Today we’d like to introduce you to Susan Joyce
Hi Susan, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
Thank you for asking. Your forum is inspiring and it is an honor to be asked to be part of it. The term ‘story’ has special meaning to me because as a novelist I have to determine when a story actually begins. So, your question makes me wonder when, exactly, my story began. I believe my story actually began around the age of twelve when I first began to write stories. My career, however, didn’t begin as a writer. I began as a commercial artist. Eventually, I started my own advertising art studio. To generate steady business, I developed a monthly magazine to which we sold advertising that generated a flow of work for my staff. I used freelance writers for content, but after so many failed to meet my expectations, I began writing the stories myself. One day I get a call from a person wanting to hire the writer who wrote a particular story we’d published. I told him I was the person who wrote it, but that I was not a writer. He just said, “Well, I beg to differ.” It was my first freelance job as a writer. But it wasn’t my last. I soon sold my art studio and went to work as a reporter and editor for a small weekly newspaper. Like most weeklies it was understaffed and I wound up wearing a lot of hats which was a wonderful learning experience. Within a couple years, I became a news correspondent with a larger daily newspaper. About ten years later, I took a position as beat reporter covering local, state, and federal government. By this time, the urge to write a novel had pierced my soul, but I didn’t have the story or the opportunity to do so just yet, so I kept the day-job. After more than twenty years, however, covering news and meeting press deadlines got old … or maybe it was me that got old. Either way, I began doing public relations work which led to a position as a corporate communications director where I used both my writing and artistic skills. By this time, I saw retirement on the horizon and the lure of writing that novel increased. That’s when it got weird. For reasons I can’t fully explain, I went to Wall Street and became a financial adviser–half thinking I was out of my mind. For more than a decade, I put down the pen and forcused on being a financial adviser, but as a former journalist I never ceased to observe. Now mind you, I was a mature woman when I went to Wall Street–the mother of three grown children and a grandmother by then. I had more objectivity than most of my young colleagues who had been lured to Wall Street by pie-in-the-sky promises and the glamour of being picked up from the airport by limousines. Without realizing it, my reporter eyes were wide open and looking for a scoop. And boy did I find one–the human angle to the Global Financial Collapse of 2008, the greatest financial disaster in the history of mankind. It was the muse for which I’d been searching and provids the fodder for books I will write the rest of my life. My first novel, Rooked, Wall Street Never Saw It Coming, reveals how it happened and perhaps how it could have been avoided. While its characters and circumstances are fictional, I created such to specifically convey the very real human reactions and sentiments of people both on Wall Street as well as Main Street. I am currently working on two novels to fulfill this series. Now at the dawn of 2025 and seeing how the repercussions of that one event continue to rampage society with such political divisions and growing angst, I doubt I will ever run out stories that convey how life as we once knew it changed forever back in 2008 and how that one event affected generations yet to come. My non-fiction books, Real Women Manage Wealth and the Personal Financial NOTEBOOK, are inspired by witnessing the financial industry lick its chops at a burgeoning new market–women. Due to women earning better wages and acquiring inheritances from parents and spouses who they tend to outlive, makes the female market the new frontier for the entire financial industry: banking, insurance, investments, taxes, and law. As adviser to many wealthy women, I knew they were unprepared for the sales tactics being developed. My books prepare women to deal effectively with all types of financial professionals to avoid being oversold and overcharged for financial products and services. That brings me to today. Since my story began before I became gainfully employeed, it is only fitting that it continues beyond retirement. Today, I live the life of an author. We bought a big old home on a peninsula with a second-story office with a window to the backyard garden my husband tends while I write. It gets no better than this in my book–no pun intended. I have no intention of ending this chapter of my life anytime soon, either. I will write until THE END.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Well, I’ve always thought of challenges as opportunities and overcoming them requires practice. That said, I’ve had a lot of practice. The biggest challenge in my life, without a doubt, was being a career woman during the early seventies. Juggling the responsibilities of raising three children, running a household, and launching a career was doubly difficult for women back then. Women’s lib hadn’t yet convinced men to participate with child-rearing or household chores. The workplace was no different. There were no labor laws to protect women from being paid half as much as a man doing the same work. There were no sexual harassment laws to protect women from demoralizing comments from co-workers and even superiors to actual molestation by those in more powerful positions. There was no help from employers or government for childcare. Nor was there any protection for women against discrimination that allowed employers to fire a female employee for any reason, incliuding getting pregnant. Here’s what I don’t understand: if it takes human beings to produce the goods and human beings to buy the goods for money to make the world go around, then how is it the world’s only–and I stress the word ‘only’–supplier of human beings–women–are treated so unfairly? Women need healthcare, equal opportunity and help raising their offspring not just for themselves, but for the benefit of creating an amenable society for us all. Women’s vulnerabilities are the world’s stregths and should be valued as such instead of discounted and categorized as weaknesses. It takes a village to raise a child to become a productive citizen of any society, but all too often it is just one woman doing it by herself while holding down multiple jobs. The ills of socidty begin at birth. Help her! Sorry for that little rant, but sometimes I can’t help myself. Challenges never prevent us from succeeding. Failing to overcome them does. Looking back over my life reminds me of this long stretch of highway I once drove. Seeing it out the windchield and from the rearview mirror the road looked smooth, but it was so bumpy it caused my teeth to rattle the whole time. I’d say my life is pretty much like that road.
As you know, we’re big fans of Susan Joyce, Author. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
As a financial adviser I witnessed how women more often than men failed to participate effectively in decisions concerning their wealth. Too often women acquiesce to a trusted male or their financial adviser, which is something I tell women they should never, never, ever, ever do. Now I want you to realize that I was licensed in eleven states from coast-to-coast and the firm I worked for required a minimum of $1 million just to open an account, so the women I am talking about were all women successful in other areas of their lives … intellegent, educated, and accomplished. Yet when it came to talking to a financial professional, they fell short. If women like these fell short, what would happen to the rest of the women in the world? Seeing women put themselves in harm’s way this way kept my head off the pillow. So, I founded the Women’s Financial Focus Groups of Minnesota to find the cause of that phenominon. After much neurological science research, focus groups, and pilot programs the answer emerged–gender differences. The reason my books are unique is because I am not just a psychologist who understands how the female mind processes information, but I am also a tenured financial professional who understands how the financial industry operates. As far as I know, I am the only person to realize this problem and the only person who can provide an alternative that works better for women. My books explain in more detail how women are at a disadvantage when it comes to obtaining financial advice, especially married women who share assets. My books, Real Women Manage Wealth and the Personal Finance NOTEBOOK, show women how to manage wealth like a woman and not like a man. It is a way that just makes more sense. They are the only two books a woman needs to achieve financial security in all situations and under any circumstance throughout life. The funny thing is, my editor was a male and he found the information just as helpful. He wanted me to change the title to include men, but the purpose of my books is to help the most vulnerable–women. I consider my books to be my legacy to all women. But men should read them, too.
Do you any memories from childhood that you can share with us?
Summers, running barefoot, camping along the Mississippi River and riding the waves the barges made. We did a lot of boating and camping with my cousins. There is nothing like a deserted island in the middle of the Mississippi River to ignight a child’s imagination, expecially at night when the parents thought we were sleeping in our tents.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.BooksBySusanJoyce.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SusanJoyce.Author
