Debutante turned cop becomes author
BY PAM BRANNON Gulf Breeze News news@gulfbreezenews.com

Pam Brannon/Gulf Breeze News Susan Anderson of Gulf Breeze left her life as a debutante to wear a police uniform then decided to put her experiences into book form with “Cold Case in Ellyson.”

When author Susan Anderson of Gulf Breeze was growing up in Pensacola she became deeply engulfed in the debutante lifestyle. The last thing any of her friends, or family, would have expected was for Susan to become a law enforcement officer.

“My friends could not believe I became a cop,” she said. And to see her today, it would be hard to believe this petite, quiet, well-mannered little lady once strapped on a gun belt and chased “bad guys.”

It was not hard to believe she was a debutante in her early years.

“All my friends were into that lifestyle, too. You know, I was Queen of Fiesta,” she laughs. “My friends could not believe I would want to leave all that for the police academy.” These days she is not actively fighting crime, but she is writing about it — in her new novel “Cold Case in Ellyson.” She said it is definitely fiction, but based on a lot of real life situations in her own life, especially those while she served in law enforcement.

“My grandfather was Sheriff of Escambia County, Ala. My mom was one of those people who always had the police scanner on. I guess that is maybe one reason I was always interested in what law enforcement is all about,” she said. “But when I first decided I wanted to look into law enforcement, my mother had a fit. I have been a skydiver; I run marathons. I have always enjoyed adventure. But I guess wearing a uniform and fighting bad guys was not one adventure my mother wanted me to experience.”

Anderson did not start out fighting crime right out of high school. First she headed to Southern Methodist University in Dallas to study journalism.

“I’ve always loved to write,” she said. “And I’ve always had the desire to help other people, in any way I could at the time.”

But right in the middle of pursuing her journalism degree, she woke up one morning and decided she wanted to be part of the FBI.

“It wasn’t anything I had been thinking about, and nothing that I know triggered it. I just realized I wanted to become a law enforcement officer.”

So that day she went downtown to the FBI headquarters and made an appointment to see what she needed to do.

“The first thing they told me was that at that time you needed two years of work experience- someplace- before you could apply to enter their training program. I didn’t have that, so I put it on the back burner and went back to finish my degree, thinking I would come back in a couple years. Then life gets in the way.”

She graduated with a journalism degree and came back home to help her parents in their business. She did work for a couple newspapers, one in California. Then her mom passed in 1994.

“I think that was a turning point for me. I looked at my life, and thought what do I want to do with the rest of my own life. When you lose someone close to you, it makes you realize how short and fragile life is. I realized one dream I had been putting off was to go to the police academy. So I went to enroll, in Pensacola.”

She attended night classes at the Pensacola academy.

“I had a blast,” she recalls. “I graduated, and no one could believe it. I guess none of my friends could picture me in the uniform. Then I had a couple babies, so I just worked as a non-paid part-time reserve officer with Milton City Police.”

That eventually evolved into a full time paid position with Milton Police. “I worked on the bike patrol, and that was a lot of fun. But there are bad guys running around Milton,” she laughed. “Some people would be surprised to find out what the police get into in that community It isn’t always safe, and isn’t always easy.”

Then one of her sons became ill, and it was life threatening. By that time she was a single mother of two sons, and decided to quit the full time law enforcement to focus on helping her son get well. After she was sure he was going to recover, she entered the Masters in English program at University of West Florida. The basis of her new book was her thesis in that program.

“I finished it and graduated in 2002. I used a lot of my experiences as a cop and in my life and spun the story off from there.”

It took her about six months to write. “I enjoyed it so much, and had put so much work into it, I decided to expand on it and make it into a full length novel. I found an editor on the Internet that I respected and sent it to him, asking for some feedback,” she said.

Then Hurricane Ivan hit, and she was glad she had sent it to the editor. “We lost everything, including my hard copy of my manuscript. So I emailed the editor and asked him to send me back a copy of my book,” she laughed. “So glad he had a copy.”

After a year and a half of putting their life back together, as Anderson describes it, she decided to again pursue doing something with her manuscript. By then she had remarried and her husband knows the website business. “I have found a couple small publishing houses to send it to. But I also asked my husband to help me launch it to the World Wide Web, and build a website of my own so people could access it easily. That happened last October, in 2006. Since then, more than 800 people from all over the world have visited the website. I get feedback from the website when someone accesses it. It is just amazing to me, how people around the world even find it.”

The story, “Cold Case in Ellyson,” is a crime mystery. For a small cost, you can download the book directly from the website. Or you can send it to someone else, even as a gift, directly from the website. The site is: www.coldcaseellyson.com.

When you visit the website, you can read part of the first chapter for free. Then you can get a taste of Anderson’s novel, before you pay for the entire manuscript.

Anderson isn’t done with her adventures yet, however. She is currently in the process of writing her second book. But this one she is working on with some other women in the community, and she says it is not to be a novel.

“I just hate the fact that so many women think they are only one woman. They ignore their dreams; they don’t explore what they want to do no matter what age they are. I think women should reach out and see what life can still offer, at any age.”