Susan Leigh Shaughnessy, 71, of Accokeek, MD, died September 23, 2018, at the Georgetown University Hospital. She was born on August 24, 1947, in Norfolk, Virginia, to Dorothy Leigh Williamson and Frederick W. Smith, a Marine Corps veteran of the recent Pacific Campaigns.
After graduating from Norfolk’s Maury High School, she attended classes at the University of Richmond before graduating from the George Washington University in 1969. Her interests in French culture and language led her to travel there before starting a career in public relations. She was soon enrolled in the graduate level p.r. courses at American University which in turn took her to a summers internship at the London School of Economics and Political Science. A successful career in freelance writing and advertising followed.
Her personal interests in theology and a spiritual life led her to unite with the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) and she achieved her goal in the 1980s with membership in the Friends Meeting of Washington. The Friends in turn led her to a close study the philosophy of Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Carl Jung and his followers. She spent several all too brief seminars at the Carl Jung Institute in Zurich, Switzerland.
In 1993 Harper-Collins published her book Walking on Alligators a volume of meditations for writers. Subsequent editions have been printed in several African and South Asian languages which she freely authorized.
She leaves a bereft husband and two cats.
Visitation will be held Tuesday October 2, 2018 from 11:45AM to time of funeral service at 12:45 @ Huntt Funeral Home 3035 Old Washington Road Waldorf, MD 20601 Interment Maryland Veterans Cemetery Cheltenham, MD.
