Susan Hagen's Biography

I've been a writer all my life.  As a child, I made my own greeting cards and wrote rhyming poetry to fit the occasion: "It's your birthday Dear Old Dad; remember all the hair you had?"  When puberty hit, I wrote sappy poems and disguised the identity of my crushes by writing their names backwards: "I love you, KRAM."  In high school and college I was a prolific reporter for my school newspapers, and after graduating with a journalism degree from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, I cut my professional teeth on the coastal weeklies: "Who caught the biggest fish off Morro Bay pier this weekend?  See page 7." 

Then came the 1980s (pin-striped suits with paisley scarves tied in bows) and better-paying jobs in public affairs, media relations, and corporate PR.  After a few years it felt right to go out on my own, and I've been working as a freelance organizational journalist ever since.  Along the way I've filled dozens of notebooks with my own fiction and nonfiction works, which I'm enjoying reading again as I prepare them for publication.

Elsewhere on this site, I hope you'll explore the post-9/11 book I co-authored with my partner, Mary Carouba: Women at Ground Zero: Stories of Courage and Compassion and find out why this project has filled our lives with so much gratitude.  It's also inspired the writing circles and retreats I lead on a regular basis to help ordinary women tell the extraordinary stories of their own lives. 

Recently, Dear Old Dad passed away without a hair on his head, and I haven't heard from KRAM in almost 40 years.  But I'm still a writer, and that's what I'll always be.  Welcome to my writing life.