Beautifully printed in India, our latest book has made it around the Cape of Good Hope in a queue of container ships avoiding the Houthi rebels in the Suez canal. See if you can find it in your nearest bookshop. It should be there. A friend has been waiting for her order of two chairs from some eastern country. I wonder if her chairs have been delivered. Chairs, books and who knows what else has been on the scenic route for weeks.
Wandering and Wondering in Wales
Our next book together is going into production with Halsgrove publishers, to come out in early summer.
All Too Human
Frailities and foibles, and the virtues hidden within the failings
It’s my contention that, however exaggerated a negative characteristic, there is a flipside that contains a virtue The nosy parker is the one who leaves the milk on the doorstep when you have covid. The chatterbox is the one who alerts you to the broken paving stone. In the 14 novels I’ve written, I have brought to the page about 64 characters, taking six people per novel as average. Where do they come from? I think there are bits and pieces of me and everyone I’ve ever met in my characters. I hope they are credible. I’m running a competition to find out.
Competition
I would love to hear from you if you have found anyone in any of my novels who has similar characteristics to yourself or to someone you have met. Give me a brief description of that real life person as well as the page number and title of the novel in which you found the broadly similar, fictional character. I may post your entry on my Facebook, Linked In or Twitter page. The person whose entry pleases me the most will receive a signed copy of So Far, So Good, the memoir on sixty years of marriage with Peter Barrett.
Send your entry by email to Susie.barrett@btopenworld.com. Closing date 31st January 2024.
Snakes alive! I’m 85.
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2022 new books
So Far, So Good – sixty years together in words and pictures
a memoir with Peter Barrett
Flood and Flame – a novella about life and love
Praise from Tony Anderson
I thought the form perfect, the content beautifully done and the writing itself terrific. I completely fell for your characters, all in their different ways, and your account of lives over many decades rang so true and resounded hugely.
I have to say that the end had me gulping – it was terribly moving.
And if you really aren’t going to write another novel, I’m sure there’ll be more poetry, both on the page and off.
Praise is sometimes hard to hear
I don’t quite understand why I skim over compliments, barely registering them. What a waste! I’ve just re-found an email of praise from a writer friend whose opinion I value highly. Did I take it in on first reading? Not well enough, is the answer. I read it again this morning and glowed with pleasure; so much so that I will copy and paste it here.
Dear Susie,
I finished Flood & Flame a couple of days back and Lu has now done so, too, & I’m sure she’ll write to you.
I just wanted to say how much I had enjoyed it.
I thought the form perfect, the content beautifully done and the writing itself terrific. I completely fell for your characters, all in their different ways, and your account of lives over many decades rang so true and resounded hugely.
I have to say that the end had me gulping – it was terribly moving.
And if you really aren’t going to write another novel, I’m sure there’ll be more poetry, both on the page and off.
All love to you both and many felicitations for having created & produced something really special,
Tony
New project
We’ve begun working on something new. Its working title is:-
Wandering and Wondering in Wales
an exploration
by Peter and Susan Barrett
INTRODUCTION
From a high point near our home on the borders of Devon and Somerset in the southwest of England, we can see Wales. Today, in the mid-winter sunshine, a shining band of white is visible on the far side of the greyish blue Bristol Channel. We wonder what town it is, so far away yet seeming so close. We plan to find out.
During our sixty-three years of our marriage, we’ve worked independently as artist and writer. We’ve also produced books together, the results of the notes and sketches we’ve made while spending time in various parts of the world, mainly America, Greece and New Zealand. It’s time to turn our attention to the country on our doorstep. Over the next six months we will explore the landscapes and seascapes, mountains and valleys, rivers and lakes, waterfalls and canals, railways and mines, and the many castles and curiosities of Wales.
The result will not be a guide book but a personal description of what we find, to be shared with people like us, who no longer wander far from a car park yet still wonder at the wonders to be found.
A Matter of Life and Death
When Eye can no longer write and read
the things I loved to read and see,
I can bewail my age, and rage –
Or simply accept the next new page.
I cannot know the final hour
When Death will take the fading flower.
I cannot know the witching time
Death will stop my simple rhyme.
But I can choose to live and say
I’m glad I’m alive each darkening day.
I will not wail and wildly rage,
I’m ready to read Death’s bright new page.
Susan Barrett, August 20th 2022
Harriet Now and Then
Susan’s thirteenth novel is about two women who share the name Harriet. Alternate chapters tell their individual stories. The first Harriet lived in the west country in the second half of the eighteenth century; the other is alive today. The first Harriet wrote poetry and married a man who had a good reputation as a poet. The second Harriet is a cellist and, through meeting an American professor of literature, becomes involved in research into the life of the first Harriet. The circumstances of the two women’s lives may be different but the challenges they face as women artists are similar. The 18th century Harriet does as well as she can, within the confines of a woman’s life at the time. Today’s Harriet was widowed young and left with an emotionally disordered son. She might have become a talented composer and concert cellist but has to gain a steady income while giving her son, now adult, a home and care. Both Harriet meet men who may make a difference to their lives but fail to do so, for different reasons.
Now available on Amazon in paperback and as an ebook. Follow the link at the start of this blog.
thirteenth novel out now!
I tell myself sternly that I’m not superstitious. However, the fact that my latest novel is my thirteenth does cause a slight rattle in my ribcage. Just the number in a sentence casts a shadow on the other words. Still, here’s whistling bravely in the dark. I’ll do what I’ve done many times before and tell family and friends that I’m bringing out a new novel. Harriet Now and Then is now available in paperback and as an ebook on Amazon for anyone who likes reading mid-list novels; that is, entertaining stories woven around thoughtful topics that float between mass market popular genres and top rank literary masterpieces.
Shouting my wares doesn’t come easily. My early novels came out to resounding silence, as far as I was concerned. We were living on a Greek island at the time and we barely knew what month it was, let alone day of the week. I had no idea what my nice editor at Michael Joseph had put in place in the way of publicity or promotion for my first few novels. I was contentedly ignorant of any PR machinations going on for me in London. This nonchalant attitude was fine at the time. My first career as a novelist came to an end in the 1990s when I turned to using whatever talents I have with real people in the real world. I trained and practised as a counsellor and psychotherapist. When I returned to fiction in the 21st century, I was without a publisher and, since then, I have self-published my fiction. I may not have a fan base but I believe the people who do find and read my novels enjoy them, which to me is the whole point. If you are one of these precious people, I hope you enjoy this latest one.
It’s about about two women who share the name Harriet. They take alternate chapters to tell their individual stories. The first Harriet lived in the west country in the second half of the eighteenth century; the other is alive today. The first Harriet wrote poetry and married a man who had a good reputation as a poet. The second Harriet is a cellist and, through meeting an American professor of literature, becomes involved in research into the life of the first Harriet. The circumstances of the two women’s lives may be different but the challenges they face as women artists are similar. The 18th century Harriet does as well as she can, within the confines of a woman’s life at the time. Today’s Harriet was widowed young and left with an emotionally disordered son. She might have become a talented composer and concert cellist but has to gain a steady income while giving her son, now adult, a home and care. Both Harriet meet men who may make a difference to their lives but fail to do so, for different reasons.
At 83 I don’t think I’ll manage anything of novel-length again. Short stories next. So, if you read this latest, last, full-length novel, please let me know if you enjoy it. Thank you!
Track it down on Amazon Books – Harriet Now and Then, by Susan Barrett, paperback and ebook.