#WhatsYourStory Featuring Susan Lindsley

11/27/2017

   Susan’s novel When Darkness Fell won the Indie Award for best Regional Fiction. Her first novel The Bottom Rail placed as semifinalist in the Georgia Author of the Year Awards for first novel. Her memoir Possum Cops, Poachers and the Counterfeit Game Warden took first place in the Northern Colorado Writers Toop of the Mountain literary contest and second place in both the Georgia Author of the Year and the Florida Writers Royal Palm literary contest.
   Two short stories won first place in their genres from the Knoxville Writers Guild. She won the George T. Youngblood award for short fiction in 2017. She has won numerous awards for fiction, nonfiction and poetry at various SWA workshops. She has ten published books and one now undergoing publication.
   Her stories, poetry, articles and editorials have been published in several anthologies as well as in local, state and national magazines, including Southern Living. Her nonfiction subjects have ranged from Gone With the Wind to wildlife management.
   Before her retirement, Susan worked as a reporter and feature writer for a daily paper, then moved to Boston area where she wrote motivational publications and edited technical papers for Raytheon Manufacturing and later edited research papers at MIT. From Boston, she returned to Georgia and worked as writer and editor at the Centers for Disease Control. Her work-for-hire has been translated for use in Africa and Asia.

What an honor to be asked to say hello to y’all and tell you about myself as an author in the South.
   Writing was a dream born before I can remember, and dreams have become a source for my writing. My aunt was an award-winning journalist and a friend of Margaret Mitchell who came to visit when I was a child. What more could anyone want as an inspiration? I had another one, in-house. My dad was an award-winning author in college and I loved his works. First poem I memorised was one of his.
   Then along came a new neighbor, Flannery O’Connor. She and her mother lived across the farm fence. Our cattle became characters in her stories, as did our mutual neighbors.
   Result?
   Twelve published books to date. I edited three, wrote the other nine. Several books won awards, one from the Northern Colorado Writers.
   One of the toughest to write was the biography of my aunt, Susan Myrick, who was technical adviser on Gone With the Wind. I almost had too much reference material: Her diary, her letters to Mitchell, and her fifty years of newspaper writings. But the result was very rewarding, for at book events I met Melanie’s “son” Mickey Kuhn who also played young Matt Garth (the young Montgomery Cliff) in RED RIVER, met and grew fond of Ann Rutherford and corresponded with “Melanie” (Olivia de Havilland).
   The summer of 2017 has been a super time for me and my books. POSSUM COPS, POACHERS AND THE COUNTERFEIT GAME WARDEN in manuscript form won the TOP OF THE MOUNMTAIN award from the Northern Colorado Writers last year, and this year placed second in the Georgia Author of the Year contest and second in the Florida Writers Association contest. The Florida Writers contest is one of the most competitive and carefully judged contest I know of. Each book goes through several levels of judges who use specific criteria to provide a numerical value to each book. Pass one judge, your book moves up to another. And another. I feel quite proud of obtaining their silver medal this year. If you believe in the magic of ”keeping the fingers crossed,” please do so—this book is entered in two more contests!
   This year, even more excitement: Two books of short stories, WHITETAILS AND TALL TALES   and EMPEROR OF THE UNITED AMERICAN STATES, released within six weeks.
   Strange titles? Strange stories, many beginning when I woke up from a dream and thought “that would make a good story.” So, I wrote. And dreamed and wrote.
   Imagine: Bill and Hillary making reservations at a run-down rural motel in the middle of nowhere. A man waking up from a dream of fishing in Alaska to find fresh salmon in his fridge. The biggest-ever large-mouth bass (that isn’t) getting caught, photographed and luring the Fishery Management biologist to town. An old man explaining to his grandson how he overthrew the U. S. A. and became emperor of the United American States. A visit to the afterlife. Murder. Mistaken identity. An old woman going turkey hunting to keep out of a nursing home. (Oops). A new TV called “4-D.” A mountain turned on its side. A midnight conversation between a married couple about snoring. Poachers who get their come-uppance.
   And a few more.
   One reviewer called the stories in EMPEROR “black humor ranging from the believable to the unimaginable.”
   Steve Berry, New York Times and international best-selling author, called EMPEROR “spicy harsh reality.” Dana Wildsmith, author, poet and writing teacher, said of WHITETAILS that like the sharp report of a rifle close by, “these stories will snap you to attention.” A Georgia Author of the Year winner said, “visual writing and stunning, profound stories.”
   What more could an author ask for?   A long enough life to keep writing and having fun. Now 81, I still have plans for several books.

Possum Cops, Poachers, and the Counterfeit Game Warden

The afternoon shotgun pellets plummeted the leaves around her on her own hunting grounds. Susan Lindsley did not run and hide. She took off after the poacher. Only one of many she pursued.
He did not come back. Neither did any others of those she caught and jailed.
Even Susan herself could not try to outrun the law. When she accidentally killed a doe out of season, she called the local possum copy on herself. And the word began to circulate in her community: "If you poach on Susan Lindsley and survive, you will go to jail."
She went from "I don't want to hunt" to an avid deer hunter, an expert tracker, a teacher for her friends, and a ferocious activist for game management. She writes as she lived those years: With a heart for animals, an enthusiasm for the outdoors and a love of painting pictures with words.

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Where to Buy Possum Cops, Poachers, and the Counterfeit Game Warden

Amazon

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