Words To Mouth

To enter to win a free copy of The Fiction Class:

• Be sure to subscribe to the Words To Mouth e-newsletter ~ That’s how I announce winners!
• Help me get the word out! Tell at least three friends about Words To Mouth and ask them to comment below this interview citing your first name

A Conversation with Susan J. Breen

Carrie:  What inspired you to write The Fiction Class?
Susan:  I was at a funeral of someone I didn’t really know. I was sitting with some friends and we began to talk and everyone, absolutely everyone, was telling a story about her mother. And when I left, it hit me for the first time just how powerful mother/daughter stories are—how funny and infuriating. I wanted to write about it.

Carrie: Tell us just a bit about The Fiction Class.
Susan:  Arabella teaches a class in creative writing in Manhattan, but she’s having some difficulties with her students. Things aren’t going well with her mother, either, but when she begins to teach her mother how to write, Arabella’s surprised when their relationship takes an unexpected turn.

Carrie:   What is the primary message you’d like your readers to take away from The Fiction Class?
Susan: Writing fiction can be healing (And, just because you’re mad at your mother now, doesn’t mean you have to be mad at her your whole life; and vice versa).

Carrie:   Which character do you identify with the most and how much of yourself shows up in The Fiction Class?
Susan: There’s a lot of me in Arabella, who is the protagonist of the book. Part of why I wrote this novel was to understand my relationship with my mother, so in some ways I was doing a form of psychoanalysis on myself in creating Arabella’s character. The way she sees the world and reacts to things are very much my own. However, Arabella’s also quite different from me—younger, taller, single. So I see her more as a young friend who’s going through situations similar to ones I went through.

Carrie:   What are you reading right now?
Susan:  The Knitting Circle by Ann Hood. It’s wonderful.  Also, Bleak House by Charles Dickens.

Carrie:   Who are your favorite authors and who influenced your writing?
Susan: My favorite author is Charles Dickens. I love the way he sees both humor and tragedy in life and that’s something I try to address in my own writing. In the middle of the worst moments of your life, there can be love and laughter. And vice versa. Other favorites are: Anne Tyler, Richard Russo, Alice Munro, Agatha Christie, P.D. James and many, many more.

Carrie:   Can you offer a glimpse into your “real life” and share with us a bit of your personal life—Outside of writing, what’s important to you?
Susan:  My family is very important to me. My older children are in college now, so I don’t have to run around as much as I used to, but I still spend a lot of time with my youngest son at wrestling matches and school events. I’m also passionately attached to my two dogs, a Golden Retriever named Tino and a Maltese named Spencer. I’m also quite fond of my husband.

Carrie:   Tell us something surprising about you and/or something very few people know about you.
Susan: I love to watch the television show 24. It’s seems funny to me because I’m such a nonviolent person, but there’s something about Kiefer Sutherland…

Carrie:   What has been one of your biggest struggles and what have you learned from it?
Susan:  The whole road to publication was a struggle and it took more than a decade. During that time I wrote three books, only the last of which has been published. What I learned is that editors are truly willing to buy a book from a debut author, and that you just have to keep hurling yourself out there.

Carrie:   Who is your biggest fan?
Susan:  Definitely my husband. He’s much more outgoing than I am and he loves to go to bookstores and talk to people about my book. He’s a lawyer and there are a lot of lawyers at his firm who belong to book clubs, and he’s gotten my book in there. He’s been a wonder.

Carrie:  What’s next for you ~ Anything else you’d like to offer?
Susan:  I’m working on another book and hopefully I’ll have good news about that soon.

Just-for-Fun:
Coffee or Coke? Coffee
Beach or Mountains? Beach
Stilettos or Sensible Shoes? Sensible shoes
With you on a Desert Island? My family
“Black or White” OR Gray? Black
Compact, Convertible or Luxury Car? What’s an Audi?
Kids or Pets? Kids
Designer or Discount? Designer
Cocktail of Choice? Scotch on the rocks

Book Excerpt (The opening page of The Fiction Class):
“You’ve known there was something special about you for a long time, haven’t you?”
Arabella lets the question hover over the classroom for just a moment. Eleven pairs of eyes stare back at her warily. This is the first day of class, and they’re not sure if she is mocking them. But she’s not; she’s absolutely serious.
“Ever since the third grade,” she goes on, because for some reason it always is the third grade, “ever since the teacher chose your story to read aloud on Parents’ Day. She was so excited by your facility with words. Facility! She even used that word in the letter she sent home to your parents inviting them to be guests of honor at the reading, although in my own particular case, my father couldn’t come because he was in the hospital, and my mother didn’t make it because she fainted in the school hallway and banged her head on the water fountain and had to be taken by ambulance to the Nassau County Medical Center. If my mother let me down, there was always an ambulance involved; no lame scheduling conflicts for her.
“But anyway.”
Arabella pauses for a moment and surveys the class: eleven people staring down at their notebooks, terrified that if they make eye contact, she might call on them. She recognizes Conrad from last semester, and she is touched that he reenrolled even though, especially though, she never felt as if they connected. Everything he wrote was about transsexuals—transsexual nursery school teachers, transsexual police officers, and so on. The obvious explanation was that Conrad himself was a transsexual. Not that Arabella would ever suggest such a thing; the etiquette of a writing class requires that everyone act as though what the author is writing is an absolute fiction.

• Be sure to  check out Susan J. Breen’s fabulous website and blog.

Across Carrie’s Desk

I am so fortunate to receive more books than I can possibly read, more author inquiries than I can possibly interview, and more emails than I can possibly answer. This post includes a number of books that I have bundled together to offer as a package.

• Blood Web, Gary Starta

• Barracuda, Mike Monahan

• Black Glasses Like Clark Kent A GI’s Secret From Postwar Japan, Teresa Svoboda

• Saying No to Naked Women, David R. Yale (Author of How Jack Derrit Freed Himself From Sexual Addiction)

• Red Money, Ron Janson

• Men with Long Rods…And Other Fly-Fishing Tales, Jim Erskine

• The Brides’ Fair, Hal Fleming

You can enter to win the whole bunch by:

• Leaving a comment below this post and

• Telling a friend about Words To Mouth & asking them to comment on the site referencing your first name.

•  You’ll receive an additional ballot for each friend comment that cites your name

That’s it! Easy Enough? Good Luck!

**By the way, DON’T FORGET, you do need to be subscribed to my e-newsletter to be informed of the winner.
**Deadline for entry - January 15th, 2009 midnight, EST

Aaron Paul Lazar writes to soothe his soul. The author of LeGarde Mysteries and Moore Mysteries savors the countryside in the Genesee Valley of upstate New York, where his characters embrace life, play with their dogs and grandkids, grow sumptuous gardens, and chase bad guys. Visit his websites at www.legardemysteries.com and www.mooremysteries.com and his newest Mazurka.

In addition to receiving publishing contracts for Double Forté, Upstaged, Tremolo: cry of the loon, Mazurka, Healey’s Cave, and One Potato, Blue Potato, Aaron writes Seedlings, a monthly column featured in the Futures Mystery Anthology Magazine (FMAM) and the Mysteryfiction.net literary newsletter Voice in the Dark. His short articles on writing have appeared in Absolute Write, and his essay, “Word Paintings” was included in the 2007 Bylines Writers’ Desk Calendar. Visit his blogs at www.murderby4.blogspot.com and www.aaronlazar.blogspot.com. Aaron is the Saturday Writing Essential host on www.Gather.com.

To Win a FREE Copy of Tremolo:

• Leave a comment below
• Call 206-309-7318 and leave a voice mail message I can play on-air
• Be sure to subscribe to my e-newsletter, so you’re informed of the winning name
• Deadline for entry - January 15th, midnight, EST

Carrie’s Conversation with Aaron

Carrie: Why don’t you start by telling us a bit about Tremolo: cry of the loon?
Aaron: Tremolo is a coming-of-age mystery suitable for all ages, and it particularly plays to the nostalgia of baby boomers. This novel, third in the Gus LeGarde series, is actually a prequel to the founding book of the series, Double Forté, which begins in the current day when Gus is already a grandfather. The novel is set in the Belgrade Lakes of Maine, in summer 1964, when Beatlemania hits the States and the world mourns the loss of JFK. Eleven-year-old Gus LeGarde faces his first brush with evil against the backdrop of the most powerful events that rocked the nation. When Gus and his friends capsize their rowboat in a thick fog, they eventually clamber to shore, where they witness a drunk chasing a girl through the woods. She’s scared. She’s hurt. And she disappears.  The camp is thrown into turmoil as the frantic search for Sharon begins. Reports of stolen relics arise, including a church bell cast by Paul Revere. When Gus stumbles on a scepter that’s part of the spoils, he becomes a target. Compelled to find Sharon before the villain does, Gus–armed only with a big heart, a motorboat, and a nosy beagle–must dig deep for courage to survive the menace that lurks in the dark woods.

Carrie: Why did you choose “To Kill a Mockingbird” as the film that Gus watched in Tremolo?