Her Aunt Susan Myrick mentored Susan and constantly encouraged her writing, as did friend and neighbor Flannery O’Connor. Flannery taught her the value of focus while writing, stressing the importance of scheduling a time to write every day; allow no distractions, whether visual, sound, or smells; and allow no visitors.

Susan’s father edited the William and Mary Literary Magazine for three years before 1910 and wrote many essays, short stories and poems for the magazine. Susan read and loved his stories of the occult and mysterious events. The first poem she memorized was one of his.

     Her father taught chemistry at a local college, and long before the atomic bomb, he taught his classes how the atom would be split. His students worked on the Manhattan Project. He taught a class at Columbia University in which all of his students already had their Ph. D.’s. His research in microscopy have become the foundation of the field in the United States and expanded from his work to the procedures we watch on CSI.

Her mother worked in nutritional research at Columbia University before her marriage. She also wrote nonfiction for fun.