Discover the author behind the words
How It All Began
I'm Susan Wyld, an author from Tasmania, Australia. My creative story began back in the UK with the many hours my parents spent reading to us as children. The result of which is a love of books within us all. After emigrating to Australia at twelve, the desire to create my own stories was a move to the outer ends of the state, or so it felt, and a home at Oyster Cove when I was fifteen. Thus started three long years of tedious car journeys to and from town to get to school, while my father bored us rigid with politics on the radio. To escape, I made up stories in my head.
These continued during boring lessons, then long and short flights, and long and short bus journeys, as I left school to travel for four years, before returning to Tasmania and completing a three year Arts degree in history and psychology. Otherwise known as the what people do and why. I finished university into a recession and unemployment, so with dog in tow I began a new story in my head. This time, with an acre of time available, I wrote it down. It became Diamond Nights.
Since then I have not stopped making up stories, though there have been pauses in writing them down. Through first jobs and boyfriends. More jobs and the last boyfriend, who became the one and only husband. Moves to Darwin and Melbourne and a stint in America. Then a year’s posting to the UK which, within a blink of an eye, turned into eighteen years of work and travel as we grew up and grew older. Then Covid hit, and an acre of time returned along with the huge advances in technology. I started writing again, and uploading them onto Amazon as self-published novels. Now retired back to Tasmania, the love of reading and writing continues, as do the walks with my dog along beaches and into the bush.
Mount Wellington from Waverley Flora Park. The western shore of Hobart from Bellerive Bluff. Howrah Beach, from the second bluff.
Finding Characters
Every book has begun with a walk with a dog, and every character has been formed during these moments of quiet. Around parks, up hills and along valleys. Through bluebell woods, eucalypt forests and beaches galore. In sun and snow, wind and rain, Emma, Cass, Daisy and now Lacey, have provided both constant companionship and the reason to get out. It is the act of walking that clears the mind and gives it both solitude and the space for imagination. To create new places, or reshape the known streets of home.
One footstep at a time, as the dog chases the next squirrel or rolls in an over-ripe smell. I watch her and put myself into the shoes of others, and imagine how they would react to or cope with the stresses and strains both within and far beyond my own life. To make things up, just for fun. For joy or laughter or tears. To feel and cry about that which did not happen, but all too easily could. To live as I haven’t, and be what I am not. I am not my characters, nor do I always believe in the notions they express, but part of me is in all of them. The good and the bad. The brave and the fearful. The interesting and, inevitably, the very mundane as well. Not all are meant to be likeable, nor in need of anyone's approval. And, indeed, am I.
Vital Statistics
Current group think is these should be unimportant. But they're not, and everyone really wants to know them anyway.
Name: Susan Wyld (Nobody ever gets the spelling right.)
Date of Birth: 20th November, 1963. (62 at last count, but I don’t entirely believe it)
Born: Whyteleafe, Surrey, England. The home counties. White bread and middle class. This is a statement, not an apology.
Emigrated: To Hobart, Australia, in 1975. Returned to UK in 2006, to Glasgow then London. Retired to Hobart in 2024.
Education: Bellfield and Bushy Hill Primary School and George Abbot High School in the UK. Ogilvie High School, Rosny College and the University of Tasmania in Hobart. BA in psychology and history.
Family: Brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews, one husband for nearly 30 years, and no kiddies. My choice. Not a question.
Weight: This goes into the mind your own business category. I live in jeans and leggings. I do not give a fig tree about fashion. Or the size of my derriere. My diet is, I eat food. And cake.
Religion: Also mind your own business. And I do not care about yours, either.
Politics: Somewhere slightly left of centre. If you’re not sure, the right wants free rein over business while controlling people’s behaviour. The left is the reverse, but if you go too far either way you end up in the same place, which is a dictatorship controlling both. I think most adults should be left to do as they see fit, within certain protections based on humanity’s inability to play nice. Businesses, however, should understand that happy, healthy staff leads to a lower turnover, higher productivity and a pleasant work environment. It’s not difficult. However, as they frequently prove themselves incapable of doing this, while at the same time trashing the environment, controls are absolutely essential.
"I write the books I enjoy reading."
Susan Wyld, Author