Sue Ellen Bridgers was born in Winterville, North Carolina on September 20, 1942, in the same small town where both sets of her grandparents lived. Bridgers attributes her oral history and heritage to these grandparents and their stories that she used to sit and listen to for hours. Her mother encouraged reading as a leisure activity and Sue Ellen and her sister soon became active readers.

Bridgers attended East Carolina University and served as the typist for the school's literary magazine, which published her first prose and poetry. In 1963, after three years of college, she left East Carolina to marry Ben Oshel Bridgers. They travelled with the U. S. Air Force until Ben returned to Chapel Hill, North Carolina, to pursue his law degree. Sue Ellen also returned to college, and in 1976 graduated from Western Carolina University summa cum laude with a B.A. degree in...