Bio
New York Times bestselling author Susannah Charleson has been writing professionally since 1981, but began creating bedtime stories to tell her parents as a pre-schooler–her favorite being about a family with a pet elephant and twelve kids, the youngest a baby named Stinky.
A freelance writer after graduating from college, she first wrote for magazines, newspapers, radio, and television, and developed content for academic publishers in the early days of the internet.
Susannah’s family once included actors, musicians, pilots, media and medical professionals, and without even knowing some of that history, her own career followed similar paths. She voiced her first radio commercial (for triple-thick, frosty milkshakes) at nine years old and worked in radio and television across three decades, one of her first adult jobs spinning records, writing hometown commercials, and reading news at a tiny, rural AM station that went off the air daily at noon. In larger cities, she delivered radio news, weather, and traffic–the latter while piloting a Cessna 152. Susannah hosted a Dallas-area arts & entertainment television program for thirteen years.
Away from the keyboard and the microphone, Susannah is a K9 search-and-rescue handler/trainer in the United States with a focus on search protocol for the special-needs missing with cognitive disabilities. She began her search work as a commercial pilot and flight instructor in the 1990s, overflying flooded areas and other weather-damaged sites to locate stranded survivors. On the ground, her first K9 search partner, Puzzle, was a Golden Retriever certified for the rescue or recovery of missing persons in urban, wilderness, disaster, and scent discrimination / trailing searches. Puzzle retired in 2016. Susannah is now partnered by golden Gambit, sired by Puzzle’s grandfather.
At home, Susannah lives with a rabble of rescued cats, dogs, chickens, and fish–many of them with special needs, including a blind hen that crows, and a paralyzed pup on wheels named Ruff Draft.
Susannah’s first book, Scent of the Missing: Love and Partnership with a Search and Rescue Dog, was published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in April 2010. This critically well-received book also appeared on the New York Times, Dallas Morning News, and Denver Post Bestseller lists, with excerpts appearing in D Magazine, Bark, and other online venues. The e-book returned to Wall Street Journal and Amazon bestseller lists in fall, 2012. Scent of the Missing is available in audio formats from Blackstone Audio and in e-print for Kindle, iPad, etc., as well. Portugese, Polish, Czechoslovakian, Japanese and Chinese editions are also available.
Scent is available through Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and fine independent booksellers nationwide and may be ordered directly from the book’s website, online, or purchased in stores.
Scent of the Missing was optioned for television in 2010, produced as pilot for TNT, and is owned by CBS Productions.
A book that follows Susannah’s work with rescued dogs trained for mental health service to the disabled and for therapy work in the wake of catastrophe or trauma — The Possibility Dogs: What a Handful of Rescues Taught Me About Service, Hope, & Healing, was published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, June 2013.
Audiobook editions of both Scent of the Missing and The Possibility Dogs are available from Blackstone Audio/Downpour.com. Susannah narrates both books.
Released June 4, 2019:
Where the Lost Dogs Go: A Story of Love, Search, and the Power of Reunion, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. After years as a search specialist for missing persons, Susannah turns her attention to the search for lost pets. In this heart-lifting, challenging work, she’s assisted by a compassionate golden retriever and a resourceful last chance shelter dog, who, when Susannah suffers her own tragic loss, helps heal her grief. Where the Lost Dogs Go is available in hardcover, e-book, and, via Blackstone Audio/Downpour, audiobook, narrated by the author. The paperback edition released June 2020.
Collaboration released July 2025:: When a young family takes a chance on an almost two-centuries old house at risk of demolition, what can possibly go right? A tale of warped doors and creaky staircases, of flood, fire, bats, butterflies, wayward peacocks, surly turtles, and a rumor of ghosts. Along the way, the battered old house reveals its history and the important legacy of the steadfast abolitionist who built it in a divided, turbulent New York before the Civil War.
It’s a different kind of love story.
From Andscape/Disney Publishing Worldwide, a collaboration with Jamie Arty (whose story this is): The Chancellor’s Mansion: A Story of Family, Home, History and Mystery.
Presentation and media inquiries relating to all books and other works after December 2019, contact the author: susannah@susannahcharleson.com
Representation:
Susan Canavan
Waxman Literary Agency
susan@wlabooks.com
Formerly represented (2007-April 2021) by the late, esteemed
Jim Hornfischer
President
Hornfischer Literary Management, L.P.
Austin TX
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