Susan Florence, internationally acclaimed author and artist has been connecting people for 40 years with her simple and profound words and original art. Susan’s work has inspired readers worldwide, selling more than 63 million dollars in retail sales through greeting cards, stationery, gift books and gift products.

Susan started a greeting card company with her husband, Jim, in CA. in 1970. People Productions, one of the first alternative greeting card companies, created a successful trademark look and a following. In 1985, Susan and Jim sold their business to C.R. Gibson, a Norwalk CT. company. Susan continued her greeting cards, notes and stationery lines and with Gibson, her trademark look became product lines of photo albums, ceramic mugs, paper tableware, Chrsitmas and Baby collections and a best selling series of gift books. Her work also was licensed as stitchery kits, magnets, textile products and calendars.

C.R.Gibson was sold to Thomas Nelson, Inc. of Nashville, TN. in 1997, and they did not publish greeting cards, stationery, or gift products. Nelson’s book publishing business had no place for Susan’s best selling line of gift books, because the text was not from the Bible. Susan terminated her book contract and began her journey of fulfilling a new dream. She was inspired by personal, meaningful letters from people who were helped by her gift books and began working on ideas for a new book series

Susan began studying art again and found her passion in loose, free watercolors painted “plein aire” outside in nature. Her watercolors and new writings came together in a gift book collection, called Journeys, published by Helen Exley Giftbooks, a UK Company. This line of deeper, more spiritually nourishing books has sold 500,000 copies since 2003. These inspirational texts have been translated into French, Norwegian, Finnish, Polish and Portuguese.

Susan’s original gift books created by C.R. Gibson are still selling in Spanish and Portuguese by
V and R Editoras, a Buenas Aires company. These Friendship Books have sold over 1.5 million units.

Susan graduated from San Jose State University with a BA in Art and minored in Creative Writing. Her gift products have always been fueled by her words. She studies poetry at the San Miguel Poetry Week every year and attends writers retreats and workshops. Her poetry has won prizes and and she continues her passion of writing and illustrating gift books, especially for women.

Susan lives with her husband Jim, in Ojai, California and they have two grown children, Brent and Emily.

Visit Susan at: www.susanflorence.com