Oct 1, 2019
At
eight months old, after being born in Hollywood, Susan was brought
to her mother’s burnt homestead cabin in Pipes Canyon. The family
first lived under the stars and later in an Army tent.
Susan
was raised in upper Pipes Canyon – in what is known today at the
Wildlands Conservancy. She attended a one-room schoolhouse,
collected bottles for coins from Hollywood cowboys in Pioneertown and set pins at the
original bowling alley
there.
Walking from school, Susan would walk through
the movie sets of Gene Autry and Roy Rogers, though the excitement
was lost on her as she watched them doing the same thing over and
over. Sometimes she’d ride her pony to and from
school.
Susan
tells us about the community that at that time included the Golden
Stallion Chinese restaurant (9:21), the Red Dog, the Hollywood
influence and the rodeo grounds.
By the
time she was 23, Susan had five kids and was still running around
the desert barefoot, even on the campus of College of the Desert in
Palm Desert and UC Riverside – it was the late 60’s and early
70’s. In those years
she’d read Tolstoy, Freud and Dostoyevsky and though she felt a
kindred spirit with these authors, because all of them were men,
the thought of being a writer herself didn't come until later.
Looking back, Susan believes writing was in her blood as her mother
wrote a column for the Pioneertown paper and Susan’s sister has
also written a book.
On her
way to a mid-term just before graduation, Susan was in a car
accident, which left her unconscious for 30 days . Her sister
arranged with Susan’s professors to give her incompletes and she
was able to graduate later, after writing one essay. In the midst
of this, her husband left her.
These
days, Prescott, Arizona is home for Susan where she founded and
directed the Southwest Writers Series and the Hassayampa Institute
for Creative Writing at Yavapai College. Currently, Susan is
Faculty Emerita at Yavapai College, teaches courses at Prescott
College, and serves as Event Coordinator at the Peregrine Book
Company in Prescott, Arizona.
Susan still has ties to the Pipes Canyon area,
visiting her brother who still lives in Pioneertown.
This
month (October 2019) Susan will be reading and selling her books at
the following venues in the Morongo Basin:
October 4 at 7 p.m. at Black Rock Nature
Center, Yucca Valley
October 5 at 4 p.m. at the Sun Alley Stage near
Space Cowboy Books
Monday, October 7 at 7 p.m. at Kip's Desert Book
Club at The Palms Wonder Valley
You
can find Susan's books here.
Or, visit Susan's website
here.