a novel by John Jakes and said to myself, “I can write something like this,” then sat down and taught myself how to write fiction. That’s when I realized that writing could actually be a profession, and even though I never took a single college-level course in writing, I was convinced that this was my calling, my destiny. For 14 years, I cranked out novel after novel, managed to find an editor, and then an agent. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get a single line published. Deep down inside, I started to turn against God, thinking He was doing this to punish me for not practicing the faith. He knew I had a profound connection to writing and that nothing else would ever feel as “right” as writing, “so why are you torturing me with these dead-end jobs instead of letting me do what I do best – write?” I would rage at Him.

One night, after my husband left me, I lost my job, and my agent turned down yet another novel, I sat on the floor of my study to consider the least painful methods of suicide. At one point, I shook my fist at heaven and said, “Hey God! Are you for real? Because if you are, why don’t you help me? If you won’t let me get published, then kill me.” (How’s that for a drama queen?)

I avoided windows during thunderstorms for a while after that night, convinced I was about to be struck by lightning for lipping off to God, but this event kicked off a series of very strange “God-incidents” which I document in my conversion story, “We Need to Talk: God Speaks to a Modern Girl.” Three months after that angry confrontation with God, I had my first book contract- from Harper Collins!  I just knew in my heart of hearts, that He did this for me. I was so convinced, in fact, that I went to my parents’ house and told this story to my mom. She listened very carefully, then said in a very serious, very direct tone of voice, “Susie, don’t ever tell this to anyone else.” On any other occasion the remark would have made me shrink in shame, but not that night. Instead of striking me with lightning, God made the biggest dream of my life come true. I was so overcome with gratitude I sobbed until I could hardly breathe.

From that day forward, if God had a little finger, I was wrapped around it.

Seventeen books later, I’m still at it, and I fully expect to continue to “make the paper talk” in ways that will intrigue the mind, lift the heart, and inspire the soul with the wonders of life and the glories of love everlasting.