Susan Johnston Taylor

     

By Margaret Lea

Hi everyone! You don’t want to miss Susan Johnston Taylor at our next chapter meeting on March 2, 2026. Her presentation is titled “Persevering Past Rejection: Tools and Tips to Save Your Sanity.” This topic should resonate with all of us, writers and illustrators alike. 

     Here’s Susan’s first tip— Don’t jump into the “query trenches,” as so many people call it. Go on a “query quest” instead. Look on querying as an adventure, not a time of being shot at, bombed, and surrounded by death and destruction. Yep, query quest sounds like a much more fun place to hang out!

     It took Susan seven years and over 400 queries before she found her agent, Mara Cobb at Lighthouse Literary, even though Susan had already sold two picture books to a publisher. Her debut Animals in Surprising Shades: Poems about Earth’s Colorful Creatures came out in 2023 and has won numerous awards. Her second If Pets Wrote Poems: A Parody Collection will be released this April and is now available for pre-order. Both are published by Gnome Road Publishing, whom she recommends as being great to work with. These two books are mostly in rhyme, but her agent is currently submitting some of her prose works as well.

     Susan has written more than a dozen “work for hire” books for the educational market, most of which gave her credit on the cover as the author. One was an unofficial biography of Selena Gomez, but, no, she did not get to interview Selena.

     Susan was a successful freelance journalist for fifteen years. She has mostly retired from this line of work but if asked by an editor, still writes an occasional piece.

     As Senior Manager of Client Success for The Writing Barn, Susan does a combination of admin work, coaching and facilitating. The Writing Barn offers online writing classes and retreats, many of which Susan herself completed on her journey to becoming a published kidlit writer. Thankfully, one teacher in particular encouraged her to keep pursuing her If Pets Wrote Poems project, even after Susan had received disappointing feedback from an agent. This just highlights how subjective artistic endeavors are. One person’s opinion is just that— one person’s opinion.

     Whenever she gets the chance, Susan enjoys singing and acting in local Austin productions. She also loves working with Paramount Story Wranglers. This group, sponsored by Austin’s Paramount Theatre and various grants, holds a seven-week creative writing workshop for third graders at some Title One schools in Austin. Susan helps transform the students’ stories into songs and sketches. Then a variety show is presented with all of them. 

     When asked for tips for fellow writers, Susan urges pacing yourself— “You don’t have to do everything yourself or do it all at once.” She recommends practicing other forms of creativity too, not just writing. One such form is Rejection Art. This could take many forms, she said, but one way could be to make origami designs from rejection letters. You are free to invent your own variations on this one. Just keep it legal, folks!

     Susan was diagnosed with ADHD at age 40. This condition, she learned, can make someone experience rejection even more deeply than others, so she had to come up with ways to not let rejections stop her. I’m excited to hear more of Susan’s practical tools and tips for coping with rejection when she speaks at our online-only chapter meeting on March 2, 2026. (Yes, I already mentioned this meeting. It’s called a “plug.”)

     To learn more about Susan and her work, check out her website: staylorwrites.com/.