Otis Creatives: The Liberation of Sue Moody Brings to Light a Life of Grit, War, and Unbroken Spirit

September 2025

Book Title: The Liberation of Sue Moody: Slaying the Dragons

Author: Gail Gelburd

Publisher: Hambone Publishers

Back cover of the book by Gail Gelburd. Courtesy Hambone Publishers

The newly released The Liberation of Sue Moody: Slaying the Dragons by Gail Gelburd is striking a powerful chord with readers who see in Sue Moody’s life a rare and unflinching account of courage under relentless pressure. This is not just the story of a journalist’s career. It is the chronicle of a woman who endured war, hunger, and the constant threat to her safety, yet refused to lose her voice or her sense of identity. Surviving war and starvation is not a backdrop in this book. It is the lifeline that runs through every chapter.

Drawn from Sue’s own letters, journals, and articles, the book brings readers into the immediacy of her world. They are with her on the streets of occupied Paris, where she rides her bicycle through narrow alleys to avoid patrols, barters for food in the black market, and searches for chestnuts in overgrown gardens when supplies are gone. These are not distant recollections but lived moments, written with the weight of fear, exhaustion, and determination still in them.

The account unfolds across the defining events of her life, shifting from her years as a working journalist in the wide landscapes of the American West, to her arrival in Paris on the brink of the Second World War, and into the heart of the German occupation. It moves between Wyoming plains, quiet Massachusetts ponds, and the shuttered streets of Paris, showing how opportunity and hardship shaped a woman unwilling to accept the limits others set for her.

The book itself has its own extraordinary origin. While serving as chair of the Otis Historical Commission, Gail Gelburd reviewed a long-forgotten collection of Sue Moody’s writings, found by a neighbor in an abandoned Massachusetts home. The papers were fragile, yet her words remained clear, confident, and alive with wit. In those boxes was the unfiltered voice of a woman determined to be heard, even by future generations.

A young Sue Moody from the archives of the Otis Historical Commission

What draws readers most is Sue’s ability to stand firm when survival meant more than finding shelter or food. It meant preserving her place in journalism, holding on to her values, and keeping her dignity intact. Her Quaker upbringing, her encounters with remarkable figures such as the unsinkable Molly Brown, and her own resourcefulness gave her the resilience to endure without surrender.

The Liberation of Sue Moody is both a preservation of history and a deeply human reminder that survival is more than making it through the day. It is the deliberate choice to keep your identity, your beliefs, and your voice alive, no matter how strong the forces working to silence them.

The Liberation of Sue Moody: Slaying the Dragons is available now in paperback, hardcover, and eBook formats through Amazon and other online book stores worldwide. 

For more information, visit: 

gailgelburd.com or otispreservationtrust.org

Or email at: otishistoricalcommission@gmail.com

About the Author: Gail Gelburd has a PhD and has written more than a dozen books, mostly about artists. It is their personal story that has inspired her in each of her manuscripts. She has also been a Professor, museum director and is an artist. When she discovered boxes brought to her from an abandoned house she had to write the story of this fascinating woman who left her life behind in letters, journals and manuscripts.