Tag Archives: interview

Susan Speaks: More Interviews!

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The cover of Trevor’s Song, because that novel is as personal as this post. If you’ve read it, please leave a review! If you haven’t, grab a copy at your favorite retailer.

I don’t usually get this personal when I give interviews. I don’t like to, and I often skip them. I encourage all authors to draw their own boundaries about what they will and won’t talk about, and I encourage their/our hosts to allow them/us to do so.

But something compelled me in this media query. Maybe it’s my own need to finally share with the world my real perspectives and my real truths, things I’ve kept hidden from all of you but increasingly not to myself. Maybe I’m making up for fifteen years of hiding.

Or maybe I just feel comfortable talking about it at last. Certainly, my truth may be another’s lifeline, salvation, or help. Hell, maybe it’ll inspire some fiction, and that’s the best compliment an editor like me can get.

The article is up at Reader’s Digest. I’ll let you click through and read it, not because it’s too horrible and personal to talk about but because a reporter did some good work and you should check it out and give her props for it. Fiction ain’t the only kind of writing I love and respect (it’s just my preferred type of writing to work on), and I encourage you to seek out good writing and good reporting wherever you can.

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Susan Speaks: A Personal Note

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Despite having blogged pretty extensively about my eye injury, I think of myself as a pretty private person. I don’t talk much about my kids, for example, although clearly it’s my kid who introduced me to my new love for Ultimate Frisbee. So you guys know I have kids. They exist, mostly offline. My daughter is more of a social media person than my son, who’d be perfectly happy to never hear anyone say, “But you NEED a Facebook page!”

But every now and then, I talk about my kids. Like here. In the New York Times.

Yes, the New York Times.

They asked, so I answered, and here you go. What my young people — I can’t call them small anymore, since they’re both taller than me — are up to this summer.

You, ahh, might want to refer me around as the freelance editor par exellence that I am. These activities ain’t cheap, and college is on a lot of minds around here!

(And, as always, join the conversation by letting us all know what your kids are up this summer. Do I really need to tell you that?)

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Susan Speaks: Help Save My Sight

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I like telling you guys about interviews I do. Usually, I am out and about talking about writing, about fiction, about being an editor or (more rarely these days) being a writer.

But these aren’t usual times, as all of us know.

And so I’m talking to other people. New people. People who love to help spread the story of my January 29016 bicycling accident. That’s because I am not fighting a genetic illness. I’m not obese and dealing with Type 2 Diabetes. I’m not any of those things certain factions of the health care legislation community points to as drains on the medical system.

Okay, I’m a woman. But beyond that.

The thing that journalists love is that I am an accident victim. Something happened — and we’ll never know what, according to my concussion doctor — and I wound up with an injury that will never fully heal. I’ll never have 20/20 vision out of my damaged eye again. I require ongoing care to make sure I can maintain my vision. Because something happened.

I’m a pre-existing condition of the worst kind: the accident victim.

And accidents can (and do) happen to anyone. Life happens, you know? And I now need ongoing medical care.

I have never been hugely political. But now, I find I have to be. My joke about renaming the business to Cyclops Editing: I do with one eye what everyone else does with two is… not so funny when faced with the reality that I’ve spent a year and a half fighting to save my vision. My house, my career, my freedom.

So, yes. I’m asking you to join me. Here’s the latest article about what the proposed changes to our health care system will do to not on me, but others. Amy Zellmer did a great job writing it. Now, I’m asking you to read it. To think about me. To think about yourself, and what would YOU do if this bill passes and you have an accident of your own.

Share the link. Encourage others to see it. To stand up for all of us, really.

Because tomorrow, it can be YOU lying on the floor with a hand over your eye, screaming not at the pain but at the horror of what’s just happened, even though you have no idea what just happened. All you know is that it’s black like you’ve never seen black before, that the image of a pink-taped handlebar is forever seared on your brain as it came closer, that the feeling of inevitability flooded you and held you down and allowed it to happen.

Because tomorrow, it can be you coming out of a surgery with no one waiting for you at the hospital, no one who can or will tell you how long it took them to clean your eye up, no one there to hold your hand when the resident, cute as he was, tells you that yes, you’ll be able to drive with only one eye, as though it’s a foregone conclusion that this is your new future.

Because tomorrow, it can be you who follows the surgeon’s instructions like you’ve never followed instructions before, and it can be you with the miracle outcome of an eye, of vision in that eye.

And because tomorrow, it can be you who goes from being perfectly healthy and riding your bike to, in an instant, needing ongoing medical care for the rest of your life, but you don’t know, thanks to the government’s crazy ideas, if keeping your vision means losing your house, your scant life savings, the business you’ve worked so hard to build up and nurture and grow.

Yes. You can be where I am, and that’s why this fight really is about every single one of us.

Join me in it.

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Visit with me!

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It’s been a long time since I went visiting, and today I’m pleased to be out visiting with author Rebecca E Neely, who it turns out lives near me! I mean, like REALLY near. Like… we go to the same restaurants.

Stop on over and see what I’ve got to say. You guys know me; it’s all fun and games. Except for when it’s not.

Hmm. Yeah, that makes perfect sense.

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Susan Rocks in Rocktober!

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I’m not just posting about Rocktober over here, I’m over at e-Book Builders, myself, with an interview about myself.

Stop in and learn some things about me. I’m pretty cool.

(And wow, I just realized … this is my first interview since July of 2012. I’ve written guest blog posts, but not given any interviews. No wonder I feel like I’ve fallen into a black hole!)

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Ask the editor

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One of my clients, Kenya Wright, has been posting a series of Q&As with editors — me and two others who she has worked with.

Stop in and check it out. She’s giving away a 20-page edit, but not from me.

If you want to work with me as your editor, you’d better hustle. My rates go up to new clients as of August 1, and I’m currently booking dates in late October, November, and December. Better get a move on!

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What’s Your Line?

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I’m over at 1001 First Lines today, talking about … first lines! (Bet you couldn’t figure that out on your own.)

Stop in and join me ’cause there’s some fun stuff happening.

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Under the radar…

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Whoops! This interview with Vanessa Eccles almost slipped past my radar.

Stop in and see why it’d have been a shame if you missed it.

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Trevor is Non-Paranormal — and a hero!

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Yes, in case you missed it: ShapeShifter is a band name. It came from the desire of a young Trevor Wolff to shapeshift into his namesake and rip out the throat of the man who claimed to be his father.

That’s why I’ve stopped in at Laurie’s NON-paranormal Thoughts and Reviews today, for an interview and spotlight of Trevor’s Song. There’s an excerpt, too.

Why Trevor’s Song and not King Trevor? Because with the hullabaloo over here that I hope you’ve known nothing about (but if you’ve clicked through recently, you’ve seen it first-hand), I couldn’t get it together for King Trevor in time. Which means it’s been worse than crazy over here.

Stop in. See what’s going on. Click through to the give for Smashwords coupons for BOTH Trevor’s Song and King Trevor.

While you’re out and about, stop in at JC Cassels’ Gotta Name My Blog. I’m talking about heroes over there.

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Hellfire!

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Yo.

A couple months back, Sharlana Williams interviewed me for Hellfire Publishing. It took so long to get posted that I thought… nah. The editors didn’t like it. They dropped it in the circular file.

Surprise!

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Things You Never Thought to Ask…

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It began when I approached the lovely Shayna Gier about having her review Trevor’s Song. A friendship has struck up, one that I hope will continue.

That has nothing to do with my saying this interview was a hell of a lot of fun. Not only does she ask good stuff, she’s the FIRST person to comment on Cool Dude!

Go see. Go see what her other fun questions are. If you think of some you’d like to ask, I’m always game for an interview. You guys know that. I love promo, love meeting new people, love chatting with folk. Take advantage. Even ten years ago, this sort of access to an author was unheard of.

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Rocking Moms?

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Well, hell. If I’m not proof that moms read, you definitely need to stop in at Mommy’s Reading Too. Lots of proof there!

Join me, as blog owner Jennifer was kind enough to read the first three books in the Trevolution and share her thoughts about them. AND she interviewed me, as well.

Can’t beat THAT combination.

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Watch that edge! It’s Jagged!

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You guys know I love the promo trail. Yesterday, I stopped in at Kati Lear’s blog, Jagged Edge, for an interview. I think there’s stuff in there I haven’t talked much about, if at all.

Stop in and let me know if you agree.

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Susan’s got Chaos and Insanity!

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Like me having chaos and insanity is anything new?

Come join me at Chaos and Insanity, the home blog of my Pink Snowbunnies in Hell co-contributor, Coral Moore. I’ve done an interview there and I suspect there are some tidbits of information about me that you just don’t know about yet…

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This One’s Timely

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Yep, I’m out and about again, this time visiting with Dorothy Dreyer at We Do Write.

It’s an interview and you know what? I love giving interviews. Stop on in and see why.

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Interview with David Grant

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Welcome to all the cool folk looking for my mini-interview with David Grant, author of Rock Stars. It’s over at Rocks ‘n Reads, my book-oriented blog, so head on over and join the party!

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