We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Susan Friedland. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Susan below.

Susan, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Equestrian author Susan Friedland has been blogging at her award-winning site saddleseekshorse.com since 2013, and co-hosts the Horse Illustrated Barn Banter Podcast. Susan’s writing has been featured in numerous magazines including Horse Illustrated, Young Rider, and Sidelines. Susan’s latest book, Marguerite, Misty and Me, reveals the hidden history of beloved author Marguerite Henry and the pony Misty of Chincoteague. When Susan’s not writing or traveling on equestrian adventures, she’s trotting around on her off-track Thoroughbred Tiz A Knight in her home state of Illinois, or wintering in Ocala, Florida.

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What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

For the past two years, I have been researching the hidden history of my favorite childhood author, Marguerite Henry. Marguerite was (and still is) famous for her Newbery Honor-winning story Misty of Chincoteague. Misty is the tale of a boy and girl who live on Chincoteague Island, Virginia, and are smitten with a wild pony named the Phantom. They earn money doing chores so they can purchase the Phantom and keep her and love her forever.

Although Misty of Chincoteague is a work of fiction, Marguerite based her book on real people, ponies and events. Every July, the wild Chincoteague Ponies are rounded up from their home on neighboring Assateague Island and swim across the channel to Chincoteague Island. There, most of the foals are sold at auction. This practice, which has been going on for almost a century, ensures the herd will not suffer from overpopulation, and the auction proceeds fund the Chincoteague Volunteer Fire Company which owns the herd. I have followed in Marguerite’s footsteps from Chincoteague to see the wild ponies, to Milwaukee, the city of her birth. I felt like Nancy Drew as I reached out to archivists and librarians for help in piecing together the untold story of this iconic author.

It was a thrill to read her personal papers from the Marguerite Henry Collection, which is part of the Kerlan Collection at the University of Minnesota. I spent weeks digging through 36 Bankers Boxes discovering letters, unpublished manuscripts, galley proofs and personal correspondence. A highlight was holding her Newbery Medal for King of the Wind, her 1948 title about the Godolphin Arabian.

Along the way, I not only got to know Marguerite (she died in the 1990s), but I had what felt like a backstage pass to her writing practices. As a writer, I want to emulate her. I found it interesting that Marguerite got her first horse when she was in her 40s, and she kept writing until her death. She never retired. What an inspirational person. I’m delighted to bring this hidden history to light and to share it with fellow horse and children’s literature fans. I am elated to honor the legacy of a creative woman I so admire.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

As a horsewoman, I have learned to be resilient. When you fall off a horse, the next step is to brush yourself off and get back on and keep going. When I first began blogging, I had zero experience running a WordPress site. I’m not particularly adept with technology. I figured it out along the way. When I wrote my first memoir, Horses Adored and Men Endured: a Memoir of Falling and Getting Back Up, I had an agent. She tried for about a year to sell the story, but we kept hearing that although it was a charming book, it was “too niche.” I pivoted and learned how to publish it myself. I didn’t know what I didn’t know, but along the way I kept figuring it out. With Marguerite, Misty and Me, I had no experience doing archival research. I had a 20-year career teaching middle school history, but I did not really think of myself as a historian. Again, I had to figure out it as I went along. I often had to remind myself of two silly little phrases: “Inch by inch, it’s a cinch. By the yard, it’s much too hard,” and, “Rome wasn’t built in a day.”

Contact Info:

• Website: saddleseekshorse.com
• Instagram: @saddleseekshorse
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SaddleSeeksHorse/

Image Credits
Photos of Susan by Carolyn Rikje Photos of swimming ponies by Susan Friedland