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August 2021 – Pulpwood Newsletter Article: What You Want in a Story, I Want Too by Susan Wingate

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As a kid, I loved stories like Charlotte’s Web, Black Beauty, and Old Yeller, to name only a few.

When I got a little older, the books became more edgy. I was also in acting and involved in dance, so I was reading a bunch of plays from the likes of William Shakespeare, Anton Chekov, and George Bernard Shaw.

One of my favorite musicals was Jesus Christ Superstar. And, yes, I watched the remake in 2018 with John Legend and loved that one too.

Again, as I got older, the books I read changed to mysteries, but they didn’t hold my interest for long until I reverted back to books about characters and their problems. Problems external to the characters, like the thriller are enjoyable for me taken in small bites but I much prefer stories about people and relationships and, hey, if you can throw in some psychological suspense on top, better yet!

That’s what I write today, stories that take me on an emotional rollercoaster. Stories about disappointment and renewal. Stories that show the character in so deep that they might never get out but in the end, they do. Stories about hope and redemption, transformation, and the fallen. Stories like Station Eleven by Emily Mandel and The Gretchen Question by Jessica Treadway.

And this is where I find my own writing leaning. Toward stories that elicit in the reader a character’s struggle against all odds.

That’s what I hoped for when I wrote HOW THE DEER MOON HUNGERS. It’s a story about two sisters—one who lives and one who dies. Here’s the back cover blurb:

MACKENZIE FRASER witnesses a drunk driver mow down her seven-year-old sister and her mother blames her. Then she ends up in juvie on a trumped-up drug charge. Now she’s in the fight of her life…on the inside! And she’s losing.

This little story has won seven book awards since its publication date in July 2020. You can find the full list of awards on the book’s page on my website. But the story has received some amazing reviews too.
“Wingate weaves a yarn that is absorbing, balanced, and deft.” ―The Book Commentary

“I would strongly recommend this book to people in their late teens and upward.” ―Jo Niederhoff, San Francisco Book Review

So, yes, what you want in a story I want too. I want to be changed by the next book I read. I want the characters to live in my heart for years past reading The End on a book’s final page. I want to be swept away. And, you know what? That’s how I felt each time I typed another sentence to Deer Moon. Lots of tears were shed in the writing of that tale. I hope you sense that as you read each word, each line, each paragraph.

And I couldn’t be happier that Deer Moon is part of my website’s book club fiction selection. The other two are Bobby’s Diner and Storm Season.

If you happen to pick up a copy of any of my titles, please let me know! I’d love to hear what you thought. You can reach me through my website where you can learn more about my life and my novels. www.susanwingate.com

SUSAN WINGATE BIO

Susan Wingate is a #1 Amazon bestselling and award-winning author. She is currently writing her eighteenth book.

Her story “How the Deer Moon Hungers” has won seven book awards, including a First Prize in the CIBA Somerset Literary Award, a Silver Award in the 2021 eLit Book Awards, the 2020 SABA Book Awards for the Judge’s Selection “Best Fiction Author,” Best Fiction in the 2020 Pacific Book Award, a Silver Award in the 2020 Moonbeam Children’s Book Award, and July 2020 Book Cover in the Book Cover of the Month Awards.

Wingate writes about big trouble in small towns and lives with her husband on an island off the coast of Washington State where she tends to wildlife in her backyard wildlife sanctuary.

Susan writes across fiction genres often setting her stories in the Pacific Northwest where she and her husband, Bob live. Susan’s writing has been published in journals such as the Virginia Quarterly Review, the Superstition Review, and Suspense Magazine, and several others.

FACTOIDS ABOUT SUSAN

If you want to know what makes me tick, it can be summed up with this one quote from A Sand County Almanac, “There are some who can live without wild things, and some who cannot.” ―Aldo Leopold.

Honestly, I cannot live without wild things, be they flora or fauna. In a nutshell, that’s why I moved away from Phoenix and to an island. There, I would spot a rare wayward doe or buck in the earliest morning or later in the evening. Deer tend to be shy when they don’t know you. After time, however, while gardening or landscaping or simply hanging outside, more deer would show—to eat trimmings, nibble on branches, or even newly-planted foliage. I remember once after planting two young cherry trees and went inside, I glanced out a window to gaze upon my handiwork. At that moment, a buck reared up and, balancing on his back legs, ate the tenderest of cherry limbs near the top of this small, new tree. I said, “Well, that’s an expensive lunch.”

Susan’s Memberships Include: PENAmerica, the International Thriller Writers, the Mystery Writers of America, the Women’s Fiction Writers Association, and the Pacific Northwest Writers Association.
www.susanwingate.com

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