Susan Florence, internationally acclaimed author and artist has been connecting people for over 36 years with her simple and profound words and original art. Susan’s work has inspired readers worldwide, selling more than 62 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 1970. People Productions was one of the first alternative greeting card companies and enjoyed success and a following until 1985 when Susan and Jim sold their business to C.R. Gibson, a Norwalk CT. company. Susan continued her greeting cards and stationery product 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 following grew and her work was also licensed and sold as stitchery kits, ceramic magnets, textile products and calendars.

C.R.Gibson was sold to Thomas Nelson, Inc. of Nashville, TN. in 1997. Thomas Nelson would not continue greeting cards and focussed mainly on their book publishing market. But they had no place in their Christian only market for Susan’s best selling line of gift books. 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 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. The watercolors and new text ideas 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 over 400,000 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 has taken the last two years to write and is working on a womans book as well as her passion of writing poetry.

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

Visit Susan at: www.susanflorence.com