By David-Elijah Nahmod
In the winter of 2018, Belo Miguel Cipriani, publisher of Oleb Books, was looking for a partner organization to co-produce a writing contest for writers with disabilities. To his surprise, many small and large writing competitions were not interested in adding a contest just for writers with disabilities. They also felt that Oleb Books hadn’t reached the maturity they were seeking in a partner.
“Oleb Books was barely a year old,” said Cipriani, “and with only one title to our name, some of the writing centers and communities told me that they preferred to partner with more seasoned presses. They also weren’t keen on a focus on disability writing.”
So when Cipriani got a reply from Laura Perna and Susie Angel, co-organizers of Pen 2 Paper, one of the largest writing contests for writers with disabilities at the time, he was thrilled.
“After a few email exchanges, we had a conference call,” he said. “By the end of the meeting, we were finishing each other’s sentences and had a plan for an essay contest on parenting with a disability.”
Cipriani is quick to note that Susie had two major immediate impacts on his life. First, she helped him feel comfortable with asking someone with a speech impairment to repeat themselves. Second, she helped him understand the dichotomy of writing competitions.
“Susie was key in allowing me to recognize how writing contests put people into two categories: those who win and those who don’t,” Cipriani continued. “To combat this categorizing, Pen 2 Paper had started publishing a series called Those Who Got Away, which were pieces that weren’t finalists, but still deserved to be celebrated on their site.”
“In a similar way, Laura, Susie, and I wanted to make the process of being published through an anthology more accessible,” said Cipriani. “Laura and Susie began to offer conditional spots in the anthology to a few writers from the personal essay contest. The only caveat was that the writer work with them on developmental editing.”
Cipriani shares that as a result of the additional mentoring Laura and Susie were providing, the project took a little longer to produce — three years to be exact. Yet, shortly after setting a publication date for Accessing Parenthood: Essays by and about Parents with Disabilities, he received an email from Laura informing him of Susie’s passing.
“The entire team was crushed,” said Cipriani. “Susie was the heart of this operation, and we were sad that she wouldn’t be able to join us at the launch.”
Susie loved purple and hot pink, according to Perna.
“She was excited about the customization options on her last power chair, which allowed some pink highlights,” said Perna. “One day she showed up at the office with neon pink hair. She was a die-hard Boston Red Sox fan and in cooler months often wore a leather Boston Red Sox jacket. She wore glasses and a nearly perpetual smile.”
Perna describes Susie as “a workhorse and a perfectionist.”
“She took a lot of care to produce excellent work in anything she did,” Perna said. “We were similar that way, and we often joked about how sometimes that tendency got the better of us and caused undue stress.”
Susie loved dancing and going to baseball games.
“There was a stretch of a few years when she and her husband were constantly going to the Dell Diamond to watch our triple A-team, the Round Rock Express,” said Perna. “She was unflinching in her faith and an active member of the Austin New Church.”
According to Perna, Pen 2 Paper has been on hiatus since closing in 2020, and that will continue indefinitely.
“Even before the pandemic it was clear that it was getting too big for us to handle,” she said. “We had talked about continuing the contest as a much more paired down effort, hopefully one that includes Oleb Books.”
Susie Angel passed on August 20, 2022 in Austin, Texas at age 52. She had been suffering from cancer for some time, though it is believed that pneumonia and the loss of her attendant care were contributing factors. She leaves behind her husband of 30 years, her mother and her stepfather, her sister and brother, plus extended family. She also leaves behind many loving communities in Austin and around the world. For more information on Angel’s legacy, you can check out the tribute the Coalition of Texans with Disabilities published on their website at Coalition of Texans with Disabilities (txdisabilities.org).
thanks for this beautiful tribute to a beautiful person