Susan Protter

sapla@aol.com

After high school I went to Syracuse on a full scholarship but almost froze to death up there. I started out in pre-med with a math major but changed to French after a year. I eventually transferred to NYU where I completed my degree in French and took off to visit the Wagner opera festival at Bayreuth, Germany and to study at the Sorbonne. This turned into about a year and half of travel in Europe and the middle East which was great! Margret Cederholm persuaded me to come home to be a member of her wedding.

Basically none of this did much for my resume so I went back to NYU for a masters in French language and literature which I received in 1965. During this time I worked at office jobs and market research and finally was offered a teaching position at Lawrence (L.I.) High school where I stayed for a year and a half. Somehow teaching felt like I was still going to school and I wanted to work in a different kind of environment.

I had a hard time making the transition as I was told that I was overqualified and underskilled as I only typed 15 words a minute.

I found a job working at a news magazine, called Report, where I was little more than a clerk, but it seemed like more fun and the people were interesting. At the same time, I tried my hand at math which I had dropped in college but had always liked thanks to Miss Van Wart. After a year, I was offered a job at Harper & Row, publishers which was where I had dreamed of working. I stayed there for four years and then got a job as a consultant with a Boston publisher who brought me up there on a weekly basis.

On one of these trips, I met a man named Peter Reich who is the son of the maverick psychiatrist Wilhelm Reich. He was working on a memoir and asked me for some help in getting it published. Peter introduced me to other writers and I was meeting some on my own. After a few months, I realized that I had the beginnings of a literary agency and opened shop in 1971. This has turned into a lifetime career for me. It's been a kind of roller coaster with best-sellers and slumps. My current (and timely) top-seller is a book called UNDERSTANDING ISLAM by Thomas W. Lippman.

The romantic events of my life have not led to marriage or children. I continue to love to travel, sail as much and as often as possible and I play novice bridge at a club in Manhattan.

I live in New York City and have an office there as well despite my landlord's constant efforts to move me to another location.

It's really amazing to read everyone's bios and see what has happened over all these years.

All the best,
Susan

BACK TO INDEX>