Susan Madeline Bailey

Susan, winner of The Ella Dickey Literacy Award for 2016, grew up in Europe, Florida, and Illinois. Her life long search for her mother is chronicled in the manuscript of The Twain Shall Meet, but there is more to her background and personality. As a child, she was painfully shy, but her inhibitions vanished when she stepped onto a stage. A widow with three children and several grandchildren, she has written poetry most of her life but this is her first book. Susan graduated from Stetson University in 1969 with a B.A. in Speech and Education. She recently returned to the stage, and continues to promote music for children by serving on the board of a youth orchestra. Since co authoring 'The Twain Shall Meet,' she has been invited to speak at many events in the US and Europe and was the keynote speaker at the Samuel Clemens Conference in Hannibal, Missouri in 2015.