Susan Blauner, MSW, is a native of White Plains, New York. Go Yankees! She is a multi-disciplinary studio artist, creative writing teacher, and an internationally-recognized mental health and suicide prevention advocate. Susan is also a breast cancer survivor—diagnosed at the age of forty-three. Susan lives in western Massachusetts, where she writes, teaches, takes pictures of odd things on the ground, builds gardens, paints, sews, makes recycled jewelry, creates stone and wood sculptures in nature, and loves her dog, Fiona. In April 2024, Susan lost Fiona to kidney failure.
Susan knows she will be a dog mom again one day, but for now volunteers at a local shelter to help dogs in need ... and to help herself heal.

In the fall of 2021, Susan and Fiona spent nine weeks driving ten thousand miles across eighteen states to The Grand Canyon, where they camped on the South Rim.

Susan has Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Bridgewater State University, show and sells her work, and a Master of Social Work degree from Simmons University—earned at the age of fifty. Susan is now writing How I Gave Birth to My Mother: A Creative Guide to Grieving with Words, Pictures, Mementos, and Art, and envisions another memoir in the not-too-distant future entitled Happy for the Rest of My Life: The Art of Being Enough.