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Stark Reflections on Writing and Publishing


Jan 22, 2021

In this episode Mark interviews author Susie Moloney about her life writing horror, the trajectory of her career through writing novels, scripts, and screenplays, and her latest screenplay with director/collaborator Robert Cuffley, BRIGHT HILL ROAD.

Prior to the interview, Mark shares comments from recent episodes as well as a personal update. He also shares a word from this episode's sponsor.You can learn more about how you can get your work distributed to retailers and library systems around the world at starkreflections.ca/Findaway.

 

In their conversation, Susie and Mark talk about:

  • How Susie has been a writer her entire life, had started writing short stories and then discovered that her stories were "getting longer" which eventually evolved into novels
  • Susie's "practice novel" ESCAPE OF THE MINOTAUR which was an attempt to see if she could sustain an idea for a novel-length work
  • How that first novel led to getting an agent
  • The origin of Susie's first novel, BASTION FALLS, which was originally released in 1995 and how it was inspired by Leaf Rapids, Manitoba
  • Susie's A DRY SPELL, and what inspired the novel
  • The parallel lives that Susie and Stephen King have
  • How a leak of the manuscript of A DRY SPELL lead to multiple book and film options
  • The fact that Susie was rolling coins to pay the phone bill when her film agent called to let her know about the 7 figure offer for the film option
  • How Susie say the "writing on the wall" as publishing was changing rapidly
  • How the advances were going down from six figure, to five figure, then to four figure
  • How Susie began to collaborate with Robert Cuffley, the director of BRIGHT HILL ROAD and the Award-Winning ROMI
  • The brilliant actress Siobhan Williams who plays Marcy in BRIGHT HILL ROAD
  • Being a woman who writes and embraces horror, including the thought kicked around that her first book be published under S. Moloney
  • Writing a film script specifically for a small cast
  • A few projects that Susie has been recently working on
  • Susie's experience being writer in residence at Edmonton Public Library

 

After the interview Mark reflects on a few of the things Susie spoke about and says thank you to his patrons.

 

Links of Interest

 


The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0