Advertisement She grew up in Holmen until the seventh grade when her family moved to La Crosse. Amundson graduated from Logan High School, attended Western Wisconsin Technical College and earned a degree from the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse majoring in business administration and economics while she worked at Gundersen Lutheran for 14 years.
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Holmen native Susan Amundson’s book tour for her first novel, "Spirit Rider," brings her to the area Nov. 29.
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Having been in northern Wisconsin for the past 13 years, those days seem far behind her life as a natural horsemanship trainer and recently an author.
Amundson returns to the area Nov. 29 on her national book tour for her first novel, “Spirit Rider.”
Her move to Washburn, near Lake Superior, brought her to a more natural way of life. Instead of accounts to manage, Amundson manages horses. Rather, she teaches horse owners to manage their horses. She also manages accounts for a weekly paper in Washburn, writes articles and columns and does a little of everything in the small office.
There was a time when Amundson had a horse that was challenging her skills. The problems gnawed at her and one day at the paper, she was going through mail and saw a press release for a program for healing the inner healer using ancient teachings of the Delicate Lodge.
Horses have been her passion since moving to Washburn and, after learning those teachings and seeing the benefits of integrating them with horsemanship, Amundson started thinking someone should write a book that brings the two concepts together.
“Then I realized, why not me?” she said.
“What really helped was I didn’t have any experience (writing/publishing),” Amundson said. “No one told me it would be hard. I just sat down and started writing and the characters started coming out.”
Amundson started writing in November 2007 and she had a printed copy in her hand by the end of April 2008. “The writing went really fast,” she said. “Once I started, the story just flew out of my fingers.”
She decided to self-publish because she was concerned editors would change or eliminate some of the lodge teachings, destroying the integrity of the concepts.
The story, while fictional, has its roots in Amundson’s attempt to manage one of her horses, who refused to do certain things. Amundson tried numerous ways to train the horse, but the horse resisted. This horse pushed all Amundson’s buttons, causing her untold frustration. Amundson learned the challenge was she had to heal herself before she could heal the horse and work together.
“We each have our own ways we go into healing. It could come from a horse, a family member or a work situation,” Amundson said. “Everyone has something different that makes them realize their life isn’t working, and they need to find something else to do about it.”
If it wasn’t the horse, she said, something else would have come along to force her to look at herself and some issues she thought she had forgotten.
Now, through her horsemanship combined with the teachings, Amundson is helping other people build better relationships with their horse. “Horses have to have some amount of training in order for us to live together,” she said. “That training does not have to be abusive to get the same result.”
Even though she hasn’t had any training, Amundson is already working on her next two novels which are all part of a series. She said she loves her activities selling “Spirit Rider.” “I love it, I have so much fun. The biggest reason is I get to sit and talk to people about horses.”
Amundson is also grateful that her book is universally accepted. Her books are being sold in Ireland, England, Scotland and Denmark. Young boys and girls are also very interested in the book. “There are a lot of young boys and girls who love horses and want to read about them. There’s no illicit sex, swearing or violence. I wanted mothers to share the books with their daughters.” After a book show, Amundson learned men really like it, too.
Amundson doesn’t let the success change her. “You have to learn to keep the balance and keep it all in perspective,” she said.
