Author Interview- Suzanne Reese

I would like to welcome Suzanne Reese to the blog. Today, I will be interviewing Suzanne who is here to tell us about her newly-released book, Where Hearts Prosper.

Marcia: Tell us a little about yourself.

Suzanne: I am lucky to be a stay-at-home mom living in Draper, Utah. I have five children, though three of them have crossed the threshold into adulthood. The other two are 16 and 9. The youngest is a born performer, and keeps me busy with musicals, singing engagements, and band performances. (I even got roped into being a Pick-A-Little Lady last year in Music Man because he was too young to be in the play without a parent.) I also have a wonderful husband, a son-in-law, a spoiled dog, and a soon-to-be-even-more-spoiled grandson. I have a Bachelors degree in journalism from Utah State University.

Marcia: When did you first start writing?

Suzanne: I've been a story teller and writer as long as I can remember. When I was a young mother--probably 30 or so, I decided to try my hand at writing a novel. But I did it in the wrong order. I knew how to put together an excellent sentence, phrase, and paragraph or essay. But as it turned out I didn't know the last thing about writing an actual novel. The result was a story with many wonderful scenes strung awkwardly and incoherently together. I rewrote the book dozens of times while learning about scenes, pacing, plotting and so on. The manuscript still sits on a shelf in my house, and occasionally a friend or family member who read it and remembers one of those touching scenes asks me about it. But I tell them it served its purpose in teaching me the art of novel writing.


Marcia: Tell us about the book's journey to publication.

Suzanne: Where Hearts Prosper began soon after the disaster that serves as the inspiration and backdrop for the story - the flooding of the Virgin River in 2005. It took about a year to complete. The first publisher I sent it to declined, but had very nice things to say. Bonneville Books was the second.So it was a pretty painless process. The difficult part has been the editing--which felt very rushed--and the marketing. I'm not anything close to a salesperson, especially when I'm selling myself.

Marcia: What are some of your favorite books?

Suzanne: I don't have one specific genre that is my favorite (which helps explain why my current work is in an entirely different genre from Where Hearts Prosper.) My favorite authors are Jodi Picoult and Lisa Wingate.

Marcia: What else do you have in the works?

Suzanne: I'm very close to finishing a young adult science fiction novel with a working title of 'Perfectly Normal'. It is about a teenage girl from another planet who gets the chance to visit earth as a student ambassador. There's a lot of romance (and cute boys of course) and just a little science--which I know annoys true science fiction fans. But the teen girls in my life love it, and hopefully others will too.

Marcia: Thanks, Suzanne, for coming by to do this interview. I wish you great luck with your marketing and future books. For more information about Suzanne, go to her website http://www.suzannevreese.com/