Draft:Susan Lukas

Susan Lukas (1940-2008) was a novelist, playwright, ombudsman, social worker, psychotherapist, and painter.

Early life and education
Born to Hugo and Rose Ries in Evanston, Illinois, Lukas went to Beverly Hills High School and UCLA, majoring in Philosophy.

Career
In the 1960s, Lukas became associate director of the Committee for Democratic Voters (started by Eleanor Roosevelt and Ed Koch), an organization that supported liberal candidates for Congress. The first of her three novels, Fat Emily, was published in 1974. Stereopticon, the second, was published in 1978. She then worked as the ombudsman for Westchester County, New York, government. And in 1981, her third novel Morgana's Fault ) was published. In the early 1980s, Lukas trained at the Hunter College School of Social Work. Her final thesis there became the book, WHERE TO START AND WHAT TO ASK, a primer for beginning psychotherapists, which has been very successful: As of 2024, it had sold 200,000 copies.

Lukas practiced as a psychotherapist in New York City and Nyack, NY, between 1984 and 2007, at which point she became a student of painting at the Art Students' League of New York.

Personal life
In 1962, she met and married television producer Christopher Lukas in Los Angeles. The couple moved to New York City a year later. In 1968, after giving birth to her first daughter, Megan, Lukas began her career in novel-writing. In 1971, Gabriela, the couple's second daughter, was born. The family moved to San Francisco in 1973, where Lukas served as a film reviewer for CBS Radio. They returned to the New York area in 1978. In 2008, after an operation for atrial fibrillation, Lukas died of sudden cardiac arrest.