We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Susan Zurenda. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Susan below.
Susan, so great to have you sharing your thoughts and wisdom with our readers and so let’s jump right into one of our favorite topics – empathy. We think a lack of empathy is at the heart of so many issues the world is struggling with and so our hope is to contribute to an environment that fosters the development of empathy. Along those lines, we’d love to hear your thoughts around where your empathy comes from?
I grew up in a small Southern town that fostered an atmosphere of a caring community. When you know or at least recognize many of the people where you live, those conditions help set up empathy. It might be easy to overlook a stranger’s needs but not so much with people you recognize. Then, the more you help people you know, the more it builds a tendency to care about all others.
As an English teacher for 33 years in both community college and high school, I taught all socio-economic levels and various races of students with a wide range of abilities from low-level learners to the most advanced students. One thing I learned as a teacher that has fostered my empathy is that we human beings are a lot more alike than we are different. I also think the teaching of literature itself has encouraged my empathy. When you study the lives of characters in literary fiction, you understand the good, the bad, and the ugly of what it means to be human.
I hope the lives and situations of characters in my own novels, Bells for Eli, The Girl From the Red Rose Motel, and my upcoming novel, No Way Out But Through, encourage empathy in readers.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
After I retired from teaching English, I wrote a novel, the kernel of which had lived in my heart for a long time. It grew out of a short story that had won a South Carolina Award for Fiction. My debut novel, Bells for Eli, was 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 second novel, The Girl From the Red Rose Motel, published in 2023, 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 am looking forward to the publication of my third novel, No Way Out But Through in 2026.
Throughout my adult life I have written and published short fiction, but I did not try to write a longer work until after I retired from teaching. I strive to do my best at any endeavor, and didn’t think I could be the best teacher I could be and also write a good novel at the same time (I’m not a superwoman.) So I waited until later in life to start writing novels.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
If you are an author, the best think you can do is read the kind of books you want to write. I believe that my many years of analyzing literature with students helped teach me how to structure and create a character-driven novel.
The world of writing and publication is intensely competitive. You’ve got to have tenacity to be successful. Saying you’re going to write doesn’t make it happen. It takes a lot of hard work. As far as publication, unless you have a filthy rich uncle who starts a press to publish and promote your book for you, it isn’t likely going to be easy, so you must have persistence to make it happen.
Networking is essential, sometimes in the writing process, and always in the publication and publicity arenas. Make friends with other authors. Consider joining a writing group. Find readers who will be honest with you. Go to writing conferences and workshops. Support your local independent bookstore. Get to know folks at the library. In short, put yourself out there in the world of books and meet all the people you can. If you help others, they will help you.
To close, maybe we can chat about your parents and what they did that was particularly impactful for you?
My parents raised me to be independent. I came of age before the feminist movement was well underway, so my parents were ahead of their time in encouraging my independence. When I went to college and called home after the first semester to say I had decided to change my major from music to English, my mother took it well–considering my being a musician had been her great dream (perhaps because she couldn’t carry a tune), and my father said I should follow my passion as long as I came out of school able to support myself. He wasn’t one of those mid-century fathers who thought his daughter had to have a husband to take of her. Not that he minded me getting married, but his priority was making sure I could be myself and take care of myself. I don’t know where I’d be today without that guidance.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.susanzurenda.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/susanbeckhamzurenda/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/susan.zurenda/ and https://www.facebook.com/susan.zurenda/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@susanzurenda
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