Susan R. Stoltz :: About Susan

About Susan

We were a normal American family, normal being a relative term of course. My mother was an elementary school teacher as well as a professional violinist. My father was a journalist, teacher and High School Principal. We were average kids growing up in the suburbs of Los Angeles. What precipitated the sudden move to American Samoa my brother, sister and I speculate, but with three children in tow our parents sold the house, put belongings in storage and hopped a plane for a little island in the South Pacific. Neither had ever been there. Everyone told them it was crazy. By average standards it was crazy. We’ve all been a little nuts ever since.

Our adventures overseas would take pages and pages to write about, the beaches, jungles, natives, and the complete freedom as a child. We had lizards and frogs in the house, bush knives and wild horses in the jungle, black sand beaches, pigs roasted underground. I can remember every Sunday morning waking to the smoke rising from the umu’s (underground ovens) to form a haze just over the top of the jungle. The smell of roasting pig and chickens lingered heavy in the damp air. Banana’s hung from the trees. So did papaya and breadfruit. They were there for the taking along with coconuts, taro and sugar cane. I used to walk through the jungle chewing on the stringy pulp of the sweet cane and spitting it as I weaved my way through the narrow paths to the beach. Palms towered above me, Hibiscus and Plumeria bloomed everywhere I looked their fragrance followed me down the path with the sound of the ocean roaring in the near distance. Didn’t every kid grow up this way?

We eventually moved back to the US and ended up in Santa Barbara, CA. The intense immersion in the Fine Arts began and all three of us were submerged in learning instruments, taking voice lessons, acting, singing in choirs, and playing in bands and orchestras. I attended Concordia College in Moorhead, MN and sang in the concert choir under the direction of Paul J. Christensen. After college I was a member of the National Lutheran Choir, the representational choir of the Lutheran Church in America. I excelled in solo work and soon directed several church choirs. My brother became a superb actor and my sister a terrifically talented opera singer. Were we driven? You bet. Has it served us all well into our adult life? Yes again.

Life changed dramatically when my son Matthew was born. I was twenty-five at the time and couldn’t have been happier. I was working full time at a bank and took the requisite six weeks maternity leave. I made arrangements for day care and on the day I was to go back to work I walked into the bank and quit my job. There was no way anybody else was going to raise my son. He has turned out to be the absolute best part of both his parents. I wouldn’t trade one moment of being his mother. He is hard working, ethical, kind and loving. He dances funny and has a terrific sense of humor. He made motherhood look easy and I will always thank him for that.

I began to ride horses soon after Matthew was born and had a great career showing Dressage, trail riding and running a successful horse show circuit. Soon I owned five horses of my own and had several students. Now I have one horse, my trail horse Rio who has a personality of his own! It was during this time that I came to know about that dreaded breed of dog, the Jack Russell Terrier. Tenacious, active, brilliant and maddening, they were just the sorts of dog I could relate to! I had my little Crusher for seventeen years. He was my pal and my companion even through a rough divorce. I now have Charm and Sharkey. They spend their days terrorizing Kittyhead the Siamese cat and chasing squirrels into the pool.

After twenty-one years as a baseball mom in Minnesota it was time for a change. I headed to Texas to start my real estate appraisal business. I rented a carriage house on a small ranch and while I was there I dealt with horse thieves, a dead body on the property and a stalker. I learned how to shoot a snubbed nose revolver with some accuracy and packed it everywhere I went. Had a relationship with a ‘soldier’ who had a secret wife tucked away in South Carolina and a woman he saw every weekend of ‘reserve’ duty. That is a story for another time.

From Texas I headed to Montana. The landscape there is unbelievable but my personal life lacked the meaningful relationship I had looked for. So I landed in Wyoming and started a successful appraisal biz. Who knew appraising could lead to such great entertainment? Look for the upcoming book. Of particular fun is the story about the sixty-five year old cross dresser who answered the door in his underwear. Also the man with the bomb in his freezer, the man who went out and murdered two entire families the day after I did the inspection on his house, the mountain men who tried to kidnap me, the ostrich that stole my pen and the bison that chased me under the fence. Oh, and the rattlesnake in the foyer, the pit-bull fighting house and the enormous whorehouse in Texas and on and on…

The West captured my heart and the appraisal biz gave me the opportunity to meet some incredible women. The idea for Women Out West Magazine was born. Writing had been a passion of mine since I was a young adult so it fit right into the path my life was about to take. I learned the publishing business inside and out. I began to attend writer’s conferences and contact authors that I respected. I submitted my work to other publications. In my research I discovered that the electronic world of the Internet was going to play an enormous part in the publishing industry into the future. Enter phenomenal Webmaster, Deborah Kunzie. I absorbed everything she threw my way. I learned the ins-and-outs of building a website for an entity such as a magazine as well as what a personal website, with the proper programming and marketing, can do for an author’s career. Blogging became part of my daily life and vocabulary. I hired an incredible editor, Laurie Wagner Buyer and a good agent.

Two years have passed and I now speak at writer’s conferences. I have presented at the Women Writing the West Conference, Writing the Rockies as well as the Ozark Creative Writers Conference. I have a by-line in a Wyoming newspaper, The Glenrock Bird. I have been asked to write a book review column for Open Range Magazine in which my writing has been featured twice. I am soon to be featured in Florida Bird Magazine as well as National Wildlife Photography Magazine. With several books and scripts in the works life has taken on an exciting momentum.

This website is about my life, my writing, family, friends, pets and adventures. I often say my name should be Saga because my whole life is a story.

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