Our Writer of the Week is none other than Southern literary fiction writer and author Susan Beckham Zurenda. Susan is a recent Gold Medal Winner in the 2021 Independent Publisher Book Awards (IPPY) for Best First Book - Fiction. Her story is a Southern literary coming-of-age novel that is being hailed as poignant and unforgettable, leading one reviewer to state that Zurenda, "weaves a hauntingly beautiful tapestry of complex relationships and family secrets in her debut novel, Bells for Eli.
Author Susan Beckham Zurenda is from Lancaster, SC, but her current home is in Spartanburg, SC, since she attended college there nearly 40 years ago. Spartanburg is named after a fierce local militia. Zurendra told the blog, "The Spartan Regiment that helped win the pivotal Battle of Cowpens in the Revolutionary War."
Among its Revolutionary War roots, Susan shared that Spartanburg is "also home to The Beacon restaurant, founded in 1946. It is the second-largest drive-in in the nation. Spartanburg is home to The Marshall Tucker Band. Founded in the early ’70s, the original Marshall Tucker Band featured Tommy Caldwell on bass, Toy Caldwell on guitar, Jerry Eubanks on flute, Doug Gray on lead vocals, George McCorkle on guitar, and Paul T. Riddle on drums."
Although this Writer of the Week is 65 years old, Susan told us that she has won quite a few awards for her short fiction pieces starting in her 30's. It was not until much later after she retired from teaching, had raised daughters, and cared for aging parents that had the large blocks of time she needed to write her first novel.
Most authors have a moment, a person, or place that inspired them to start writing. For Susan, she said she has always enjoyed writing for as long as she could remember. "Growing up, I was the kid who wrote the Girl Scout skits for my cabin at camp, the scripts for talent shows my friends and I performed in junior high school, and the like. I have always been a voracious reader, as well. However, I didn’t consider becoming a writer until college when I became interested in journalism and was the co-editor of my college newspaper. A great deal of my time and energy during my youth was dedicated to the piano. I entered college as a music major, but an elective class I took in Southern Literature began to change my direction. I realized I loved reading and writing about literature more than I wanted to be a piano major (though I love music and am grateful for my years devoted to playing piano). Initially, I dreaded writing English essays, but eventually, I gained confidence. My first job out of college was as a newspaper reporter for the Spartanburg Herald-Journal. Sometimes, during downtime when I wasn’t out interviewing or writing a news or feature article at my typewriter, I’d pull out a short story I was working on. I never tried to publish my first story (it was amateurish), but it got me started writing fiction. And I did actually use an idea in that story titled “The Hayride” for a scene in Bells for Eli."
So, where and when does this literary fiction writer enjoy putting pen to paper or keys to a Word Document? "Mostly, I write in the evenings in my small office off the master bedroom downstairs at our house. My husband built a simple desk into space in front of a window between wall-to-wall bookcases in the office. He also built a fold-down wall desk at our small retreat on Wimbee Creek near Beaufort, SC, where there’s only the sound of nocturnal birds, crickets, and tree frogs when I get to write there at night. "
Of course, writers draw some inspiration for their books from the world around them, or at least, some elements of ourselves live within our fictional MCs. We asked Susan if any of her characters were based on someone she knew, and if not, what about the experiences that appeared in Bells for Eli?
"Bells for Eli is inspired by a real-life first cousin’s tragic childhood accident in the late 1950s when he swallowed Red Devil Lye just before his second birthday. His father was blowing up balloons for his son’s party with the lye and left it in a Coca-Cola bottle. Danny picked up the bottle and drank. Inspired by Danny’s accident, the novel explores how one misstep changes the trajectory of a young boy’s life and creates immense conflict in the lives of those around him in a time and place of supposed innocence, the small-town South of the 1960s and ’70s."
We were immediately curious about her process of writing Bells for Eli after hearing the story that inspired her. The blog asked how long it took to complete the novel to which Susan shared, "I wrote in the evenings, four to five nights a week, four-six hours at a stretch, over the course of about a year to complete the initial manuscript of Bells for Eli. I was fortunate and obtained an excellent agent quickly. Then, over the course of another year, thanks to my agent’s input and feedback from editors where my agent submitted the manuscript, I wrote and intertwined a secondary plot of mystery that made Bells for Eli exactly the novel it was meant to be. We accepted a book contract from Mercer University Press, and it took close to another year for the hardback edition to be published in March 2020. The paperback edition came out in March 2021."
When we caught up with Susan, she was in the midst of reading This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger, and two unpublished manuscripts by two of her writer friends. Susan admitted that the genre she writes is also the genre she most enjoys reading, literary fiction. "I have recently finished Hamnet, The Vanishing Half, Little Fires Everywhere, and You Belong Here Now."
Every author has a favorite quote, poem, or literary saying they enjoy. We asked Susan to share hers with our readers and followers. "In a letter to his friend Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote, ‘The purpose of a work of fiction is to appeal to the lingering after-effects in the reader's mind.’ This is my purpose in "Bells for Eli": for my characters' lives to resonate with readers after the novel ends. To consider the irony of fate the novel presents: how it can take with one hand and give with the other. How wounds of the heart from childhood might never leave and become the catalyst for decisions that bring this novel to a staggering conclusion, yet simultaneously, how boundless love can ultimately triumph in a world where cruelty and pain threaten to dominate."
Although she herself does not belong to a writing group, Susan told the blog that she has trusted readers who provide her with honest and constructive feedback. "My main reader is a nationally-acclaimed poet who teaches English and creative writing at the University of Miami. I am fortunate to have other experienced writer friends who read and respond to my work as well. A number of English teachers, including my husband, (some retired and some still working) are readers, also."
When she is not writing, Susan said that she enjoys outdoor activities like bike riding, swimming, and kayaking, adding, "I combine reading with exercising when I listen to a book on tape and walk the rail trail near my house. My two daughters have gifted me with four grandchildren, and though both families live several hours from me, so I don’t get to see them often enough, I enjoy every moment I get to be with them. I also enjoy socializing, particularly getting together with girlfriends for happy hour to visit and drink wine on someone’s front porch or deck."
If you have picked up Bells for Eli and enjoyed it, then you will be pleased to know that Susan Beckham Zurenda is working on another book, a standalone with no connections to characters in Bells for Eli. " I recently turned in a second novel with the working title: The Girl from the Red Rose Motel. Unlike Bells for Eli, this is not a historical novel but is set in 2012 in a fictitious mid-sized town in South Carolina. The story revolves around three main characters: a gutsy female high school English teacher, a senior boy, and a junior girl, impoverished and beautiful. The students meet during the in-school suspension, a place where the privileged and brilliant boy never thought he’d find himself until his teacher becomes exhausted with his antics and arranges this punishment. The three characters form a deep bond, initiating from the teenage girl’s difficult circumstances."
Aside from her writing career, Susan has also inspired many young people to pursue their passion for words as a teacher. We asked her what advice she could offer to individuals who are just starting out in their writing journey and who look to publish in the future?
"Helping students engage in literature for 33 years convinced me that there is no field of study any more important. It brings knowledge, satisfaction, and wisdom. Literature reveals truths about what it means to be human more than any other discipline. It forces us to see as others see, to feel as others feel, to connect others' experiences to ourselves, and thereby achieve greater understanding (the good, the bad, and the ugly) of our own human nature. The fulfillment that reading great literature brings to me made me want to also write about the human experience. My advice is for writers, both new and experienced, to read, read, and read some more. As a creative writing teacher, I found one of the biggest hurdles toward progress among beginning writers is resistance to criticism. It’s understandable for us to put up a defensive wall about our writing, but it’s not productive. My most important advice for beginning writers is to be open, let their guard down, and listen to constructive feedback from experienced readers and writers."
Before author Susan Beckham Zurenda debuts on our podcast Saturday, read this exclusive excerpt from the end of Chapter one of Bells for Eli.
"I thought about my cousin Eli. How poison going down your throat would feel if it burned everything on its way. Like fire, it would turn things black. Your tongue. Your throat. And maybe your veins turned from blue to black. I’d seen what weed poison did to plants in Mary Lily’s garden. Pot never let us come near when he sprayed, but I’d seen afterward what it did to once-green life. It turned things brown and dry, then black like ash, and then they were dead.
I stared at the spot where the ambulance had parked. I wiped at my eyes. But when I noticed the arc of blue, green, and violet spread in the road, rainbow oil lying slick in a thin puddle settled in a dip in the street from a thunderstorm during the night, I felt consoled. Because I knew the meaning of rainbows. I would not imagine Eli turning to black ashes inside, even as my own throat clinched, feeling charred and dry."
Be sure to tune in for author Susan Beckham Zurenda on The Writing Wall Podcast at 6 p.m. EST Saturday, August 23rd. Followers of The Writing Wall may also follow Susan on social media. See links below, and be sure to check out her website to learn more about Bells for Eli, available now on Amazon.
Author Bio
After teaching literature, composition, and creative writing to thousands of high school and college students for 33 years, Susan Beckham Zurenda turned her attention to putting a novel in her heart on paper, the genesis of which was a short story that won the South Carolina Fiction Prize a number of years ago. Her debut novel, Bells for Eli (Mercer University Press, March 2020; paperback edition March 2021), has been selected the Gold Medal (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 Pushcart Prize for 2021. Susan taught English for 33 years on the college level and at the high school level to AP students. She has won numerous regional awards for short fiction as the South Carolina Fiction Prize (twice), the Porter Fleming Competition, The Southern Writers Symposium Emerging Writers Fiction Contest, The Hub City Hardegree Contest in Fiction, Alabama Conclave First Novel Chapter Contest, The Jubilee Writing Competition, and has been published in numerous literary journals. Susan received her undergraduate and graduate degrees in English and now works as a book publicist assisting media relations for Magic Time Literary Publicity. She lives in South Carolina with her husband Wayne and two Boston Terriers.
Follow Susan on Social Media & Visit her Website
Website: https://www.susanzurenda.com/
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