In a Nutshell:
Suzanne is a freelance writer and author from South Africa. She currently lives in Finland and finds the cold, dark forests nothing if not inspiring. Suzanne is the author of the cyberpunk novel Dragon’s Teeth (Divertir), the YA science fiction novel Obscura Burning (Etopia) and has had several short stories published by Golden Visions Magazine, Space and Time and Niteblade. Her non-fiction articles on travel, music and other topics can be found scattered throughout the Internet. Although she has a Master’s degree in music, Suzanne prefers conjuring strange worlds and creating quirky characters. When not writing you can find her teaching dance to ninth graders or playing in the snow with her shiba inu.
Suzanne is represented by Jordy Albert of the Booker Albert Agency.
Suzanne is also a publicist for Entranced Publishing.
The Longer Story:
Suzanne was born and raised in the urban sprawl of Johannesburg, South Africa. As a child she spent a great deal of time staring at the clouds making up stories for the animals that lived amongst the cumulus. As soon as she could read, Suzanne devoured books, munching through the shelves of various libraries.
She wrote her first novel at 11 and, as with most novels written by 11-year-olds, it was over ambitious and badly spelled but it was the beginning. It was tricky finding time to write between dancing, horse riding, fluting, piano’ing, hockey’ing, and many other extracurricular activities ending in -ing. And then she went to university.
The world of academia stemmed the creative tide as Suzanne completed a Bachelor’s degree in music education and technology. She also met Mark, with whom she fell madly in love despite his affection for NOFX.
After a brief stay in Perth, Australia, Suzanne headed for the cold, dark wastelands of Finland (Mark and his NOFX collection came too) to pursue a Master’s in Music, Mind and Technology. (A vague way of saying everything music related besides actually playing an instrument).
Thanks to a friend, Suzanne discovered NaNoWriMo. Her first attempt at writing 50 000 words in a month resulted in the novel Dragon’s Teeth, which found a home with the small US publishing press Divertir Publishing, LLC. Though still in shock at having signed a publishing contract, Suzanne continues to write (Mark provides in-story technical assistance) and hopes to have more novels and short stories published in the future.
After numerous revisions, Suzanne entered Daughter of the Nether into the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest where her manuscript beat out another 4900 hopefuls for a place in the semi-finals. During this time she also wrote Obscura Burning, a YA science fiction novel released December 7, 2012 from Etopia Press.
Suzanne’s ‘day job’ includes being a publicist with US small press Entranced Publishing, freelance writer and editor for various publications and international companies, dance teacher to a bunch of grade 9s and a member of the Jamaican Mamas dance group. When not busy with all of that, and not writing, Suzanne enjoys teaching herself how to play guitar and spends a great deal of time playing with her shiba inu, Lego.
Favourite fiction authors: Poppy Z Brite, Neil Gaiman, Maggie Stiefvater, Cath Crowley, Patrick Rothfuss, David Mitchell, Ursula K. Le Guin and Jack Kerouac.
Favourite non-fiction authors: Evan Wright and Jon Krakauer.
Favourite poets: Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Baudelaire, W. B. Yeats, Walt Whitman, and John Keats.
Favourite movies: Mr Nobody, Across the Universe, Into the Wild, Imaginary Heroes and Equilibrium.
Favourtie TV series: The Vampire Diaries, Arrow, The West Wing, XIII and Criminal Minds.
Favourite Bands/Musicians: Nightwish, Placebo, Our Lady Peace, In Flames and Florence + the Machine.
*Please note, I am an Amazon Associate so if you click on any Amazon ‘buy now’ link you see on this site and buy the book, I’ll earn a tiny percentage from that sale.
