Biography
As an advocate for childrens literacy, author & illustrator Susan Berran loves encouraging kids to read and write, particularly those reluctant readers so close to moving on to high school yet not at the required reading level.
Susan has been heavily involved with the Write Around the Murray Writers Festival for a number of years now. Work-shopping with schools, judging the ‘Nano’ story competition for primary children among other roles.
2013 in particular as co-ordinating author for the ‘SEED Project’. Working with 8 regional schools to produce a ‘choose your own adventure’ story. Which she then worked with renowned animator, Dave Jones, to animate the entire story.
I’ve always loved drawing and writing weird, freaky funny stories and when a teacher in grade5 said “You should be an author” .. it stuck.
Being the middle child of five we lived in the Blue Mountains south of Sydney until I was twelve when my family moved to the quiet country town of Albury. All I could see was cows, dirt and paddocks, but no mountains and no more bush! I was not amused.
I served ten years in the Australian Army as an Illustrator Reprographic. Also attending Royal Military College for officer training. Unfortunately due to an injury during training I was medically discharged.
Whilst in the Army I met my partner and together we moved to the small township of Bethanga, 30min from Albury/Wodonga. A few years later saw the birth of our beautiful daughter, Mel. It was with her birth that I started to seriously take another look at the stories that lay forgotten amongst years of dust inside my head.
Mel had a story told to her every night until recently.“Every child deserves to drift off to sleep happily.”
At the age of 8 Mel harassed me until I read one of the stories to her school class. The result of their feedback was to self-publish Splinterz in Feb’ 2009.
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By the end of that same year I was a genuine published author .. and my feet haven’t touched the ground since.
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Albury has grown some-what and I now live in the even smaller town of Bethanga with my partner, our daughter Mel, her dog Spitzy (Fluff Butt) and her brother and sister pets.