Susan K. Salzer is a graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism. She toiled happily in the trenches of daily journalism for several years. Her first job was as a general assignment reporter covering police, fire, and city government in Fulton, Mo., and this was great fun. Then she moved “up” to covering state government and politics in the City of Jefferson and this was no fun at all. After her newspaper days she joined the University of Missouri Health Sciences Center as a public/media relations specialist. Her last office job was with Mizzou as an editor in the department of Publications and Alumni Communications.

Sue’s first novel, UP FROM THUNDER, a true tale of Civil War Missouri featuring the young Jesse James, was published in 2010 by Cave Hollow Press. An audio book also is available from Books in Motion. The novel is based on the short story “Cornflower Blue” for which she won the 2009 Spur Award from Western Writers of America (WWA) for short fiction and the 2010 John Newman Edwards Award from the Friends of the James Farm.

Her short story, “The Saint of Pox Island,” published in the March/April 2012 issue of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, was a finalist in WWA’s 2013 short fiction competition.

Her short fiction and nonfiction have (or will) appear in EQMM, Hardboiled, WildWest and several anthologies. She has completed a second novel, FRONTIER, due in March 2015 from Kensington, and is currently at work on a nonfiction project, a biography of the frontier scout William “Medicine Bill” Comstock.

The mother of four splendid children—John, Hallie, Max and Lily – Sue lives in Columbia, MO, with her husband, Bill, and dog, Josie.