Mystical Spring
Biography
Sue was born in Kentucky and spent her childhood roaming the countryside outside Florence in Boone County. She enjoyed the outdoors and spent long hours daydreaming and riding her bike.Â
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But her peace and sense of safety ended at the age of 9, when religious intolerance forced her mother to take a dramatic stand for an unpopular local cause. The lessons she learned from this event were lasting and would impact her later writing life.
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A graduate of Catholic education, Sue became a registered nurse as she worked to support her husband throughout the years of his education and their growing family. Her medical experiences include almost every field and she decided to write down one of her early nursing experiences in a short story published in 1994 entitled “Beginningâ€. It was also in 1994 when Sue published her first book, BOSTON AND THE FEAST OF ST. FRANCIS for Paulist Press.Â
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In the year 2000, while finishing her degree in religious studies at Iowa State University, Sue went on pilgrimage to the Holy Land. It was a trip that fueled new insights and passion for her writings. She became interested in peace and justice issues and started to contribute stories for a local archdiocesan newspaper, THE WITNESS out of Dubuque, Iowa. From 2007- 2009, Sue began writing FAITH AND THOUGHT for the Ames Tribune, a Pulitizer Prize winning newspaper in central Iowa. Her weekly columns linked international events with the everyday life of people throughout the world, especially in the area of religion. Sue also shared her insights from travels to Ireland, India, Italy, England, the West Bank , Israel, Jordan and Austrailia. Her stories of the people she meets, their struggles and lives, reflect on the common values they share with Americans.
Also in 2007, Sue began an interfaith dialogue group in Ames, Iowa that meets regularly. This group of Catholics, Muslims, and Jews discuss issues of shared concerns and challanges focused around cultural and religious issues of the day.
Besides BOSTON AND THE FEAST OF ST. FRANCIS, Sue has published an award winning Catholic best seller, CHILD’S GUIDE TO THE MASS, also in a Spanish version, GREAT WOMEN OF FAITH; INSPIRATION FOR ACTION, Child’s Guide to Baptism and in 2008, Child’s Guide to the Stations of the Cross. All works can be obtained from Paulist Press. works Â
-Sue Stanton is a member of the Catholic Press Association, Religion Newswriters of America, and the International Federation of Women in Media.
