TBD Ep 107: Church Lady, Finally Uncensored with Susan Byrum Rountree

She's a self-described "professional church lady" who spent fifty years building her writing career around one rule: be home when the kids get off the bus. Now, at almost seventy, Susan Byrum Rountree is finally writing without holding back. Susan built her career freelancing and teaching writing while raising two children, choosing a nonlinear path that allowed her to be present for her family while continuing to pursue her work. She's also the author of Nag's Headers, a history of North Carolina's Outer Banks cottages, now back in print for its 25th anniversary. But the real turning point came in 2019, when Susan was diagnosed with breast cancer — the same week she lost the newspaper column she'd been writing for years. She decided that if she got through treatment, she would finally finish the novel she'd shelved decades earlier. That novel is Church Ladies — and it opens in a grocery store with a cucumber. It doesn't stop there. In this episode, Maura and Christie talk with Susan about choosing motherhood over a faster-moving career, wanting her children to see that their mom had a job and that her work mattered, the particular sting of pitching and rejection as a freelance writer, surviving a major health setback, and rededicating herself to her writing. Susan also talks about what changed when she finally gave herself permission to write scenes she wouldn't have dared write twenty years ago — including the sex scene that makes it clear that, at this point in her life, nothing is off the table. In this episode: • Building a writing career around motherhood and family • The realities of freelancing, pitching, and rejection • A breast cancer diagnosis that became a catalyst for finishing a shelved novel • What it means to rededicate yourself to your career later in life • Giving yourself permission to write what you really want to write • Why a nonlinear career can still become a meaningful and lasting one • Nag's Headers and the history of North Carolina's Outer Banks cottages • Susan's forthcoming novel, Church Ladies The question we ask everyone: Can you really have it all — and all at the same time? Susan's answer isn't simple. But it's honest. 🎙️ About Susan Byrum Rountree Website: https://www.susanbyrumrountree.com/ Book: Nag's Headers Instagram: @SusanByrumRountree Facebook: Susan Byrum Rountree Threads: @susanbyrumrountree Bluesky: @susanbrountree.bsky.social #TheBalancedDilemma #podcast #ChristieDerrico #MauraCarlin #spotify #SusanByrumRountree #CanYouHaveItAll #DebutNovelist #BreastCancerSurvivor #CareerReinvention #ChurchLadiesNovel #ReinventionAtAnyAge #WorkingMoms #WomenInWriting #WritingLife