Minnesota Classical Education Conference 2023 

Susan is a writer, teacher, and historian. She is the author most recently of Rethinking School: How to Take Charge of Your Child’s Education, as well as The Well-Educated Mind, The Story of Western Science, and the History of the World series, all published by W. W. Norton; she also wrote the children’s series The Story of the World, Writing With Ease, Writing With Skill, and Grammar for the Well-Trained Mind. Susan and her mother Jessie Wise are the co-authors of The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home, now in its fourth edition.

Susan is the owner and editor-in-chief of the Well-Trained Mind Press, a small press publishing resources for K-12 students and their parents, and the founder of The Well-Trained Mind Academy, which offers online courses in the classical tradition for middle and high school students.

She has a Ph.D. in the history of American religion from the College of William & Mary in Virginia, as well as an M.A. in seventeenth-century literature and a Master of Divinity in Ancient Near Eastern Languages and Literature. For fifteen years, she taught literature and composition at the College of William and Mary.

She now writes and raises sheep on the family farm in Charles City, Virginia, which is also the home base for her husband and her four adult children, as well as two dogs, five cats, eleven ducks, thirty Angora goats, four horses, two donkeys, and a variable number of chickens and pigs. Her current project is a history of illness for St. Martin’s Press.