Welcome Susan Clayton-Goldner today

Please give a warm welcome to author Susan Clayton-Goldner who joins me today at the Reading Nook.

Thanks for stopping by to talk a little about your writing! Let's jump right in. When did you begin writing and why?

I don’t think I decided to start writing or become a writer. I believe I was born a writer. I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t writing. Let’s face it, writing is isolating and doesn’t pay very well. I’m not sure many people would choose to write if they could avoid it or were of sane mind.  When I was a little girl, my father won a Smith Corona portable typewriter in a poker game. He gave it to me. It came with 45 rpm records guaranteed to have you typing. It was the beginning of my life as a writer. I taught myself how to type with the help of those records and started writing poems and stories. I’ve never stopped. I went back to college after my children started school. This time, I majored in creative writing.

Do you have a favorite genre? Is it the same genre you prefer to write?

I enjoy reading family dramas  from writers like Jodi Picoult and Elizabeth Berg. I also enjoy mysteries, especially from Dennis Lehane and Thomas H. Cook.

Do certain themes and ideas tend to capture your writer’s imagination and fascinate you?

I seem to be fascinated by themes like forgiveness and redemption. Characters who find a way back to the selves they lost somewhere along life’s road.

How do you balance long-term thinking vs. being nimble in today's market?

Now that I’ve signed on with TIrgearr Publishing in Ireland, I’ve been pretty much allowed to write what I want to write, I’ve done a 3-book detective series for them and am currently working on #4. But between 3 and 4, I’m writing a stand-alone about a priest who falls in love with one of his parishioners.

How do you find readers in today's market?

I use social media like facebook and twitter—along with many avenues such as blogs, newsletters and promotional sites where I pay for advertising. It’s the most difficult part of the process. And like so many small presses, Tirgearr doesn’t do a lot of marketing, It is left up to the writer. I think we all hate it, but know it is part of the writer’s job.

Do you come up with the hook first, or do you create characters first and then dig through until you find a hook?

I always have some idea of the characters first, but very soon after I have my protagonist, I try to come up with an opening paragraph that will engage the reader and raise a story question.

How do you create your characters?

I write extensive character sketches, including the physiological, psychological and visual characteristics of all the main characters. I sometimes interview them—asking very personal questions—like what are they most ashamed of? I try to make some of my characters opposite in their belief systems because that makes them ripe for conflict

What's on the top of your TBR pile right now?

I’m about to start a book that was recommended by a friend. It is called If the Creek Don’t Rise and was written by Leah Weiss, My friend is certain I will love the book. I just purchased Elizabeth Berg’s new novel, The Story of Arthur Truluv, which I am also looking forward to reading.

Tell me a little about the characters in .

When I decided to write this novel, I did character sketches for the main characters—Ben and his wife, Catherine. I decided to make Ben a stickler for the truth (a Holocaust surviver who knew what lies could do) and Catherine a person with a huge secret that might mean imprisonment for the rest of her life if she reveals it.  Doing this made the two characters ripe for conflict.

Where’s the story set? How much influence did the setting have on the atmosphere/characters/development of the story?

The book is set in the south, Willowood, Kentucky—for the protagonist’s childhood. This southern setting worked well for the circumstances of her early live. And Tucson, Arizona for her current life with her medical school dean husband, a cowboy horse-lover,  and their 5-year-old son. The two settings are in stark contrast to each other—just like the two main characters.

If you had to write your memoir in five words, what would you write?

She did it her way.

How often does your muse distract you from day to day minutiae?

Every day. There is nothing I’d rather be doing more than writing.

What do readers have to look forward to in the future from you?

Another book in the Detective Radhauser series entitled, River of Shame. And a stand alone entitled, The Good Shepherd, about a priest who falls in love with one of his parishioners and she ends up dead.

A mysterious and emotional past collides with a reinvented future. How far would you go to save the life of your child? How much would you sacrifice?

Willowood, Kentucky 1965 - Robin Lee Carter sets a fire that kills her rapist, then disappears. She reinvents herself and is living a respectable life as Catherine Henry, married to a medical school dean in Tucson, Arizona. In 1985, when their 5-year-old son, Michael, is diagnosed with a chemotherapy-resistant leukemia, Catherine must return to Willowood, face her family and the 19-year-old son, a product of her rape, she gave up for adoption. She knows her return will lead to a murder charge, but Michael needs a bone marrow transplant. Will she find forgiveness, and is she willing to lose everything, including her life, to save her dying son?

Available at Amazon

Praise for A Bend In The Willow

Poetic and potent, this debut novel is a must-read for anyone seeking truths about how we transcend our past. As a daughter first abandons her family to save herself, then returns years later to save her son, she discovers that facing her most broken places is the path to redemption, forgiveness, and true healing.

— Sage Cohen, author of Fierce on the Page

Powerful and heartbreaking, A Bend in the Willow tells the story of a young woman who must reveal horrific secrets from her past to save the life of her five-year-old son. Catherine Henry faces a perilous homecoming and murder charges when she seeks aid from her bitter, hostile brother who, two decades before, had risked his life to rescue her from their burning childhood home. Susan Clayton-Goldner beautifully renders an account of fear, pain and tragedy alongside redemption, hope and compassion—and most of all love in this touching family drama. 

— Marjorie Reynolds, author of The Starlite Drive-in  

A fierce and beautifully told story about an abused girl who meets violence with violence then disappears only to return, twenty years later, in order to save her child. Clayton-Goldner has a gift for honestly portraying both heartbreak and hope. I loved it.

—Lily Gardner, author of Betting Blind

Susan’s skillful writing immerses you in a moving story guaranteed to touch your heart.

Ray Rhamey, “Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling”

A Bend in the Willow is written by the award-winning poet, Susan Clayton-Goldner, and published by a small, elite publisher.  You might get the idea this is an arty book full of smooth writing, striking images, great metaphors, and as exciting as a collection of modern poetry about meditations on painting your toenails. You’d be right about the smooth writing, striking images, and great metaphors, but you’d be dead wrong about the level of excitement, A Bend in the Willow is as gripping as a Jason Bourne thriller with the accelerator stuck. It begins in Willowood, Kentucky where Robin Lee Carter is terrorized repeatedly by her drunken father, a poker friend of the local sheriff. After an especially brutal night, Robin takes justice into her own hands. In a far-away city she reinvents herself and years later we find her living as Catherine Henry, happily married to a medical school dean. They have a five-year-old son diagnosed with a deadly form of leukemia.  In a stunning plot twist, she has to return to Kentucky in search of relatives to donate bone marrow for her son. Her father’s old pal, the sheriff, is still in office and determined to arrest her for murder.  A Bend in the Willow is about a woman who will risk everything--career, marriage, even her life--to save her son.  It’s that rare story that is not just thrilling, but has heart.

—James N. Frey

Internationally best-selling author of

How to Write a Damn Good Thriller

  

About the Author

Susan Clayton-Goldner was born in New Castle, Delaware and grew up with four brothers along the banks of the Delaware River. She has been writing poems and short stories since she could hold a pencil and was so in love with writing that she was a creative writing major in college.

Prior to an early retirement which enabled her to write full time, Susan worked as the Director of Corporate Relations for University Medical Center in Tucson, Arizona. It was there she met her husband, Andreas, one of the deans in the University of Arizona's Medical School. About five years after their marriage, they left Tucson to pursue their dreams in 1991--purchasing a 35-acres horse ranch in the Williams Valley in Oregon. They spent a decade there. Andy road, trained and bred Arabian horses and coached a high school equestrian team, while Susan got serious about her writing career. 

Through the writing process, Susan has learned that she must be obsessed with the reinvention of self, of finding a way back to something lost, and the process of forgiveness and redemption. These are the recurrent themes in her work.

Her poetry has appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies. A collection of her poems, A Question of Mortality was released in 2014. Prior to writing full time, Susan worked as the Director of Corporate Relations for University Medical Center in Tucson, Arizona. Her novel, A Bend in the Willow was released in 2017 and is a Readers' Favorite Best Books of 2017 winner. She has just finished a 3-book mystery series and is about to start #4.

After spending 3 years in Nashville, Susan and Andy now share a quiet life in Grants Pass, Oregon, with her growing list of fictional characters, and more books than one person could count. When she isn't writing, Susan enjoys making quilts and stained-glass windows. She says it is a lot like writing--telling stories with fabric and glass.

http://susanclaytongoldner.com/index.html

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