Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I am 67 and have just published my first book. Given that the process took me 30+ years, a second book seems like a long shot. I am being flippant, but the truth is that the story I have released was bequeathed to me and demanded to be told. What took most of the time was my struggle to learn how to be a writer who could effectively tell that story. I have been writing all my life, as a lawyer and as a judge, so I was confident in my ability to communicate clearly in print and even prided myself on making technical points in plain English. Telling emotional truths along with factual ones and bringing characters to life turned out to be entirely new skills, however.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
Choosing Life: My father’s journey from Hollywood to Hiroshima. My father’s crew took the only color footage of the aftermath of the atomic bombings only to have it classified as top secret by the US Government. He tried for decades to get access to make a film to show the American people what the reality of nuclear weapons was. As a teen, I was active in the peace movement and could not understand why my father was not marching at my side. Only in his late years was he able to connect with a Japanese group that managed to obtain a copy of the footage and track down some of the survivors my father had filmed. When he died, his last wish was to have his ashes scattered at Ground Zero in Hiroshima. I took my daughter there and we spent a year speaking to the survivors. What inspired me to write was a deep duty to tell the truths that were entrusted to me by my father and by the survivors.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
During a writers’ residency, I was wrestling with how to manage the intertwining stories that make up the book. I chopped up the manuscript and tacked all the pieces on the walls of the writers’ studio and started moving them around. It looked as if the work had been destroyed by a tornado, but it helped me enormously in structuring the book.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
Honor Moore and Nick Flynn (both memoirists) included me in writers’ residencies and taught me the basics of telling a true story while employing tools of fiction such as creating distinct scenes, employing all my sense and developing a clear voice.
On learning to write well, Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird and Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones. In preparing for the topic, I read dozens of books on WWII, on the decision to drop the bomb, on Japanese history and culture, on the US Occupation of Japan, and, of course, on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
What are you working on now?
Right now, having just released my book, I am trying to learn to “market” it, which turns out to be an endeavor calling for as much new learning as writing it did.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
The most critical tool was creating a good website for the book to which everything else points. I was very lucky to have a friend who had the professional skills to do that and who was also moved by the story and willing to volunteer the time to set it up and teach me how to use it for blogging, reviews, and events. The biggest source of traffic to the website so far is from Facebook as a result of my own posts there and also a 3-week Facebook ad campaign run with the publishing company. I have also benefited from being active in the Authors’ Guild and Goodreads.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
My advice is to trust your vision for your project but listen to advice about how best to realize that vision.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
“Good judgment comes from experience; experience comes from bad judgment.” I embrace the idea that making mistakes is the only path to making progress. (It was also a useful saying to keep me sane when my daughter was a teenager — and it worked, she is now my best friend and a sage adviser in many ways!)
What are you reading now?
Kendi’s How to be an Anti-Racist (along with half the world, it seems); Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach
What’s next for you as a writer?
For now, I am trying to frame shorter pieces from the same material as the book in an effort to place them in online sites, magazines or journals.
If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
Joyce’s Ulysses; Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past; the Complete Works of Shakespeare; and the Bible. OK, not light reading, but they ought to keep me engaged no matter how long I am stuck and give me enough food for my own thought to distract me from worrying about it.
Author Websites and Profiles
Leslie Sussan Website
Leslie Sussan Amazon Profile
Leslie Sussan’s Social Media Links
Goodreads Profile