Today we’d like to introduce you to Susan Beckham Zurenda
Susan Beckham, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I spent much of my childhood absorbed in the piano and started college as a music major, but I always loved to write. I was the kid who wrote the skits to perform at Girl Scout camp and for my friends and me to perform at junior high school talent shows. I changed my major to English after taking an elective in Southern Literature my sophomore year in college and have been hooked on writing and reading literature ever since. I wrote my first (amateurish) short story after college when I was a young reporter at The Spartanburg Herald Journal before I began my teaching career. During my 30+ year career teaching English, I wrote a number of short stories that won state and regional awards. It wasn’t until I retired from full-time teaching, however, that I believed I had the time to write a longer work. The impetus for my first novel, Bells for Eli, came from the main character in my short story “Law’s Passage,” that won the South Carolina Fiction prize many years ago. The kernel for my new novel, The Girl From the Red Rose Motel, also came from a short story that was published a couple of years ago, “In-School Suspension.”
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
As almost any fiction author will tell you, the act of writing stories and novels has lots of challenges. As much a I enjoy the creative process of writing, I can become very frustrated if a character isn’t speaking to me or I’m having trouble building tension in the plot. Or even if the right word or image won’t come to me. As author Dorothy Parker is said to have put it, “I love having written” most of all. The process of obtaining an agent and securing a publisher can be difficult. Then, once the book is published, the marketing process is a tremendous undertaking. All said, though, it’s all worth it.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
After a couple of years as a journalist and a 33-year career as an English teacher in community college and high school, I turned my attention to writing a novel. I had published short fiction throughout my adult life, but after I retired, I had the time to follow my dream of writing a longer work. I am most proud of the awards my two novels have received. My debut, “Bells for Eli, was the first place winner for Best First Book—Fiction in the 2021 IPPY (Independent Publisher Book Awards), a Foreword Indie Book Award finalist, a Winter 2020 Okra Pick by the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance, a 2020 Notable Indie on Shelf Unbound, a 2020 finalist for American Book Fest Best Book Awards, and was nominated for a 2021 Pushcart Prize. My recent novel, “The Girl From the Red Rose Motel,” was the recipient of the 2024 Patricia Winn Award in Southern Fiction, Gold Medal winner in the 2024 IPPY Awards for Southeast Fiction, a 2024 Pushcart Prize nominee, a Shelf Unbound 2023 Notable 100 books, and a finalist in the American Book Fest Awards. I’ve also won awards for my short fiction, including the South Carolina Fiction Prize, twice.
Perhaps one of the things that sets me apart from other novelists is that I did not write my first novel until later in life. Also, I write Southern literary fiction and hope that the realistic circumstances in my work help readers connect to our human condition in all its facets: the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Is there a quality that you most attribute to your success?
I love to read; even before I could read for myself, my parents read stories and poetry to me. I believe that to be a successful writer, you must read and read widely. Also, all of my years of analyzing the literature I assigned to my students helped me to grow in my own understanding of how the elements of fiction come together to create overall meaning.
My personality is endowed with a great deal of perseverance and tenacity, traits that help me keep going when I falter along any stage of the writing process.
Pricing:
- The Girl From the Red Rose Motel, hardbaack, $27.00
- Bells for Eli, hardback, $25.00
- Bells for Eli paperback, $18.00
- Both books are available in ebook and audio format as well. Prices vary according to the vendor.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.susanzurenda.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/susanbeckhamzurenda/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/susan.zurenda/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@susanzurenda
- Other: https://www.facebook.com/susanbeckhamzurenda/
