Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
My name is Susan Antony and I write young adult fiction. Becoming a writer was a childhood dream I’d buried years ago. One day in the recent past while spring-cleaning, I came across a fifty-page novel I’d written as a ten-year-old and my long forgotten passion awoke again. Since then I’ve written two and a half books, Cherokee Summer being my second book and my first published book.
I currently live in South Carolina with my teenaged son and two naughty but adorable Cairn Terriers.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
While visiting the Cherokee Indian Reservation in Cherokee, North Carolina, I recalled a crush I had on a Native American classmate when I was a tween and pondered how the relationship might have evolved had we been older. Chasing a childhood dream of becoming a writer, I put her imagination to work and my fingers to the keyboard and my novel Cherokee Summer was born.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
There are many but if I have to pick, Jack Kerouac and Stephenie Meyer. How’s that for variety? Jack Kerouac with his unrestrained zest to experience all aspects of life influenced a generation of youth lost in the fifties and continues to be as an inspiration today. Stephenie Meyer was an unknown when she turned a dream in to a phenomenon.
What are you working on now?
I am dismantling a YA Paranormal Romance I wrote prior to Cherokee Summer. I intend to build it up again with a different story line.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
I am still learning, but right now I seem to get the most attention from FaceBook ads.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Practice, practice, practice and never give up. If you haven’t already, build an online presence today and nurture it. Only a minute amount of authors write a novel and become an overnight success. There are general rules to writing as in everything else. If you study and apply them, you have a better chance of achieving your goal. Take online writing classes. Join critique groups. Listen to your critics and evaluate the information provided. Take what you like and trash the rest. Though, always keep your mind open and learn to take criticism. My harshest critic helped me the most. After I finished crying over my bruised ego, I realized he was one-hundred percent right. Had I not listened, I might not be published today.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
Referring to the critic from the prior question, too many of your friends and family are telling you this is good.
What are you reading now?
I just finished BOY ERASED–a dark and sometimes painful, but enlightening story.
What’s next for you as a writer?
I am overhauling on my YA Paranormal Romance, and I have written one chapter of a sequel to Cherokee Summer.
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?
There are so many books that I love I cannot pick only three or four. I think if I were stranded in solitude, I’d have to find a way to write my on book.
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