A native Texan, Susan fell in love with the guitar when she was four, and after playing on a shoe box with rubber bands for strings for two years, she finally badgered her parents into getting her a real guitar and signing her up for lessons when she was six. She supported her raucous studies by giving guitar lessons to various willing victims for a nickel apiece.
This went on for years (although her fee went up and her playing, aided by the addition of five strings, greatly improved), until as a teenager she became the student of Pepe Romero.

Her rather ecclectic studies took Susan from the University of St. Thomas to life with Los Romeros in California to the Mozarteum in Salzburg and finally to the Banff Centre for the Arts in the Canadian Rockies. Since then she has given concerts throughout North and South America and Europe and her recordings have been heard worldwide. Her CDs "the Cathedral" and "Comfort" have been Grammy-nominated and her recording of the Carmen Miranda standard "Tico-Tico" was chosen by the German newspaper Die Welt as one of the "Top-Ten of the Week" according to radio listener response.

Susan's concerts at Carnegie Hall and Wortham Center have brought as much delight to her listeners as have her gigs opening for the Dixie Chicks and for Stanley Jordan. President George Bush and Governor Ann Richards have enjoyed her playing as much as the patients at MD Anderson Cancer Center. As Pepe Romero described her playing, "She casts a spell over the audience."