Once upon a time ...

... on a starry night in Lafayette, Louisiana, USA, a few months before she was born, Susan Woldenberg’s mother, Irene Violet, sat on the front porch craving ice cream and staring at the stars. Hence Susan’s sweet tooth and middle name: Starr.

After spending her later childhood in Southern California and working in television in Hollywood, Susan travelled to India, where fate stepped in and introduced her to future husband, Colin Butler.

along the way ...

Colin and Susan founded the Benevolent Organisation for Development, Health & Insight (BODHI) in 1989. Its goal is to improve health, education and the environment in developing countries by providing a hook, not a fish. BODHI is the only fully tax-deductible, international development organisation they know of founded in and operating from Tasmania. It is also fully tax-deductible in the United States.

Colin and Susan were based in Campbell Town, Tasmania from 1992-1999. During that time, Susan completed a Bachelor of Arts in history and wrote short stories (published in Australia, the US, the UK and cyberspace) and local history: Stories of Campbell Town, True Tales of the Roaring 40s and More Stories of Campbell Town.

Keeping her ears open at dinner parties with Colin's colleagues, Susan gathered enough medical tidbits for two volumes of medical stories. She took great liberties with the truth. As Somerset Maugham said, Fact is a poor story-teller. Secrets from the Black Bag was published in December, 2005 by Royal College of General Practitioners Publications in the UK. The second volume has nearly reached the first-draft stage.

Along the way came Midlands Morsels and Heritage Highway Cookery, honouring the unsung cooks who keep the whole show on the road. The cookbooks feature recipes, photos and anecdotes from the 1800s to the present day.

The present

Colin and Susan are now based in Canberra. Colin is now an epidemiologist and Associate Professor at the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health at Australian National University in Canberra. He specialises in climate change and human health, and in food security. Susan works part-time as Development Officer for SEE-Change (www.see-change-org.au) and does academic editing as well.

Susan is looking for publishers for two manuscripts:

1. Just Add Nauseam, Death at the Dinner Party, a detective novel set in present-day Tasmania, and

2. The AFTBACK Chronicles, a satirical look at life and love, twenty-first century-style. Peter Brownlow heads to Africa for twelve months to cement a career change. He entrusts the well being of his wife, Deirdre to their three stuffed animals — two bears and a blue terrier. The plenipotentiaries comfort her with Scheherazade-like tales of their adventures. For example, the dog decamps to a hideously expensive weekend retreat in the Scottish Highlands to search for his wolf roots. At year’s end, all five reunite at Los Angeles International Airport and undertake a joint adventure into the opium-soaked literary wanderings of one of the bears: Mikey Kerowack, Beatnik Bear.

If interested, please contact the author or her North American literary agent Pat Poland, Writers' Ink/Media, 514 Northwood Dr, Conroe, TX 77303 USA. Phone +1 936-499-4625, email patpoland@yahoo.com. Please visit Pat's website: http://www.writersinkliteraryagency.com/

In the pipeline: a second volume of medical stories.

Where to find Susan Butler's books

Please see either the pages relating to each book or you order them by contacting the author.

Colin and Susan