The Mystical Writing Ability of Susan Kyle

By Terrie Ellerbee '95. Originally published in the Spring 2021 edition of the Piedmont Journal.

Someone ought to write a book about Susan Kyle '95. She knows a diamond smuggler and mercenaries. She covered murders and a bombing as a newspaper reporter.

“I learned things that I could never tell you,” she said.

The 74-year-old has also authored more than 200 books, most under the pseudonym Diana Palmer. She was just offered new six-book and three-book contracts with Harlequin and Kensington, respectively.

“I will accept it, although I think it’s overly optimistic,” she said. “I hope I will live long enough to finish it, but I figure if I sit down and atrophy, I’ll probably die, so I try to keep busy. And I’m still writing for three publishing houses, so that takes up most of my time.”

In the early days, she could type 110 words per minute, writing as fast as the stories came to her and busting typewriters in the process—her process.

“I’ll see a man or a woman, and I’ll see a surrounding, and then I’ll see them interacting, and it’s like watching a movie,” she said. “I see what I’m writing. It is like somebody else is giving it to me. It is a magical process, and it is a gift.”

Most of her books are romance/contemporary women’s fiction, though she loves science fiction and has a few titles in that genre. The first story Kyle wrote later became The Morcai Battalion book series. She also has a Soldier of Fortune series of romance novels featuring rugged mercenaries.

She was first published in 1979 and shared editors with the likes of the late Michael Crichton (Jurassic Park, Rising Sun). She is friends with bestselling authors and counts Jayne Ann Krentz and Debbie Macomber among them.

She was already successful and in her 40s when she came to Piedmont in 1991. Her academic advisor was history professor Dr. Al Pleysier.

“Before I knew it, I was in the degree program. I went for four years as a day student and got my degree in 1995 summa cum laude,” Kyle said. “One of the other students said some people come to college and catch fire. That was me. I loved every minute of it.”

While focusing on a history degree and minors in anthropology (she loved being “on my belly in the dirt with a toothbrush”) and Spanish (she reads, writes, and speaks it fluently), she worked full-time for publishers Warner Books, Random House, and Harlequin.

“I was quite busy. I had to go on tour a couple of times, and I carried my textbooks with me,” Kyle said. “When I wasn’t doing my job for the company, I was in the hotel room doing my lessons.”

The prolific author’s devotion to Piedmont matches her love of learning. She ranks her college experience right up there with getting married to her husband of 49 years, James, and having their son, Blayne. He and his wife, Christina, are also Piedmont graduates.

Kyle funded a science scholarship in her father’s name, W.O. Spaeth, and this year is starting a nursing scholarship in honor of her mother, Eloise.

“That way, I’ll have mom’s and dad’s both at the same college, at my college,” she said.

She met one of the many people she would later rely on for technical advice at Piedmont. He was a former Army ordnance officer who knew how to make bombs out of household supplies.

She met many of her sources in Georgia while working for 16 years as a contributing writer for the Times (previously the Gainesville Daily Times). Kyle also worked for a weekly paper, the now-defunct Tri-County Advertiser, and wrote a column for The Northeast Georgian.

When Kyle needed characters to survive and walk away from a twin-engine plane crash, she knew just who to call. She needed advice for hijacking a plane once and called on her late friend Jerry Ahern, author of the post-apocalyptic series The Survivalist.

For Kyle’s Soldiers of Fortune series, she relied on mercenaries for details.

“I’ve known a couple in my time, and they are fascinating people,” Kyle said. “I also knew a diamond smuggler and a drug dealer.”

On the other hand, she would just as soon never meet another film director. Her book Diamond Girl was turned into a television movie in 1998. It did not match the story she had seen in her mind while writing the novel.

“It was based on my idea, but it had nothing to do with my book,” she said. “The director changed the setting, the location, the characters, the plot. It was horrible.”

Kyle’s newest book, Notorious, was released in June. Once again, she wrote the movie she saw in her mind, laughing out loud as she went.

“It’s absolutely hilarious to me. It’s not like it’s me. It’s like somebody else is giving it to me,” she said. “I can’t explain it. It is mystical.”