ABOUT

With a 35 year career as a Registered Nurse, I was disabled in 2012, and began my writing journey. Many people have shared their stories with me over the years and I love listening to a good one. Writing has been a hobby since childhood, and something that I always wanted more time to do. Now, I have plenty.

Red Clay and Roses explores civil rights, interracial relations, and women’s issues in the 1950s and 60s. It is a historic novel that chronicles the trials and tribulations of a group of characters grappling with inequality in the Jim Crow South.

Currently, I am writing a collection of crime thriller romps through Central Florida with a humorous edge called The Naked Eye Series. Naked Alliances is the first in the series and is set in the seedier part of Orlando that the theme parks like to deny exists.

Richard Noggin, P.I. reluctantly teams up with a brassy, exotic dancer, Brandi, to solve a cold case and protect a young girl from a murderous sex trafficker, but in order to stay alive, they must go undercover in a nudist resort while the body count grows.

A GA farm girl, I transplanted to Orlando in 1997. But the sleepy little fishing villages along the coasts have stolen my heart. My husband and I moved to Matlacha, Florida in June, 2019. I love exploring the state of Florida. I also enjoy yoga & meditation, reading, salt water fishing, boating, jewelry making, kombucha brewing and painting. I started painting in acrylics in August of 2019.

I’m a wife, mother and grandmother, but I created this “About” page not to only to tell you about me, but for you to tell me about you. I am curious about you. What inspires you to blog and where do you come from?

I don’t profess to be a genius at anything at all. My husband, the rocket scientist, put that name on my blog as a joke when I was reading articles about branding.  I wanted a social blog to get to know writers and readers. I thought it was funny and it just sort of stuck. What I am finding as I begin continue my blogging journey, is that there are zillions of geniuses out here. Whether it is a clever blog post, a photograph, book reviews, some other awesome artistic display, or a fantastically creative blog, it is comforting to know that I am surrounded by a myriad of geniuses.

Just when I began to despair about the direction of society as a whole, I found this whole community with it’s own brand of genius. I wanted to stake my claim, so I kept mybrandofgenius as the subtitle of my blog. I feel that I am in good company with a host of interesting people with meaningful stories, inspiring poetry, beautiful artwork, creative ideas, thoughts, suggestions, and useful information. I am fascinated by you! I am delighted to be here. I learn something every day and I laugh every day, two things that are required to survive in today’s world!

133 thoughts on “ABOUT”

    1. I just saw this on my About page and realized I never commented. It’s so NOT like me not to run my mouth at every opportunity so I decided to drop a line, even though we’ve already become good friends on the blog. I was once the ONLY nurse in a little band-aide station in the middle of a pine forest that called itself a hospital. That job lasted two days. Those two nights in the ER I delivered two crack babies that immediately went into a helicopter and had a man shot in the back of the head sit upright on a stretcher and lose his brain out of the back of his head. Yes, my life experiences have been something else. I also worked two years on a forensics unit of a psych hospital for the criminally insane. I’m sure that qualifies me for something. My work as a Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner was certainly depended upon with Naked Alliances.

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  3. Hey, I run an author interview slot on my blog and you did say you would be interested in taking part. I have a slot coming up. Can I email you the questions?

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  4. Well I do believe you know more than a little about me as you clicked a like on my recent post Rainbows, Pride and Just Loving My Daughter. Thank you for the follow on one of my blogs.
    That post was a bit of a response to the Orlando shootings and thinking about my daughter and so many other people who have carved a niche in our hearts.
    Now it is my turn to wander around your blog… Léa

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    1. I don’t know why, but apparently I’m not getting notifications from my ABOUT page. I’ve followed your blog as well. Just found a few folk over here and it’s soooo NOT like me not to comment on anything, so I decided to drop a few lines today.

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  6. Hello, S.K. I stumbled across your blog while searching for the keyword “grief”, which lead me to your Pokemon Go post. (My condolences for your loss…) I’m fairly new to blogging, shaking a few years’ of dust off this one back in April, when my husband suddenly passed away, but have always been a “writer”, even when I didn’t write. Turns out, we’re Central Florida “neighbors”, and I plan to poke around your site for awhile. Take Care. Cheri G

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    1. Glad to have you on board. You will likely recognize some places in my upcoming book. So sorry to hear about your husband’s passing. I’ve only been married to the rocket scientist for eight years, but would be lost without him. Come by again some time. I will follow you also by email.

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  8. Wow Sue, I love that about page! I get a real flavor of who you are and what’s important to you. When i read the words “interracial relationships” I started to get excited as that’s a really tough theme running through the book I’ve recently turned into my editor. I’m from Detroit, living winters in Florida (St Pete). Detroit is as racially divided as the south, although I hope it’s getting better. It seems like we’re ready to turn a corner. I had no idea why I put a white PI into a black community with a bad reputation. Well, at first I didn’t think about race. Then, I thought “I’ll do what Elmore Leonard did and basically ignore it.” But then I realized I couldn’t.

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    1. It is something, like politics and religion, that people have been conditioned to NOT talk about. But we need to engage socially about all topics that affect us socially. I would love to meet up with you and talk sometime when you are in St. Pete.

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  9. Who is your publisher, Susan? Do you use Amazon’s Create Space? Or do you publish the books yourself with a print-on-demand outfit? I’m still looking for a publisher that can and will work with me on a strict budget.

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  10. Susan, did you ever consult with any law enforcement officials about police procedures while writing? Or did you refer to published sources? Some of my stories (that I’ve yet to publish) have a heavy police presence, and I want to ensure accuracy in how law enforcement operates when conducting criminal investigations.

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    1. I attended some seminars at the annual Sleuthfest for Mystery Writers of America and recorded some notes on particulars. I picked up a couple of books while there, but can’t recall the authors or titles …let me go see…..Dimaio…a couple of forensics books. I can’t find the police procedural now or remeber the author’s name. Steven Kerry Brown’s Complete Idiot’s Guide to Private Investigating was probably the one that helped me most with a P.I. in my story.

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    1. Thanks for sharing. My b-i-l lives in Naples and I have frequented their art galleries and those of Ft. Myers. Most are very upscale, but Matlacha offers an entirely different art experience that is deeply ingrained in its unique character. Here’s an example. You can find more links on the web. I kinda like the laid back, obscure, Make-your-own-way kind of way we have here on the island. It’s far less erudite and snooty, and far more friendly. It’s not more about who you know, but what you do.

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