Susan Wile

I was an infant when we lived in Monrovia, Liberia on a government compound where the embassy was situated, which included housing for the American diplomats. Although I have no conscious memory of my experience there, since my parents had two very young children (my sister was one and a half when I was born), they employed young Liberians to help around the house. Having been played with and nurtured by black people instilled in me at a seminal age the belief that we are all the same, regardless of skin color.

Moving to a small village in Holland when I was five years old felt like being dropped on an alien planet. No one spoke my language or dressed like me. My parents enrolled us in the only public school in our village. Since children’s brains are sponges, we were fluent in months. It was magical to ride our bikes through the village to school every day, stopping at the butcher or baker to buy as we were instructed, or our favorite, the candy store! Since I was speaking, reading and writing Dutch and only spoke English at home, when I received a Christmas gift from my grandmother, I struggled to write her a thank you note in English. Alarmed, my parents took us out of the Dutch school, where the education was far superior to the school at the American air force base where we were bussed daily, which took nearly an hour one way. Although we yearned for all things American, it was a charmed childhood growing up in another culture with easy access to other cultures. We vacationed, exploring Holland, Germany and France and our parents took us to London for the weekend. Exposure to different races and cultures at a young age instilled in me the belief that we are all the same, regardless of skin color, language, dress, cuisine, religion, or traditions. v How did your multicultural upbringing influence your identity and worldview?

I consider myself a citizen of the world. For years I have joked that I want aliens to come down and bitch-slap humanity into higher consciousness. POOF - our awareness instantly expanded into a state of permanent nonduality. No more lizard brain. War and competition for resources instantly vanish and we know we are one, just as John Lennon wrote in The Walrus, “I am he, as you are he, as you are me and we are all together.”  

We moved back to the states when I was ten years old and as a result, I abruptly stopped speaking Dutch. I’m not bilingual by any stretch. I can make myself understood and freely butcher the language when I travel to Holland or Belgium. As far as my writing, storytelling and speaking style, I strive to be as clear as possible.

I was an active child and preferred to play outside rather than sit and read and because I didn’t learn to read English until I was eight years old, I found reading arduous. It was a struggle. I was what you could call a lazy reader.

When it comes to storytelling, I believe every experience is grist for the mill.

I began writing when I was two or three years old, scratching marks on paper with a pencil, which felt exactly like writing to me. My scribbles looked like the repetitive marks of a Cy Twombly pencil drawing, but for me, that was writing.

My love for animals was the spark that got me to write EXTINCTION WARRIOR, but it started more than 30 years ago. I’ve written a great deal professionally - everything from advertising copy, corporate video scripts, sell sheets, marketing reports, internal communications for a multi-national company and more. However, back in the early 1990’s, at the dawn of cable television when I was still producing TV commercials, I decided I would create a news magazine for kids, by kids about the work that zoos and aquariums were doing to save endangered animals. It was called, “Zoonews with the Joeys!” and included interstitial bits of animation of animals delivering factoids. A producer suggested I revise the concept and make the entire show animated since animation sells better in the international marketplace. So, I went back to the proverbial drawing board and created an animated show with endangered animal superheroes led by a female scientist who goes around the world saving other endangered animals, teaching kids about animals and the causes of endangerment. I felt at the time that I needed an agent and queried any number of them. The only agency interested loved the concept but advised me to turn it into a book. I didn’t have it in me then but writing a story about endangered animals simmered within until decades later, I had to start to writing.

It didn’t at all. As a writer, I’m a “pantser.” I didn’t outline EXTINCTION WARRIOR and as I wrote and researched steadily over the years, I thought I was letting the story take me where it wanted to go. But my passion to weave a tale about endangered animals, the extinction crisis and protecting Mother Earth pushed the story in a direction that didn’t work. Fortunately, the developmental editor I hired helped me see where the story wanted and needed to go and following a major revision, I took the steps to self-publish.

My love for animals is reflected in how my protagonist treats them. I would love to be able to “talk” to them the way my protagonist does - sending images to them and receiving their images. But with their inability to use language, living with animals (don’t forget, WE are animals too) helps one develop an understanding and intuition about them based on their biology, behavior, and personality. One must use the power of observation to determine whether there’s anything wrong physically or emotionally. Thunder and gunshots frighten our dog. Knowing that, we protect her as much as possible during storms and the fireworks on July 4th, keeping her inside and turning on loud music. If there’s a loud bang out of nowhere, her ears go down and she huddles next to our legs and we instantly know she’s afraid. Frequently her cues are subtle, as when she turns her head to look at the door, I know she wants to go out. Fortunately my protagonist can use her “mindsight” to communicate with animals and doesn’t need to rely on everything the rest of us do.

We live with a dog, three cats and four ducks who all have different needs – feeding them all, walking the dog, collecting the duck eggs and providing them with fresh water daily, scooping litter, cleaning the poopie straw from the coop (gold for the garden!), worming the cats and dog and administering medications when needed – all of it helps ground me in their world. For the last 11 years, we’ve also been beekeepers. Acquiring an understanding of an intelligent superorganism, like honeybees, is extraordinary and we are always learning. The bees have needs too and every year is different. I agree with many beekeepers who find it a spiritual experience. I’m not sure if I’ll write anything about the adventures of living with a small menagerie, but I may in the future. My primary interest lies in writing about animals who are extinct, or who face extinction.

The story was inspired by my love of animals and the extinction crisis. Regarding how the story developed over time, please see my answer to question to #6

You’ll have to read it!