Susan H Trought

 

I love words and inevitably became an English teacher, standing on my desk to act out the storm from A Winter’s Tale while the pupils were the swaying waves, encouraging young minds to let go and feel so they can write poetry.I’m definitely nosy and my favourite question is, ‘Why?’ So I have a very wide, eclectic and generally useless hoard of general knowledge, but I’m a champion at pub quizzes.

In the 80’s I had a book published by Luttterworth Press - Oak House -  but this burgeoning career as an author was cut short when this small publishing house was swallowed up by Cambridge University Press and all the ‘unknown’ authors were jettisoned.

Still I wrote - short stories, full length novels and poetry; filled notebooks and scribbled ideas on the back of scruffy envelopes… It was, and still is, a disease and in my case definitely terminal!

I have no idea where my characters and ideas come from. They walk into my mind almost fully formed. I put them into a situation and off they go. I’m merely the observer who chronicles their story.

Fast forward to 2020 and lockdown. Isolation and widowhood combined to make me reassess my life somewhat so I took up my pen again. Yes, I still scribble in longhand. I was very fortunate to have nine ( nine!) poems accepted by The Book Whisperers for a new anthology called ‘Stir Crazy’. I was overwhelmed. I never thought I would have anything published again and certainly not poetry. This triggered a frenzy of writing and I was extremely lucky to have two manuscripts accepted by Scaramouche Press. The first, Winnie of the Dell, came out at the beginning of September and the next is due out next Spring. Winnie of the Dell is a whimsical modern fairytale about a young herbalist called Jarney Sixpence struggling to be accepted after her grandmother dies. On her journey she discovers a mysterious past with the help of the ethereal spirit Winnie of the Dell. The herbal recipes in the book are real. Meet Pinny Rand, Dorrie Dunn, Tam Willows, Rem Smith and many other quirky characters along the way. There is a touch of romance, too, It would make a wonderful pantomime! But really I am waiting for the call from Disney...or Pixar...or Dreamworks... So, you see, you’re never too old to dream!.