Author: ssuntree

JULY 1, 2021 THE ARGONAUT PAGE 17
A R T S & E V E N T S
SoCal’s Secret History Santa Monica author releases new audiobook
By Haley Beyer

Susan Suntree’s best-selling, award-winning book, “Sacred Sites: The Secret History of Southern California”, was first published in 2010 and describes the origins of the universe, the evolution of plants and animals, migration of humans and much more.

In 2021, Suntree released a new audiobook version of her book, which is available on 41 sites including Amazon, Google and Audible. The inspiration for the audiobook stemmed from her curiosity of how things came to be. “I asked myself how did things come to be the way they are?” Suntree said. “I wanted to see through the palm trees ; and concrete.” Suntree wanted people to feel like they were part of the world they lived in. SoCal expert Susan Suntree’s new audiobook “Sacred Sites: The Secret History of Southern California” features little-known information about the geological formation of the landscape, Native American sacred villages, and the coming of the Europeans, She felt misplaced in Los Angeles because there was no information available about the landscape or indigenous people. She used her experience as a performance artist, teacher and 18th Street Art Center resident artist to start her research and worked with tribal leaders, artists, historians and scientists at major universities and museums.

What Suntree discovered changed the way she viewed her home and she wanted to share that with everyone around her. “Southern California is a dynamic place,” Suntree said. “There is continual transformational landscape. It is a force of life on this astounding planet. It is all intelligence. All alive.” In the audiobook, Suntree covers the history of the Native American people who lived in Southern California for more than 15,000 years. She also shares information about the Tongva and other indigenous tribes with their villages Cahuenga, Tujunga, Topanga and other familiar locations. One fact that most people do not know is that the oldest human skeleton in North America was found in LA. After exploring the Santa Monica Mountains, 16-millionyear-old seashells that were once coastal seabeds were found as well. Earthquakes are responsible for pushing the mountains higher, and after the Ice Age ended, the bay that once filled the LA basin retreated and the region basked in the current Mediterranean climate that LA is known for today. Suntree’s journey began as a one-woman show, which was then made into her best-selling book. Making it into an audiobook “restored it to its native being.” “My worlds didn’t collide, the two worlds became braided together,” Suntree said.

To prepare for recording, Suntree went through voice exercises and lessons. Once the work began, she worked every single day until it was completed. The work was tedious because the layering of the music, voices of the characters, and creating a clear concept of the timeline was essential to creating the perfect interpretation. The music helped move the story along and Suntree enjoyed working with composer Tom Zehnder and featured Ernest Siva. She also worked with actor Kalani Queypo and Peter Coyote, an Emmy Award-winning narrator of documentaries. “It was so important for me to work with these two people,”Suntree said. “It felt right to have the male voice of Queypo, an indigenous person, tell the story alongside someone as brilliant and experienced as Coyote. “To purchase the audio book, visit shop.authors-direct.com/collections/suntree-sacred-sitesaudiobook The audiobook is narrated by Suntree and actor Kalani Queypo, and features Peter Coyote, the voice of Ken Burns’ documentaries. CREDIT: TONY VEREBES

CREDITS: AUDIOBOOK COVER IMAGE: JUERGEN NOGAI;

COVER DESIGN: TIM GIBBS-ZEHNDER

3 September 2019

Dear Friends,

Literary Good News:

Attached is the flyer for our Writers Circle reading at Beyond Baroque Literary Center on 6 September, 8 PM, in Venice. We four writers meet weekly. Each of us has developed a body of work, both poetry, storytelling, memoir, creative nonfiction, and fiction that demonstrate a range of styles and voices We are eager to share. Join us!

Sacred Sites: The Secret History of Southern California will be published in a paperback next spring which will include a few updates in the science section. I am thrilled about this! And there is an audio book in the works which I will report on in the fall.

In November, I will be reading on the creative writing panel at the Pacific-Asia Modern Language Association (PAMLA) conference in San Diego.

11th Street Historic Bungalow District:  Our indefatigable committee has regrouped after the intense effort that led to our success in establishing this district. Now we are preparing for negotiations about the rules that will govern its ongoing care.   I am ever grateful to all of you who helped along the way. Every single contribution mattered!

The Santa Monica Conservancy honored me and my co-chair, Diane Miller, with the 2019 Preservation Advocacy Award. They also honored Mid City Neighbors for their essential support of our project. I felt truly honored to receive this recognition which not only honors me but all the many people who contributed to the establishment of this historic district.

I’ve finally completed my notes and sorted the slides about my grueling and utterly fascinating journey last August to Western Mongolia which I am happy to share with you. I held a screening for a few people last week and am happy to do so again.  Meanwhile, I’ll soon set out on the Norwegian mail boat from Kirkenes, a very far northern Norwegian town,traveling south through the fjords. My sister and I will disembark at the Lofoten Islands for a few days before completing the journey to Bergen. Thereafter we will take the train over the mountains to Oslo. We are promised spectacular scenery and wild weather.

Summer with its heat and light, bumper crop of crises, and garden vigor presented itself with the lengthening and now slowly shortening days. In the afternoon when it’s time to stretch and walk, I look out my studio window here at 18th Street Art Center with increasing wonder at the earthly beauty of the Holocene, lately named the Anthropocene for the human hands and minds that want to overtake that beauty while some of us work to restore and support it. Our work is ever present.

With the season, Susan

READING DATE CHANGE AND GOOD NEWS

4 May 208

Dear Friends,

CHANGE OF DATE: My reading at Britt Marie in Albany is happening on Sunday, 20 May at 3:30 (see the poster below)!

Sorry for the confusion! I hope to see you there. Britt Marie is one of those beloved restaurants that people regularly return to. It was bought a few years ago by a former student of mine. Timo Rodriguez was a memorably smart, lively unto wild young man attending one of my remedial writing courses at East Los Angeles College. He went on to earn a PhD at UC Berkeley, but tiring of academic life, bought Britt Marie and introduced a poetry series among other lively additions to the restaurants great food and ambiance. Plan to stay for dinner!

Good News: My adaptation as a poem of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, set as a choral work by award winning composer Adrienne Albert: A Choral Quilt of Hope, will be sung in Kansas City this summer. They will sing the Preamble and plan to present the complete work later this year. We hope to see this work sung across the country and, in translation, around the world, so people will embody the UNDHR’s vision, articulated so long ago, of peace and community benefit for all.

June 24, 2018
A CHORAL QUILT OF HOPE: PREAMBLE (click to go to Adrienne’s site)
Westport Presbyterian Church
Kansas City, MO 64111

 Good News: Our efforts to create an Historic 11th Street Bungalow District moves forward. We received a strong letter of endorsement from Pasadena Heritage, one of the foremost conservancies in the country.

May! The month of Green Grass. Upcoming: June, “The Little Month of bright summer air/when the young eagles fly.”

Susan