Whistling Past the Graveyard has been selected as a prestigious Okra Pick by the Southern Independent Bookseller’s Alliance!

What is an Okra Pick? Okra Picks are chosen by Southern Indie Booksellers each season as the upcoming southern titles they are most looking forward to hand selling. For more information visit sibaweb.com/okra.

Susan Crandall 2013 SIBA Okra Pick: Whistling Past the Graveyard

Audio rights for Whistling Past the Graveyard have been sold to Dreamscape Audio for release July 2, 2013.

Susan is currently working with Dreamscape to cast voice talent for the audio book, which will be available on disc and download this summer!

Susan Crandall Whistling Past the Graveyard Audio Book Coming July 2, 2013

A coming-of-age story as well as a luminous portrait of courage and the bonds of friendship. . . Susan Crandall tells young Starla’s story with pitch-perfect tone, evoking 1963 Mississippi and its struggles with a deft hand. I laughed and cried at Starla’s keen observances of life and family and the sometimes blurred edges of justice. Like Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird and Kathryn Stockett’s The Help, Whistling Past the Graveyard is destined to become a classic.

Susan Crandall Whistling Past the Graveyard Review by Karen White

I’m always thrilled to find a good book that defies all current popular trends. When you hear the the setting of this book, you might shrug and wonder how such a novel could be interesting. The Light Between Oceans proves a well-crafted character drama can thrive in any environment, no matter how desolate or bereft of outside influence.

Following traumatic service in WWI from which he’s managed to emerge an uncompromised man, Tom Sherbourne takes a job as a lighthouse keeper on a deserted speck of Australia called Janus Rock. There are literally no other human beings on this island and a supply boat arrives only a few times a year. From this distance, he woos and wins a young wife from the mainland, Isabel. Their life of isolation begins happily. But years wear on with miscarriages and a stillbirth for Isabel, tragedies survived without the support of a mother or doctor or friend. Shortly after the stillbirth, a lifeboat washes ashore with a dead man and an infant. There is no communication available to contact authorities, other than missives sent on the supply boats. By then, Isabel has convinced Tom (no easy task, that) that they should claim the girl as their own. The cocoon of their isolation has let them forget there are other people in the world, with stories as tragic as their own. That all comes to an end when they return to the mainland with their child.

I adore great characters and this book delivers from the main characters of Tom and Isabel, to the rarely seen secondary folks. The Light Between Oceans is carefully crafted and beautifully written. The characters are flawed, as all good fictional folk should be. We ache for their suffering, and yet the author does not soften the reality of poorly made choices and human weakness.

This wasn’t a novel that drove me deep into the night; I was quite able to place my bookmark, close the book and turnout the light. And yet there is something so compelling in the characters that I looked forward to opening it back up again.

Susan Crandall Book Pick: The Light Between Oceans by M. L. Stedman

Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four

Breaking Up with Your Critique Partner

Once you’re past the trial period and have decided to go on together, that doesn’t mean you’re married for life. You may sail along on similar seas for eternity. But quite often there comes a time when you need to write that Dear John/Dear Joan letter. Sometimes you outgrow a critique partner, you’ve given each other all you can and now it’s time to move on. Sometimes one writer’s goals change, you may both start as casual hobby writers, but may change your commitment to the craft in either direction. Sometimes time and distance become a problem. And sometimes there has been a thread of toxicity stinking up your relationship from the beginning and has grown to be a serious detriment to your creativity.

Such is the case I’ll call, The Clubbing of the Baby Seal: I was in a group. It was working. When someone asked to join our group, we didn’t evaluate our dynamic and assess what would change. We didn’t establish a specific trial period. This person was unassuming, exuding vulnerability on so many levels that the baby seal moniker was set in my mind immediately. No one had any objections upon initial meeting—who could object to such a gentle person? So off we went.

This person’s chronic health problems (all part of the air vulnerability) occasionally prevented attendance, so it took some time for the pattern became clear. Once it was, we tolerated; for this was really a nice person, just not mixing well with our format. The same material was presented meeting after meeting, with no changes from the previous critiquing (regardless of the reminders that new material should be brought). When suggestions were made, they were met with argument, not discussion. Whenever we were discussing other people’s works, the baby seal sat like a stone (I’m not even sure any of our works had been read). We were unhappy, but pushed on with gritted teeth and scrunched brows. The person was so…so…so baby-seal-like, what else could we do?
But the baby seal was becoming a toxin to our meetings, a soft spoken, innocent looking toxin, demanding respect not shown in return—and surprisingly assertive for someone in such frail health. Was it just me? Was I the only one who felt the seal was destroying our group?

Then, one by one, I began to see it in the other members’ eyes. Still, no one wanted to be the first to say the baby seal needed to go. It was weeks before we finally broached the subject. The consensus was the same: How could we be so cruel to someone who was so nice and appeared so fragile? We delayed. The baby seal grew more demanding. It wasn’t just the time the seal took away from more productive critiquing, the cloud of negativity was enveloping all of us. In the end, someone had to do it, someone had to club the baby seal. We had a reluctant volunteer. I’m ashamed to say, I wasn’t it.

The clubbing was done. The baby seal left our group. A lesson was learned. One I’m happy to share with you with the hope you’ll be better prepared and not end up in a similar situation. This all could have been avoided with the right stipulations laid out in the beginning … then again, maybe not. The same ugliness might have come when the trial period ended. However, the group wouldn’t have endured months and months of our productivity decreasing by the half-life with the radiation of that toxicity.

I suppose it’s like dating in this way, too. No matter how prepared we are, how carefully we proceed, sometimes it comes to a messy end. But we can’t let that prospect chase us away from the quest for that just-right relationship. Do your best to safeguard against failure, then get out there and look for your writing partner. The creative process is solitary, and yet it’s possible to find a synergistic partnership if you look. Almost always both you and your work are better for it, no matter how it ends.

Susan Crandall Finding a Critique Partner, It’s Like Dating, Only Harder (Part Four)