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Sue came to Writers Co-op in 2016, at Curtis’s invitation after entering and earning an honorable mention in his first Book a Break Short Story Contest. The resultant anthology is called Cat Tales. She recently accepted the baton from GD and Curtis to act as site manager, and she is deeply grateful for Sandy’s partnership and the generous help she often receives from GD and Chip. She is also active as a volunteer in the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators as their online critique co-ordinator, but Writers Co-op is her home.
You can watch — or better yet, take part — as she and other authors here develop their latest works in WiP Wednesday and practice their creativity in Show Case. In the meantime, here are Sue’s responses for In the Spotlight.
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My earliest reading memory:
I was 2 years old, lying on my parents’ bed, on one side of my mom with my older sister on the other side. Mom was reading Helen Dean Fish’s The Little Red Hen, the first story in Better Homes and Gardens STORY BOOK. (I have a 1972 edition of the 1950 original Mom owned.) Most of the nouns in the story were actually pictures of the object instead of words, like “hen”, “house”, “cat”, and “fox”. My sister and I took turns providing the pictures’ names as Mom moved her finger along each line of text. I knew I was learning to read. It still makes me happy that each picture of each thing is unique.
My favorite book growing up:
One of my aunts worked at Western Publishing and kept us supplied with books she bought there on Dime Wednesdays. My favorites made up the Trixie Belden series. She and her best friend, Honey, solved mysteries. They were in junior high school, so they were only a little older than I was. Sure, I read Nancy Drew, too, but she always seemed much older and old fashioned. She had a boyfriend and wore fuzzy pullover sweaters with 3/4-length-sleeves. She drove a roadster, for gosh sakes.
The book that changed me as a teenager:
Tolkien’s The Hobbit. An entirely new world opened up that has brought me many, many hours of satisfying, epic adventure with characters of real depth that I have cared about in books and film and passed down to children to whom I’ve read all four books. No matter how many times I’ve read them, I always find something new to admire and cherish. (I had just turned 17 when I graduated from high school. That summer, I started with The Hobbit, read the LotR trilogy, and immediately read the series again. As an adult, I have even read The Silmarillion twice. What a nerd.)
The writer who changed my mind:
Two writers: Robert M. Persig, author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and Ursula K. Le Guin.
Persig showed me a story didn’t have to keep both feet on the ground. It was okay to fall into an abyss you weren’t sure you’d ever escape or spiral into oblivion with no path back. Exploring big concepts was freeing. What exactly is excellence, after all?
Le Guin taught me the value of being bold. Her creativity was revolutionary to me, and she was a woman.
The book that made me want to be a writer:
W.H. Hudson’s Green Mansions was indirectly responsible for me wanting to be a writer. I read it when I was in sixth grade and fell in love with the idea of Rima the bird girl. I also wrote a book report about it — it’s first line was, “Imagine yourself in a jungle.” Apparently, my teacher, Mr. Epler, submitted it to Quest Magazine. Their letter to me said they were pleased to publish it in their next edition.
The book I could never read again:
Make that “books I could never read again: Laura Hillenbrand’s Unbroken and Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner. It’s enough that I read the news. I don’t care to read about abuse and violence for recreation. The only reason I finished both was that they were selected for a book discussion group I took part in.
The book I am currently reading:
Again, the “books I am currently reading.” The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, Stephen Levine’s A Year to Live: How to live this year as if it were your last, and Terry Pratchett’s Night Watch.
So far, I’m about a third of the way through The Book Thief. It’s a lot slower and more ponderous than the hype led me to believe it would be. It feels like it’s just getting to the meat of the story.
I’ve only just started A Year to Live. It shows signs of maybe being a little to woo woo for me.
I’m gleefully sauntering through the entire Discworld catalog by reading at least 10 pages of Pratchett every day while I eat lunch. It’s like dessert. I don’t want it to be over too soon, but I have only six volumes left after Night Watch. I think Pratchett’s books are vastly funnier and more clever in their social commentary than anything Christopher Moore has written. I’m thinking after I finish the next six, I’ll turn to Neil Gaiman’s Sandman graphic novels.
Have any of you had experience with any of these books?
If you haven’t already shared the influence books have had on you, send me your own answers to these questions in the body of an email to stranscht@sbcglobal.net. (No attachments, please.) There is no deadline.
Photo credit: Jez Timms, Unsplash.com
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