Author Suzanne Woods Fisher Reveals the Only Question a Writer Ever Needs -130

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Kathleen Basi [: 00:00:03

Welcome to Author Express. Thanks for checking us out. This is the podcast where you give us 15 minutes of your time and we give you a chance to hear the voice behind the pages and get to know some of your favorite writers in a new light. I'm one of your hosts, Kathleen Basi. I'm an award winning musical composer, feature writer, essayist, and of course storyteller. Let me tell you a little about today's guest.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:00:33

Suzanne Woods Fisher is a best selling, award winning author of more than 40 books, both fiction and non fiction. She lives in California with her very big family, all of whom provide endless grit for the oyster. Welcome Suzanne to Author Express.

Suzanne Woods Fisher [: 00:00:48

Thank you, Kathleen. It's really nice to meet you.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:00:51

Okay, so now our first question is always to tell us what's the most interesting thing about where you are from. But after that I have a follow up question about your bio.

Suzanne Woods Fisher [: 00:01:00

Well, I would say if I can pull that question out a little bit and tweak it. We spent four years living in Hong Kong as a family with four kids and we sort of dragged them there and dragged them home again because they loved it. But not at first, it took time. But it was the most incredible defining experience for us to live in an Asian country of 7 million on an island, you know, it's so different than visiting and it really shaped us. And there's one brief story that kind of, I think sums it all up. And we went into my husband's office and there on the wall was a world map. And we looked at it and just seemed like, huh, something's different. And it's because Asia was in the center and the United States was cut.

Suzanne Woods Fisher [: 00:01:52

And I don't think I'd ever thought before that of how a map is organized. But that just has, has I think really shaped our thinking ever since. Our whole family.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:02:03

Yeah, I love that story. You know, I hear all the time that the way that they flatten the globe when they make the maps, it distorts so that Africa is actually a lot bigger than it looks on world maps.

Suzanne Woods Fisher [: 00:02:15

Really.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:02:16

So yeah, we, we really have quite an opinion of ourselves in this country as being the center of the universe. Yes. So I think you have the, probably won the award for the shortest bio ever, the most succinct. But there is a line in there about your family and you answered part of it. I was going to ask. You said a large family. So you have four kids. Is there more to your large family or is it the four kids?

Suzanne Woods Fisher [: 00:02:41

No, four kids. All married now to wonderful spouses, all with children, over a dozen grandchildren now, more to come. And it's funny, Kathleen, because it is like you're just constantly juggling stuff, trying to figure out whose birthday, what did I miss? You know, not only think of those four spouses, but then they have families, too. You know, they have parents and. And siblings and all that. So it's a lot in our life. It's. It's wonderful.

Suzanne Woods Fisher [: 00:03:11

It's a great gift. I'm very, very thankful. But it is really a pull, you know, run over and over and over, you know?

Kathleen Basi [: 00:03:18

So I have to ask, can you share? You said they provide plenty of grit for the oyster for writing? I assume so. Can you. Is there anything that you can share from that? That That's. That's a fit for public consumption?

Suzanne Woods Fisher [: 00:03:29

Well, one of my favorite stories is my very, very first book. And this goes back to, like, I started. I was a magazine writer for years and years, even in Hong Kong. And then. Then I switched to just thinking, could I write a book? After my kids started going off to college, but I still had one or two at home in high school. And I wrote this book, and I kept it absolutely secret. Like, I just wanted it to be. I wasn't sure I could do it.

Suzanne Woods Fisher [: 00:03:54

I wasn't sure I could ever get it published. I just had a kind of a quiet journey with it, which was so special in some ways. I didn't tell my husband. I didn't tell my sister. It was really just between me and the computer and my imagination. And at the end of it, I told the family. And this was probably like four months of writing full time, and we're talking that drafty draft, you know, that first draft. So at the dinner table, I said to the family, I have written a book.

Suzanne Woods Fisher [: 00:04:19

And my youngest son, who's oh, so sensitive, said, that's why there's no food in this house. He was right.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:04:30

That sounds right. I also am a mother of four, and that sounds very, very right to me.

Suzanne Woods Fisher [: 00:04:37

Yeah, you're. You're senstive boys, right?

Kathleen Basi [: 00:04:41

Sensitive to their own needs. Anyway, so you put on our info gathering form that you had filled it out while you were in Ephesus, Turkey. Can you tell me a little bit about that trip?

Suzanne Woods Fisher [: 00:04:51

We just got back, and it was really a big trip for us. We were going to about two and a half weeks, and we flew into Istanbul, went down western Turkey to all the seven churches of Revelation. Actually, we saw five out of seven, because two have not been excavated yet. And then over to Patmos to where John wrote the Book of Revelation. Amazing. The very cave where he wrote it. And then we actually took a cruise that took us through a couple of Greek islands, which was so fun. And one fun story is we pulled the cruise.

Suzanne Woods Fisher [: 00:05:23

We'd go through the night, and then we, you know, harbor during the day and go and see Rhodes or another island. And we were coming into Crete, and my Steve and I. I'm up early. Steve and I, my husband, were having breakfast, and all of a sudden we knew we were docking, and the ship just like, you know, dishes and everything. And we thought, oh, my goodness, the captain really did a lousy parking job. Turned out. 6.2 earthquake. Whoa.

Suzanne Woods Fisher [: 00:05:50

Right below us, there was a tsunami warning that day. It was. It was a big deal. It made national news, you know, but in that part of the world, it's pretty regular. And I'm from San Francisco, which we get them, too. But 6.2 is big.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:06:04

That's big. Yeah.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:06:05

Wow.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:06:05

There's a. You definitely have a story to tell. That's for sure. Let's kind of change focus a little bit here and really focus in on the book. So tell us in one sentence about this book.

Suzanne Woods Fisher [: 00:06:15

Okay. And this was not easy to do. To summarize

Kathleen Basi [: 00:06:18

I've read the description. I know. It's not easy.

Suzanne Woods Fisher [: 00:06:20

I know. Or just to even capture. This is the book. Capture the moment. And love the cover It's just a really, really creative cover. I don't know if you can see.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:06:27

I can see it. Most of our readers will not. Maybe we'll pull this for our social medias.

Suzanne Woods Fisher [: 00:06:32

Well, what's really fun is deep inside. When I, the art director, sent me the cover I loved it, but I said, can you do one more thing? And that is to add a grizzly bear in the center of the camera lens. Deep inside, you have to look. And it's really a book about a woman and a bear. But. Okay, here's the one sentence. A determined zoo photographer ventures into the wilds of Grand Teton to capture a legendary bear on film, only to find yourself relying on a rugged, you know, handsome park ranger and caught in a race against someone with far more dangerous intentions.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:07:07

This sounds so amazing. This is the first book in the series that you're planning. As I understand, that's all centered around the national parks, correct?

Suzanne Woods Fisher [: 00:07:15

Yes.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:07:16

I love this concept for a book. This specifically. And I also love the idea of a series that's based on the national parks. And this makes me suspect that you probably have pretty strong connection to the national parks. Right or wrong about that?

Suzanne Woods Fisher [: 00:07:31

I mean, I live in California, where we have many of them, the iconic Yosemite. I live not far from where John Muir's home is, which is really worth a trip. That's a national site, and I have traveled to a number of them. And I actually think something about maybe the pandemic just turned our attention to our country and what we could do inside it.

Suzanne Woods Fisher [: 00:07:52

And then I think that love of the national parks. This may sound funny, it's just such an antidote to a lot of the problems in our country right now. It just feels like when you go to a national park, you are so proud of your country, you know, of the people that have been there before us, the people that have preserved it, the future of it, you know, the wildlife that they're trying to protect. And you just feel so good about being an American. And I think we need that right now in a very strong way. Wherever side you lean, this is a good thing. Our national parks make us all united. The national parks are wonderful.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:08:26

Is that what brought this story on? You said, you know what, the national parks are great and I'm going to set it there. Or was there more to it than that?

Suzanne Woods Fisher [: 00:08:36

I was actually in a national park. Steve and I had a special anniversary. We went to Grand Teton, which is just a beautiful, beautiful place. Sometimes Yellowstone overshadows Grand Teton, but it is worth going to. Very interesting part because it's so flat and then there's steep granite. Tetons are just so unusual. No foothills. So you really get a sense of the valley and then, and then what surrounds it.

Suzanne Woods Fisher [: 00:09:01

And we were there going through different places. I came across had before I went, I'd even heard about this bear that is sort of a, you know, the world's most famous grizzly bear, hoping to catch sight of her. So I was really interested in just being there. But then we were in a gift store and I was talking to the girl who worked there, young woman, like 18, 19 year old. She was from Alabama and her mother had just dropped her off for this summer. We were right on the shoulder season, like, you know, right around early June. And she'd never been out of Alabama in her whole life. And her mother literally dropped her for the summer because there's so many people that come in for the summer work, seasonal work, whether it's at all ages, you know, retired people to teenagers, the Youth Conservation Corps to young college kids.

Suzanne Woods Fisher [: 00:09:49

That's what kind of triggered what a fun series that could be to set the summer in the park. It just kind of struck me. And so when I went to my editor, she said, I think I like it. I like it.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:10:02

So do you already have ideas for what the plot is for all of the other books in this series?

Suzanne Woods Fisher [: 00:10:07

The other one's already written. Second one.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:10:09

Oh, great.

Suzanne Woods Fisher [: 00:10:09

And that is set in Acadia National Park.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:10:11

Oh, wow.

Suzanne Woods Fisher [: 00:10:12

And there's a couple of characters that will carry on. Not all of them, but a couple of them you'll see again, which is kind of fun. And then the third one I think we've just decided will be Yosemite. So I'll start researching that. I've been there a number of times, but I'll start serious stuff this year.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:10:30

That's really something to look forward to. Let's talk a little bit about the writing process for you. You have 40 books, so that's mind blowing. Like non fiction nonfiction. You're writing in the Christian realm is exclusively.

Suzanne Woods Fisher [: 00:10:46

I mean I, I have written actually. It was kind of interesting. All for Reveille books and all with the same editor.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:10:52

Oh, wow.

Suzanne Woods Fisher [: 00:10:52

So I know, very unusual. That's not typical. But I write nonfiction and fiction and then historical fiction and you know, a lot of different genres within contemporary fiction and the Amish fiction. So. And I think it's. It's lean getting closer to 50, which is just. I. I'm sort of shocked if you told me that when I told my family that story about Ready the first one, I never would have imagined how to do that or that would have felt frightening.

Suzanne Woods Fisher [: 00:11:18

But it's sort of fun to just go one by one and you're just. Your heart and mind is in that one book.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:11:23

It's pretty impressive. If any of your kids were old enough to have that conversation before you ever started writing. That's really impressive to have that many books out. How do you first, you know, mom of four wants to know how do you keep writing when you're. When the demands on your time must be profound.

Suzanne Woods Fisher [: 00:11:43

They are. And I think one of the things that is. Is hard is the 50% of writing books is in the promotion side. It's really a lot. I don't think people realize that. People tend to romanticize being an author. And you know, I really, I. I write in a laundry room.

Suzanne Woods Fisher [: 00:12:02

I have dogs in and out. I have people bumping my chair. It's not, you know, it's not like a writing studio overlooking a lake. Right.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:12:10

Right.

Suzanne Woods Fisher [: 00:12:12

So yes, margin is pretty tight. It's really hard. And my life is. Is fairly purposeful. But my, I'm a very disciplined writer. I'M up very early and I try to hit a word count or at least like a plan every day of what I want to accomplish as a writer. A scene, an edit, something like that. Because, you know, I'm, I'm doing now I have done three books a year.

Suzanne Woods Fisher [: 00:12:32

I'm doing two books a year right now.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:12:34

Holy moly.

Suzanne Woods Fisher [: 00:12:36

Well, and that means one book is coming back to you with edits or with, you know, proofs or things like that as the other one is getting creatively, you know, spilled out. And so it's kind of always in process a little bit. And. But I think the discipline of writing is also something people sort of overlook. And I know there's this whole idea of letting the muse drive you. If you did that, you know, in a busy life, you would never finish anything. So I tend to like, you know, really take it seriously. It is a job for me.

Suzanne Woods Fisher [: 00:13:07

And even though it's invisible and not people, people don't always understand. I actually do work. Working out of the home is kind of both a blessing and not so easy.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:13:17

Yeah, right. Well, that's inspiring. So tell us as we start to wrap up, where is the best place for people to find you if they had to go one place?

Suzanne Woods Fisher [: 00:13:26

Love to direct people to my website, www.suzannewoodsfisher.com because there's a lot there and there's even a pop up for subscribing. You can always unsubscribe if you want to, but my newsletter is my best place where I connect with readers and let them have the first dibs at anything, contest giveaways, the family news, family updates, that kind of thing. So I like to direct people there.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:13:51

Great. Okay, so as we finish today, tell us what book or story inspires you the most.

Suzanne Woods Fisher [: 00:13:57

That's a wonderful question and it's a tough one, but I went back to being a teenager and reading the book Gift from the Sea from Ann Mara Lindbergh, Charles Lindbergh's wife. And I think there was something about that book that just kind of captured my imagination of what it meant to be a writer. And she's a mother of five and wrote in between. And that's a lot of what the book's about. It's just a classic, Gifts from the Sea, so I would recommend it.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:14:24

Awesome. That sounds like a great one. This one I have not had recommended before. So thank you. Thank you so much for being with us on Author Express today, Suzanne.

Suzanne Woods Fisher [: 00:14:31

Thank you. I loved it.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:14:37

Thanks for joining us today. Reviews help other people to find us, so please take a minute to give us a rating and leave a few words. We'll be here again next Wednesday. In the meantime, follow us on Instagram at Author Express Podcast cast to see who's coming up next. Don't forget, keep it Express, but keep it interesting.