Sue's degree in Dramatic Arts and Speech is from Rutgers University. Her experience as an editor hails from the 1960s, when she edited dissertations for graduate students. Her intermittent careers have been, most importantly, mother, then dance director and historian, intentional community administrator, construction worker, and playwright. She enjoys editing, politics, and building the earthship in which she and John live.
As a mother, she has 5 children, and enjoys visiting her 9 grandchildren.
Political interest has been strong since childhood. Sue performed at peace rallies in the '60s and participated in civil rights demonstrations, including at the famous "I have a dream" speech by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Washington DC. She worked with the United Farm Workers and with the gay and lesbian Right to Marry Taskforce in Vermont. She suspects she may be becoming a pacifist in her later years.
Sue has traveled in many parts of the world, including living in Chile for a year, and traveling in Belgium, Bermuda, Bolivia, Canada, Costa Rica, Ecuador, England, France, Mexico, Peru, Puerto Rico, Russia, and across the United States numerous times. She finds southern Utah to be the most beautiful place she has been.
Sue has written a reader's theater play of African American poetry and a science fiction story.
Sue and John met as dancers while Sue directed Teen Two-Step, and Worldance, arranging cultural exchanges between Vermont teenage dancers and teenagers in Russia, England, Newfoundland, and Costa Rica. She formed Galopede to present traditional New England dance in period costume at local venues, and danced in France, Belgium, Ecuador, Canada and New England with the Green Mountain Volunteers. She directed cultural exchanges with younger dancers from India, Mexico, Bulgaria, and Japan with their Vermont counterparts.
Both Sue and John have rehabilitated old houses, and following John's lead, Sue is now interested in environmental issues. The couple is building the earthship in which they live, a green building that uses recycled building materials and passive solar techniques.
They were founding members of the Meadowdance Intentional Community. That group spent 3 years meeting together before forming a physical community. The original vision of families sharing land in separate housing gradually changed over the 5 years Sue and John lived there, with some members desiring to live communally in one house. In part, Neruda is an attempt to return to the original vision. For Neruda, Sue and John modified the vision and mission statements they developed with some of the other founding members of Meadowdance.
John's degree is in Engineering Physics from Cornell University. His experience as an editor hails from the early '90s, when he helped produce a magazine about computers, writing articles, doing production work, and providing technical assistance. His careers have included dancer, intentional community financial administrator, construction worker, and environmentalist.
John enjoys parenting and grandparenting, helping the children through their many practical tribulations.
His main thrust politically is environmentalism. He works to reduce the carbon imprint of the household and has plans for a microhydroelectric installation that will allow the couple to sell electricity to the grid. He also works to enhance the local Winooski River and advocates for a simple lifestyle, eschewing materialism and the consumer culture.
John loves to snowboard, ski, and bike. He has lived in Belgium for a year and traveled in Bermuda, Canada, the Cayman Islands, England, France, Gibraltar, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, and across the United States several times. His favorite place to be is home.