Contributor Focus: Stephanie Suesan Smith
July 29, 2011 
5 Comments
I met Stephanie through my online mentor, blog collaborator and business influencer; Gail Gardener. She has guest posted here before and I thought her approach to promoting a blog and marketing a book was well thought out and that she had a strategy that worked. I’ve been following some of her advice before that, but she really helped me streamline the process through her post.
Recently, I have been talking about the power of collaboration and explaining how I believe the synergy created from it could really help a group of bloggers success and move forward together. Stephanie was one of the first who responded and said she was interested. That was a couple months ago. It wasn’t until a week or so ago that I got in touch with Stephanie again and she said she’s coming on board for a weekly column.
Born in Dallas, Texas, too long ago to mention, Stephanie Smith got her first dog, a toy Poodle, at the age of four. With the exception of seven months in California as a baby, and three years in Florida as a preteen, she has lived all her life in Texas, usually near Dallas. Stephanie received a B.S. in psychology from Texas Christian University and a M.S. and Ph.D. in psychology from Texas A&M University in College Station.
While at A&M, she became involved in obedience in self defense after adopting a very young, very poorly socialized Labrador/Cocker Spaniel mix from the local shelter. Bear taught her a great deal about dog training, and to never stick a finger in the mouth of a dog while trying to get him to swallow an antibiotic he didn’t want. After a couple of years, Stephanie got a Joyce Morgan miniature Poodle and started to show in AKC Obedience. Not content with that, Pointers, hunt tests came next, and then Pointer rescue. A dozen years and many, many Pointers later, health forced the end of those activities. Currently, Stephanie has an Australian Cattle Dog, Sandy, and Star, an Australian Cattle Dog/travelin man mix. Sandy is chief greeter for the household. Star is currently growing up so that she can be a Service Dog for her human.
Stephanie began gardening as soon as she could stick an onion start in the ground. Her father taught her to grow things to eat, and that is what she specializes in. Now a master gardener, she lives in North Eastern Texas on 14 acres.
Stephanie was first published by a national magazine in Dog Fancy in 1990. She has publications in several dog magazines such as Dog Gone, Good Dog!, and Pointing Dog Journal. Gardening articles have appeared in Animal Wellness, 903 Magazine, and the Greenville Herald Banner, among other places. She also has a few publications and many technical papers in psychology to round out the periodicals publications for Dr. Smith.
Her book, Preparing A Vegetable Garden From The Ground Up is available in paperback and Ebook format. Stephanie also wrote a pamphlet; Using Social Media to Make Your Blog Work Harder also available on Amazon.
Feel free to visit Stephanie’s website and read her blog, view her photographs, and participate in the conversations going on there. Stephanie would greatly welcome you to ask gardening questions or leave a comment on one of the blog posts.
must say that overall I am really impressed with this blog.It is easy to see that you are passionate about your writing. If only I had your writing ability I look forward to more updates
A dog lover and passionate gardener, that’s a great combination!You’d get along famously with my husband who’s like you: he loves dogs and his garden (though he goes beyond vegetables and includes flowers in his passion)
All this to say I’m sure we’ll get along famously as well and I shall visit your blog – gardening here in Italy is, I assume, quite different, but the earth is the earth, right?
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Actually, since the zone system in the United States is based on maximum and minimum temperature, it can be roughly adapted to any place in which you have those two pieces of information. So if you tell me hot hot your summers are and how cold your winters get, I can tell you about what zone you are in and we can discuss your gardening that way. Of course, Europe has many vegetable cultivars that we do not, and vice versa, but there is at least some common ground, if you pardon the pun.
Stephanie Suesan Smith, Ph.D. recently posted..Guest Post on A Writer’s Life Today