Susan Ruth began her career as a performing artist-songwriter and garnered multiple performance and writing awards for albums how to say goodbye, Surfacing to Breathe, and All I Ever Wanted Was Everything. She served on the N.A.R.A.S (Recording Academy) Board of Governors as a Songwriter Governor. She’s also penned songs in multiple genres for other artists including Reba McEntire, Lonestar, and Erdem Kinay.

A self-taught painter, Susan is the third generation grand-niece of painter Carl Gutherz, notable member of the American Symbolist movement. Her work explores emotional turbulence and serenity through color field abstracts that play with form and texture. 

In July of 2016, she founded the human interest, purpose-driven, Hey Human podcast. It has since gained momentum and world-wide attention for its open-minded conversations ranging in topics from science, technology, religion, art, economics and politics to humanism, philosophy, gender and race. Nearing her 500th episode, she also draws on the show to write essays and poetry about the human experience. Find it on nearly all the podcast places, including Apple, iHeart, Spotify, and YouTube, as well as HeyHumanpodcast.com. 

Susan recently wrote, directed, and produced her debut short, multi-festival-award-winning The First, co-produced the documentary Legacy of Zyzzyx Road, executive produced the short, We Have Some News, written and directed by Julia Christgau, and is preparing to direct her first feature, Pleasure, written by Susan Ruth and John Penney.

She founded Six Foot Umbrella in 2024.

Learn more at SusanRuth.com