Konig, Susan 1963(?)-

PERSONAL:

Born c. 1963; married Dave Konig (a comedian); children: three sons, one daughter. Religion: Catholic.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Westchester County, NY. E-mail—[email protected]; [email protected].

CAREER:

Journalist and broadcaster. Washington Post, Washington, DC, former staff member, including writer for Style section; Style magazine, fashion and beauty editor, c. 1980s; New York Post, New York, NY, columnist, 1990s; cohost of Speak Now with Dave and Susan Konig (radio show), broadcast on the Catholic Channel; regular columnist for Catholic Digest and National Review Online; freelance journalist and author.

WRITINGS:

Why Animals Sleep So Close to the Road (And Other Lies I Tell My Children), Thomas Dunne Books (New York, NY), 2005.

I Wear the Maternity Pants in This Family, Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 2007.

Contributor to periodicals, including National Review Online, Ladies' Home Journal, First for Women, Travel & Leisure, Parade, Reader's Digest, and Catholic Digest. Contributor of short stories to magazines, including Barbie. Author of Susan Konig's Blog.

SIDELIGHTS:

Sometimes compared to such humor writers as Jean Kerr and the late Erma Bombeck, Susan Konig is a journalist and author who shares with her readers the trials and tribulations of being a working mother of four children. She began her career by lying about her ability to type during an interview for a job at the Washington Post. She got in at the ground level and earned a meager paycheck running shopping errands for the newspaper's fashion editor. Eventually, she worked her way up to become a fashion and beauty writer herself, before moving on to a similar job with Seventeen magazine. This was during the 1980s, when fashion trends for women included big hair and big shoulder pads. The next decade was spent at the New York Post, where Konig was a popular columnist. She had begun to contribute to other magazines by that time as well, including Reader's Digest, Ladies' Home Journal, and Travel & Leisure. In addition to nonfiction, Konig also penned short stories, such as the "tear-jerker ‘Midge's Wedding,’" as the author noted on her home page.

Married and living in New York City, Konig found herself a working mother of three children. The apartment became a crowded affair, and the family decided they should finally move to the suburbs. The move and other adventures at the time became the subject of Konig's first book, Why Animals Sleep So Close to the Road (And Other Lies I Tell My Children). Writing with humor about the stresses of relocating a busy family to a new home, the author touches on a variety of other topics familiar to many readers, including how to talk to one's children about the death of a cat, dealing with the unfamiliar wildlife that can raid the yard of a suburban home, tight family budgets, and naughty boys who like to write on the furniture (Konig hides every pen in the house and then is at a loss when she cannot find anything to write with when she needs to).

In her second book, I Wear the Maternity Pants in This Family, Konig continues her family adventures. Here, her youngest child has grown up enough to go to school, and the author believes that she finally has a chance to catch her breath from motherhood. No sooner does she hope for this, however, than she learns she is once again pregnant with what would be her third son and fourth child. At age forty-three, it seems overwhelming at first, but her family is supportive and she soon gets back into the routine of diaper changes, which is added to the rest of her tasks of cleaning up toys, organizing car pools, and teaching her kids to ride bicycles or, for her daughter, deciding when it is time to purchase that first training bra. While a Publishers Weekly reviewer commented that the writing is "often more poignant than funny," the critic admitted Konig "can be hilarious," especially when talking about the idiosyncrasies of her husband and children. Deborah Bigelow, writing for Library Journal, called the book "an enjoyable read" that is filled with "candor and humor."

In addition to being a freelance writer, Konig has paired up with her Emmy Award-winning husband, Dave, to host a Catholic talk-radio program broadcast on Sirius station 159. Called Speak Now with Dave and Susan Konig, the show was described by USA Today contributor Gary Stern this way: "This is a new kind of Catholic radio. It seeks to be funny and fresh before holier-than-thou. Gentle doses of wisdom and commentary are dispensed between wacky bits that wouldn't sound out of place on a classic rock station's morning drive show (except without the adolescent sex jokes). It's the Catholic Channel on Sirius satellite radio, but depending on when you tune in, you may not even know it's Catholic radio." As with her books, Konig likes to talk about regular family issues on the show and feels that listeners can relate to her and her husband: "We're a regular married couple and probably make people feel normal," Konig told Stern.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Library Journal, July 1, 2007, Deborah Bigelow, review of I Wear the Maternity Pants in This Family, p. 107.

Publishers Weekly, May 28, 2007, review of I Wear the Maternity Pants in This Family, p. 49.

USA Today, April 26, 2007, Gary Stern, "The Greatest Story Ever Told on Radio?," interview with Susan and Dave Konig.

ONLINE

PR Newswire,http://www.prnewswire.com/ (August 2, 2005), "Parenting Humorist Susan Konig on Being a City Mom in the Suburbs, Lying to the Kids, Baby Number Four, and More."