Hi, my name is Susannah Marie Muno but for as long as I can remember I have gone by Zana. In theory I am based out of a small beach town in Southern California called Hermosa Beach. But in reality I'm kind of like a nomad. For the past 5 years I usually spend the better part of October, November and December wherever in the world my boyfriend is playing professional volleyball at the time, right now that’s Ankara, Turkey. The rest of the year I’m training and competing as a professional beach volleyball player. Beach volleyball is most similar to tennis, except our paychecks include far less zeros. We spend March-ish to October-ish every year playing in different tournaments in the United States and around the world. So, outside of those very small commitments, I am also wildly excited about food, gardening, farming, cooking, traveling, clothes, being a home maker and hopefully one day a mom. Oh yeah, that reminds me, I also took what I call a professional athlete’s “sabatical” in january and February of this past year. I took a risk and applied for a food, agriculture and culinary education program in rurual sicily. I got in and spent two months living in a village of 2000 called Valledolmo in rural Sicily with a retired Sicillian couple and spent my days at school learning about wheat, pasta, wine, food history, cheese making, salt, olive oil and so so much more. It was hands down the best experience of my life.
Technically I’m on the cusp of Gen Z and Millenial, but regardless it seems to me that I am most certainly lacking the gene that everybody else seems to possess, feeling wildly comfortable sharing every moment of my life in intimate detail through the lens of a camera. I certainly have tried, and I will continue to try but it has been far more challenging than I would like. Call me crazy but it’s just not natural for me to stop living my actual life to set up my tripod and start talking to the camera like there’s hundreds of people in the room who care about what I’m doing. Truly I have grown to respect it deeply, being an influencer, constantly filming and editing and posting content is no joke. I believe that hard work can take you very far, but hard work and passion is how you make the good stuff. So here I am doing what I love, writing. It may not be the way to the big bucks like miss Alix Earle, but its me sharing my life in a way that feels genuine to me. I have no formal training, I have literally never written anything that has gone anywhere and my sophomore year English teacher told my mom I was the worst speller she had ever taught, but I enjoy it. So, if you’re interested in taking a closer look into my Wild Willy Wanka life, I hope you stick around and enjoy some good old fashioned reading and writing!