April 4, 2025 • 38 mins
Friend and first time author Suzanne Scott Tomita joins the podcast to discuss her debut novel Until Even the Angels. Her book is the story of Mei Mei Goh, a domestic servant to the wealthy Hamilton family, and her unlikely friendship with her young mistress, Honour Hamilton, and the teenage gardner, Pashunath Roy. Set in 1950s Singapore and contemporary London, Until Even the Angels is part mystery, historical fiction, social commentary.
Suzanne has a PhD in Education from the University of British Columbia and completed The Writer's Studio Creative WRiting Certificate at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia. She was born in Tunisia and raised in Venezuela, Germany, Indonesia, Canada and Australia. Her writing inclues personal essays on the topics of motherhood, mid-life and marriage, home and belonging.
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Episode Transcript
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Unknown (00:30):
Amy, hello, welcome back to the Red Fern book
review. I am your host. AmyTyler, and today I'm here with
my friend Suzanne, Scott Tomita,and she's going to talk about
her very first novel. It'scalled until even the angels,
and it's set in Singapore, whereshe currently lives with her
(00:54):
husband, and it almost defiesgenres. We're going to talk
about this during the podcast.
It's a bit of a thriller, it's abit of
historical fiction, and it'sreally it's literary. I think
you'll enjoy our discussion.
But in the meantime, I also wantto apologize for being absent
(01:19):
from the podcast for a bit, I'vebeen a bit distracted with life.
I'm going to have to admit,but I'm here today and I have a
couple of updates for you. Onething I wanted to let you know
is that I have been tapped bythe Canadian book club Awards,
which is a newit's just a few years old, and
(01:40):
it is a Canada's largestReader's Choice book club
awards. And what it is, it'svoted on by Canadian book clubs
and readers, and the idea behindit is to showcase more popular
or commercial authors that mightget missed in some of the
(02:02):
regularyou know, like a booker prize
award, a moremore literary award. So I'm
really excited about that. Andwhat I'm going to be doing is,
over the summer months, I'mgoing to be interviewing all the
winners, and I'll be doing itover three separate podcasts. So
it'll be kind of a groupsetting, which I have not really
(02:22):
done before. I've done threepeople
in a podcast before, but in someI might be doing five, including
myself. So that'll be that'll bea challenge.
And the other thing I wanted tomention is, since I haven't been
here for a little while, whatI'm currently reading, and I am
(02:43):
reading something called theLong Island compromise by taffy
brodesser ackner. I don't evenknow if I'm pronouncing her name
right, but a lot of you willknow her from
the book Fleishman is introuble, and it also was an
excellent streaming show. Can'tremember what channel was
(03:06):
streaming on HBO. I think maybeyou can, you can let me know.
But very good. And it's, I'vejust started it, but it's pretty
promising, and it's a familysaga, which I always love. And
the story is there is a wealthybusinessman named Carl Fletcher,
(03:30):
and he's kidnapped from hisdriveway, and he's attacked and
held for ransom, and then he'sreturned to his wife and kids
less than a week later, and it'show the family recovers from
that and the impact of thatmoment in time. So she's a
really good writer, and I'mexcited, so I'll report back
(03:53):
more on that. But with thatsaid, let's move over and talk
with Suzanne.
Hello, Suzanne, welcome back tothe podcast. Thanks so much,
Amy, it's so great to be backwith you.
A lot has happened. You were onmy podcast a couple of years ago
(04:14):
and you were about to embark ona journey
to Singapore, and you're therenow. And so can you fill people
in what brought you toSingapore? And what are you
doing there?
Sure, we moved back to Singaporein December of 2021,
(04:36):
and back, meaning we lived here15 years ago for a couple years.
So sometimes, when you havethese opportunities overseas and
you come back again, it's yourefer your to yourself as a
boomerang, right? So we're backagain and pulled for two
reasons, my husband's role andmy role. My contract ended.
(05:00):
In March of last year, and inthat year, I've been able to
finally bring a dream of mine tofruition, which is to publish a
book. So it's been actually anamazing experience to be here a
second time as an older personwith different life, stage
children being, you know, less,less involved in everyday
(05:25):
things. So I had a chance toreally knuckle down and finish
my manuscript and get it off toa publisher, and they accepted
it. So really excited aboutthat. So today I want to talk
about, I'm excited to talk aboutyour book, and then also as a
first time author and a friend,it's fun to I think people would
really like to hear about yourwriting process and the
(05:46):
publishing process.
I think a lot of people, I thinkthere are a number of people
that would love to write a book,but they just don't think they
can do it. And so I'd love foryou to share
a bit about your journey, butthe first thing I wanted to ask
you was in the acknowledgements.
And I love reading theacknowledgements. Sometimes I
(06:08):
read them first you talk aboutgoing on a walk with a friend in
Singapore, and you said, duringthis walk, the seeds of this
book were planted. Can you tellus more about that? Yes, yes.
Okay, so for me, when I write, Ihave to be viscerally affected
by an emotion. So whether that'sadoration, fear, you know,
(06:42):
feelings of all kind, you know,really, really visceral
feelings. I have to have thatfeeling first. So I would go and
walk around this very beautifulpart of Singapore where there
are these old colonial estates.
There are very few left now, andthere are these very unique
architectural buildings calledblack and whites, and so they
have kind of influence ofBritish colonial architecture in
(07:05):
the tropics, mixed with sort ofIndian Malay
Chinese influences ofarchitecture. And they're just
very beautiful. And I would walkup there, and there was this one
house, and there was somethingabout that house that felt like
there was a mystery in there.
And I was led by my owncuriosity to think who lived
(07:27):
there, who loved there, whoworked there. And I heard a
voice, and I heard a voice of acharacter who is a young
domestic servant demanding me totell her story.
I was really busy. I had threekids, I was finishing up my PhD,
(07:47):
and I was like, What is thisvoice? And go away. I'm kind of
busy. And that voice didn'tleave me for 15 years. Wow.
I think part of it is I'm just anatural, curious person. I want
when I go somewhere, I want toimagine what it's like. You
know, back when people mighthave originally lived in places,
(08:09):
imagine the characters and thepeople who were there. So I just
went with it. So I had to have avisceral feeling and curiosity.
And the visceral feeling was,a curiosity around a woman who
had passed away in Vancouverbefore we had left for
Singapore, the first time, in areally terrible situation, and I
(08:31):
was really curious about herbackstory. So again, it's like
it had touched the corners of mylife, and then I fictionalized
this world of a woman back inthe 50s who was a domestic
servant in a big colonial houseduring a time in Singapore in
(08:52):
history where they were comingout of the war and they're just,
I don't think there's beenenough time for the world to
heal itself, really. And yet,there was all this movement
around independence. There wasrising factions of communism,
and so that time as well, andthe real brush of history with
(09:12):
Maria Hertog and her story, Ijust cobbled it together.
Well, okay, so tell first, canyou give everyone a little
Cole's Notes version? Tell us,give us a summary of the book.
Okay,it starts with the PROLOG of my
(09:34):
main character. May may go andshe is very close to death, so
she's experienced a nearassassination, and she recalls
her first formative friendship,and that friendship was a very
unlikely one, because it waswith the young girl who was the
(09:55):
mistress of.
Of the family that she wasserving.
So she tells her childhood storythrough the detective who's
investigating. You know why, whythis near murder happened?
And through that, you hear, youlearn that
(10:15):
she was a girl like all girls,looking for love, looking for
belonging.
Also someone whohad heard about this notion of
heaven and was looking for it inplaces like the lipstick palms,
the frangipani trees, thingsthat she would eat and she then
is dragged intohaving to keep secrets for the
(10:44):
Mistress of the home,and so she's forever going to be
in servitude to thispressure, and she breaks out of
it, and she's able to find asense of freedom, but really
she's only ever serving adifferent kind of master.
(11:10):
There islove, there is deep friendship,
there is betrayal, there issadness, and I think in the end,
there is a resolution to findinga type of home that that gives
you,gives you peace. So I don't want
(11:31):
to give it all away, but it'slike you said in your questions
to me.
Publisher has has placed it inthe liter crime fiction genre.
But I didn't set up to write acrime fiction story like it's
not a procedural. It's not,you know, who done it? It's a
(11:54):
why done it?
Well, I know, yeah, I said toyou, because I was trying to
think about the genre to explainto people, and I came up with
literary, historical fiction,crime, political, romance novel,
yeah, I think it's a lot ofthings
(12:19):
tell us about the title of thebook. What does, where did that
come from? Tell people,okay, so I truly feel that art
influences art. So that was mebeing curious about the
architecture, right? That waskind of the initial pull.
I'm always open toletting art influence me, wash
(12:42):
over me, not everything is goingto impress me in in the in the
sense of, you know, Oh, doesthis mean something to me? But I
remember listening to the CBC,driving across Lions Gate Bridge
and listening to some beautifulchoral music, and I had to pull
over to the side of the road.
(13:07):
The music was so beautiful.
Well, I crossed the bridge andthen pulled over,
and it was music. And the titleof the choral music was called
until even the angels and Iwrote down, I found the piece of
music and went down the rabbithole and found out that it was
(13:27):
originally a poem by DorothyWalters, and that the composer
had put together this music. Andthe poem I posted in front of
wherever I was working, becausesomehow I there was a puzzle in
there that I was like, Okay,it's got to mean something. It's
(13:48):
got to meanthat we're always, we're always
seeking for what our heart islonging for. But for some
reason, the world keepspreventing us from getting that.
And it's almost like until eventhe angels wake up and take
notice,meaning our greater angels, or
the greater good were, we'renever going to achieve that. The
(14:10):
original working title was 24mount Rosie Road, which is the
actual address of the home. Andfor years, for 10 years, that
was the title. And then Ithought, well, that's someone's
house. Like, that would be like,Oh, whenever you the name of
your address of your condo, youknow, like, it would be sort of
strange title, although I lovedit, because it was like, who
(14:33):
was Rosie, which is anothercharacter that we get to know in
the story.
And just yesterday, craziestthing, Amy, I met a woman who
lived in 24 mount Rosie road.
She had me over for coffee. Noway, told me the whole story.
I've never been inside thehouse. And she shared shared
photographs with me. She sharedme, shared with me the the a
(14:55):
copy of the diary of.
A man who originally lived thereduring the Second World War.
Like, I've still got lots ofresearch that I could have done,
but then at some point you'relike, you need to relinquish all
of that and just follow your ownversion of what you want to
create.
(15:16):
So that's kind of the story. Soanother question I have is
there's a very strong sense ofplace in this book, The
landscaping, the flowers and thehistorical buildings you've
mentioned both already.
How do you feelthe book unfolded because you
were actually living in theplace that you were writing
(15:40):
about, as opposed to, like, ifyou'd written it from Vancouver
or somewhere else, like, how didyour surroundings serve as a
catalyst for your writing?
So here I have to do a shout outto the SFU Writers Studio. So I
started writing the first fewchapters of the book. While I
(16:01):
was taking the Writers Studiothrough SFU and my mentor, Kevin
Chong, who's just the mostamazing guy, he asked me the
same question, what was it aboutSingapore that got all of your
juices flowing so much and youwere immersed in this
(16:23):
environment that clearly wasgiving you a lot of creative
energy.
I can't explain it. I mean, Igrew up in southeast as a child,
so that could be part of it isthat you know these,
these, you register in your bodyand in your memory, and your
(16:45):
memory bank all those feelingsand smells and clues about what
life is about when you're whenwe're very young. And so maybe
they were kind of reactivatedwhen I first came back as a
young mother and and so therewas that. But then, you know, I
was back in Vancouver for the 10years writing it as well. But
(17:06):
somehow it stayed with mewherever I was. And the beauty
of technology is, you know, youcan look up
old, old photographs. You canlisten to oral histories on the
National Archives, which I did.
In fact, I had a whole chapterthat didn't end up going in
about the editor of The StraitsTimes who made the choice of the
(17:27):
photograph of the Maria heritageof Maria Hertog that triggered
the riots. And anyway, like youcan, there's so much access that
you can have. You need to beright? You need to keep that
sense ofof knowing a place with you when
you're writing.
(17:48):
But, I mean, I'm, I'm writingnow a piece
about Vancouver here, right? So,so I think it doesn't really
matter. It helps when you'rehere, but then sometimes it
doesn't. Sometimes you're like,Oh,
I'm so done with this. I want tobe in a cold environment or a,
you know, a landscape that'svery different from here.
(18:13):
Let's, let's move over and talka bit about the writing process.
AndI'm curious, especially because
you wrotea mystery of sorts. Did you know
the ending from the start, or,you know, there's different
methods, or did the charactersreveal themselves over time?
Like, what's your process?
(18:37):
I did know the ending,and that's really what helped me
get there.
The writing process for me hasto begin, like I mentioned, with
a visceral feeling, but then Ihave to be very still, very
quiet. So for a long time, Icouldn't write with any noise. I
(18:58):
can't go to coffee shops. Andstill find that hard,
because I have to, I guess I'mvery voice driven. I have to
hear the voice. So I guess I'm aPanther who has to, who has to
lead with voice. So explain thatthere's so for people who don't
know, there's Pantsers andthere's plotters, yeah,
industries, sothe Panthers fly by the seat of
(19:20):
their pants, so to speak. Andthe plotters know everything
that's going to happen, right?
There's two different Yeah,yeah. I don't think it applies
just for mystery writers. Ithink it's sort of all kinds of
writers, yeah, but yeah, Idefinitely for this. I was a
cancer and, you know, it took mea long time to finish it, but it
(19:44):
was also because life was goingon and I had lots of other
commitments, but I would alwaysfind time to list be still and
listen to that dialog. So I hadthat voice in my head, and then
I might pick up snippets of i.
Uh, not just, not just dialog,but also action and structure
(20:05):
and plot. And I just myanalogies to sewing. Are you a
sewer? Do you know anythingabout sewing? No, I'm a knitter.
I do have to do sewing in myknitting, but it's, there we go.
It's not exactly like off, but Idon't work off a machine or
anything. Yeah, I don't sew, butmy mother did. So I grew up
listening to her the sewingmachine, wearing and going into
(20:27):
her area where she'd sew. Andthere'd always be those patterns
where you'd, you know, you'dhave a collar, you'd have a
sleeve, you might be working ona pocket. And so that's my
analogy with writing like I'dget a snippet of dialog, I get a
little bit of a like characterpaint, like a painting of a
(20:50):
character in my mind, and thenslowly try and sew it together.
And so when the publisher cameto me and said, we've got 14
weeks. Can you give us the fullmanuscript. I was like,
Of course I can, but I had toliterally sew the thing together
because I had so many differentparts, and it was the most it
(21:12):
was such a gift. Because I waslike, okay, when am I ever going
to get this opportunity again?
Penguin, Random House SoutheastAsia is part of this amazing
global brandto be recognized with writing
something for them. What anincredible opportunity. So my
process,hear the voice. I'm a pantser,
(21:33):
not a plotter. I have to bestill and then the best
situation, and you hear thisoften with writers, is to have
an uninterrupted time of like three
hours. Say if you can have thatevery day, every other day, and
whether you're editing whatyou've just done, or whether
(21:56):
you're following again thatcharacter and putting obstacles
in her past every time you justgot to make it trickier and
trickier for her or him or yourcharacter to reach their goal,
because that's what's going tokeep the reader engaged.
I guess that's how it works. Andthe second project I'm working
(22:18):
on, I'm working on a bunch ofthings, but my second book, I'm
plotting it out.
It is like,completely plotted. I can't hear
a voice,right? So it's almost like I've
talked to other people aboutthis. Is it the female brain
versus the male brain? I don'tthink that's true, but is it? Is
(22:40):
it one way of thinking versusanother, and you're just forcing
your way of thinking into beinga plotter? I should be a
plotter. It's much moreorganized and all that, I can't
tell it's helping me, but I'mnot feeling the voice. So I
guess framework, framework isthere. I'm grateful for trying
(23:02):
it this way.
But the best thing for me think,because I put myself right
inside the character, I thinkthat's, that's the, my preferred
way of going. We'll see whathappens now you talk about
kind of knitting or sewing theproject together under a
(23:24):
timeline when you approached apublisher for the first time,
what stage was your manuscriptin? And I'm just kind of
comparing this because I'veworked in the magazine world or
newspapers where sometimes, asan editor, I did not, or often I
did not want a full I didn'tlike it when people pitch me a
(23:45):
full story like all written,because then you can't shape it
in any way. But I'm wondering ifthat's the same with publisher
or what. What's that like foryou?
Oh, there's so much to talkabout in that, because
I think writers, have a lot ofconflicting information out
(24:05):
there. Some places will say wewon't accept anything but a full
manuscript, and then thinks,because you think, Okay, well,
I'm almost there, or I'mI'm actually too far. I've got
too much, and I need someone tokind of help me, guide me. So in
my case, I had too much, and itwasn't knitted together. The
(24:38):
publisher here is very I mean,they're a business, so they need
to know, and especially for afirst time writer,
who the heck are you? How are wegoing to market you as you know,
a Canadian living in Singapore.
How is it that you know aboutthis place? And yet, my
(24:59):
publisher?
Her, Nora, who's just amazing,believed in the story, and that
was, that was the thing shesaid, your characters are
believable. I want to know whathappens. I'm intrigued by Amy.
And you know what has made her,you know, turned her into this,
this woman who's had all thesechallenges in her life. So I
(25:21):
submitted online the first threechapters, which is often what
you do, yeah, that's Yeah,right. And then a couple of
a couple of weeks later, theyasked me for my bio, so I shared
that. And then two months later,they they said, Okay, we want to
go forward, and we want youryour manuscript in 14 weeks. Oh,
(25:44):
my God. So I had too much. Andso essentially, I had to
reduce, and, I mean, you can useall kinds of analogies, whether
it's cooking, you know, I hadto, like,
literally, reduce the sauce downto a more. Something
that was more delicious to beable to serve.
(26:08):
So, yeah, it took but it was agreat exercise, and it was my
first time. So a lot of things,I was like, I don't know what
I'm doing. And the editorialprocess was great. So penguin
Southeast Asia. Penguin Randomhas Southeast Asia has, as you
can imagine, differentoffices across the region. So
the editorial team are in India,marketing and sales are in the
Philippines, and then thepublisher is here. And then the
(26:31):
I did two sets of edits. I don'tknow if this is interesting, but
we did structural edits first.
So Amy came into the room. Sheturned on the podcast machine.
It was, you know, a paintingbehind her. She talked about how
(26:52):
she had picked up her sons. But,like, what, where are the sons
like? And so it's like, it'salmost like moving furniture
around. Did she come in throughthe basement, and like stage,
like a stage direction exactly,and then the set interesting.
That's interesting they they didwas copy edit. So it's like the
fine detail of like, everythingwe moved. We merged some
(27:17):
chapters together, we separatedothers. We moved a little bit
around, but most of it wasmaking sure that words were
understandable in terms of, youknow, like a universal word, if
we were, if we were, if I wasusing a regionalized word.
And can you give an example ofhow, through working with the
(27:39):
publisher like you came in,obviously, with all your strong
ideas, and as the author, andgive an example, maybe of
something they had you changebecause they structurally,
because it didn't work, or maybeit'd be more marketable a
different way. Like, can yougive an example of how that kind
of the partnership?
(28:02):
Um, I really didn't have anystrong ideas. I was just so, so
grateful that it was landingsomewhere and someone was giving
it a chance.
The editorial team,so there was one copy editor,
and then, sorry, one structuraleditor and then two copy
(28:24):
editors. So they saw, so I guessthe thing was, they saw a few
different things,which was really interesting,
and mainly it was point of view,because what I've got going on
here is First Person with MayMay, when it's her telling her
(28:48):
story, and then with thedetective, it's third person. So
we really needed to make thatsomething that was not going to
be onerous for the reader. Andso they really, really helped
with that. Is I was so in it. Itwas hard for me to as much as I
could. I always read everythingout loud. So if I start
(29:12):
from yesterday's work, today,I've got to read what I wrote
yesterday out loud. I've got tohear it. Maybe it's just because
I've just someone who has tohear things I did a lot of, like
voice singing when I was a kid.
So maybe, like, I have to hearthe sound of it.
And so the point of viewswitches was where we where I
(29:34):
worked, well with the team ofeditors. But in terms of
changing a lot, I didn't haveany ish, there wasn't anything
likereally of note to talk about
where we disagreed or anythinglike that. No, it was. It was a
really good relationship.
Do you have a something you mosthope people will take away from
(29:58):
this book? Or you?
And is that not really yourbusiness or your your goal?
Like, what is there? Do you haveany objectives for the reader?
I hope that people find that thepace of it is a bit of a page
turner that people want to know.
You know what happens to themain characters, but also be
(30:22):
exposed to that, that slice ofhistory in Singapore about Maria
Hertog and all of thedifferent struggles that
Singapore was trying to builditself into a nation state. So
it was like a reallyinteresting, challenging time.
(30:45):
I hope people find that it'sintriguing. They like the plot
twist. Lots of different peopleare asked are sharing different
facets of why they enjoy it. I'mjust delighted. It's in the
hands of the readers.
Well, what are you working on?
Now, it sounds like it's adeparture. So what? What can I
(31:08):
I'm working on somethingcontemporary, and I'm exploring
identities of young women, younggirls, uh,
living and working, living inthe international private school
scene in Asia. So you've read abook called
(31:31):
River West River East, or RiverEast River West. I'm sure how
it's called.
I met the author there,and she blew me away with with
that. I think she won thewomen's Fiction Prize this last
year for it. I was like, wow,you can you can do this. You can
(31:52):
write aboutwe there are so many boarding
school stories. There are somany school stories, but I
haven't read one that's set inthis very rarefied air of the
international schools in Asiaand how girls feel about who
(32:12):
they are, what what their youknow,
what their hopes are, theirfuture looks like. So it's
that's what I'm exploring rightnow.
Um, so tell me before I can'tlet you go without asking what
(32:32):
you're reading right now,because last time you gave some
you had some really goodsuggestions. In fact, when you
came on before the book, one ofthe books we discussed, the
friend was has since been madeinto a movie with no, have you
seen it? I haven't have you. No,I can't wait with night with
Naomi Watts, so you're on thepulse of something I was a book
(32:55):
I'd never heard of. And what?
What are you reading now?
Okay, I'm reading orbital.
Oh, okay. She's holding up thecover here. That looks like a
cool cover. Looks verycelestial.
Uh, Samantha Harvey, I think shewon the Booker Prize last year
for it. And it's, it's anovella, so it's only 180
(33:19):
pages. Sounds even good bookclub pick, I often find we can
29 pages. We can't get bookclub. It's hard for all of us
often to read when I'm writingit. Yeah,
yeah. So that's what I'm readingfor my book club on Wednesday,
and I gotta quickly finish it.
It's beautiful, andshe's just so it's about
(33:44):
astronauts flying through space.
And basically, they orbit, theyorbit the Earth, I don't
know, something like six orseven times a day. And so can
you imagine, like seeing thebeauty of the world and all the
tides and the stars and thelike, the structure of like,
(34:06):
looking at the world from so faraway, but seeing it like seven
or eight times a day. Yeah,that's cool, and it's really
beautiful. What I'm not findinga action like, there's, there's
more of a descriptive,beautiful. Here we are in space
looking at the world. Isn't itbeautiful, which I love, but I'm
(34:29):
also someone who, like, needs aquick like, Hey, where are we
going? Becausethat's what I've been through
with this book that I'vewritten. I've been reading a lot
of, um,Lisa C, do you know her? Yes,
yeah. Propelling read, and it'sa lot about the history of
historical fiction based inChina, but you always learn
(34:52):
something about it, like the teagirl of hummingbird lane. You
just learned so much about thetea industry, which to.
Find really fascinating. Andalso about the Adopt div
children from, I think in the80s, there was that big push in
70s and 80s for young girls,Chinese girls, to be adopted
(35:15):
into western families. And soshe talks a lot about what that
looks like for these girls asthey grow up. So really, like,
really, quite good. But myfavorite book last year was
shark heart. Emily habeck, ohyes. Now, did I share that with
you like it did? It's somethingthat you'd never think of as
(35:38):
being something that would be sopropelling, but it's a
beautiful, beautiful love story.
So that's out there.
Those are good. Those areunique. Those aren't, you know,
the typical I like that offpiece, just choice which I like.
I think I tried the middlestuff, everyone's, you know, the
Miranda, July book, all foursand stuff like that. I really it
(36:02):
wasn't my thing, so I'm just alittle bit more on the
less less crisis driven and morestory driven.
Well, thanks so much forjoining. I know you're you're in
a coffee shop in Singapore, so Idon't think it's loud, but I
know that with things going onthere so early, good luck with
(36:26):
the rest of yourpublishing tour and all that.
And I'm excitedready I spoke. I hope to have a
small launch in Vancouver in thefall, so I'd love to see you
there. I will be there. Others.
Okay, thank you so much. Thankyou. Okay, bye.
(36:51):
Thanks so much to Suzanne forcoming on the podcast again. Her
book is called until even theangels, and it's out now, and
it's really rewarding tointerview Suzanne for a few
reasons. I've had her on before,before she took off on her
journey, and I knew she wasworking on a manuscript, but
(37:15):
I talked to her about that booka few years ago, and then she
was in Vancouver, oh, like, sixmonths ago or more, and we went
for a walk. It was kind of latesummer, and she started to talk
to me about where she was in thepublishing process. And, you
know, she was at the very end,and there was just final edits
(37:36):
being done. But we, you know, wetalked and walked for like an
hour and a half, and it wasreally fun to then hold the book
in my hands and read it afterkind of hearing, kind of first
hand. And you heard a lot ofthat today about the journey to
being a published author. Soanyway, thanks so much for
(37:57):
tuning in, And I will talk withyou soon you
Amy, hello, welcome back to the Red Fern book
review. I am your host. AmyTyler, and today I'm here with
my friend Suzanne, Scott Tomita,and she's going to talk about
her very first novel. It'scalled until even the angels,
and it's set in Singapore, whereshe currently lives with her
(00:54):
husband, and it almost defiesgenres. We're going to talk
about this during the podcast.
It's a bit of a thriller, it's abit of
historical fiction, and it'sreally it's literary. I think
you'll enjoy our discussion.
But in the meantime, I also wantto apologize for being absent
(01:19):
from the podcast for a bit, I'vebeen a bit distracted with life.
I'm going to have to admit,but I'm here today and I have a
couple of updates for you. Onething I wanted to let you know
is that I have been tapped bythe Canadian book club Awards,
which is a newit's just a few years old, and
(01:40):
it is a Canada's largestReader's Choice book club
awards. And what it is, it'svoted on by Canadian book clubs
and readers, and the idea behindit is to showcase more popular
or commercial authors that mightget missed in some of the
(02:02):
regularyou know, like a booker prize
award, a moremore literary award. So I'm
really excited about that. Andwhat I'm going to be doing is,
over the summer months, I'mgoing to be interviewing all the
winners, and I'll be doing itover three separate podcasts. So
it'll be kind of a groupsetting, which I have not really
(02:22):
done before. I've done threepeople
in a podcast before, but in someI might be doing five, including
myself. So that'll be that'll bea challenge.
And the other thing I wanted tomention is, since I haven't been
here for a little while, whatI'm currently reading, and I am
(02:43):
reading something called theLong Island compromise by taffy
brodesser ackner. I don't evenknow if I'm pronouncing her name
right, but a lot of you willknow her from
the book Fleishman is introuble, and it also was an
excellent streaming show. Can'tremember what channel was
(03:06):
streaming on HBO. I think maybeyou can, you can let me know.
But very good. And it's, I'vejust started it, but it's pretty
promising, and it's a familysaga, which I always love. And
the story is there is a wealthybusinessman named Carl Fletcher,
(03:30):
and he's kidnapped from hisdriveway, and he's attacked and
held for ransom, and then he'sreturned to his wife and kids
less than a week later, and it'show the family recovers from
that and the impact of thatmoment in time. So she's a
really good writer, and I'mexcited, so I'll report back
(03:53):
more on that. But with thatsaid, let's move over and talk
with Suzanne.
Hello, Suzanne, welcome back tothe podcast. Thanks so much,
Amy, it's so great to be backwith you.
A lot has happened. You were onmy podcast a couple of years ago
(04:14):
and you were about to embark ona journey
to Singapore, and you're therenow. And so can you fill people
in what brought you toSingapore? And what are you
doing there?
Sure, we moved back to Singaporein December of 2021,
(04:36):
and back, meaning we lived here15 years ago for a couple years.
So sometimes, when you havethese opportunities overseas and
you come back again, it's yourefer your to yourself as a
boomerang, right? So we're backagain and pulled for two
reasons, my husband's role andmy role. My contract ended.
(05:00):
In March of last year, and inthat year, I've been able to
finally bring a dream of mine tofruition, which is to publish a
book. So it's been actually anamazing experience to be here a
second time as an older personwith different life, stage
children being, you know, less,less involved in everyday
(05:25):
things. So I had a chance toreally knuckle down and finish
my manuscript and get it off toa publisher, and they accepted
it. So really excited aboutthat. So today I want to talk
about, I'm excited to talk aboutyour book, and then also as a
first time author and a friend,it's fun to I think people would
really like to hear about yourwriting process and the
(05:46):
publishing process.
I think a lot of people, I thinkthere are a number of people
that would love to write a book,but they just don't think they
can do it. And so I'd love foryou to share
a bit about your journey, butthe first thing I wanted to ask
you was in the acknowledgements.
And I love reading theacknowledgements. Sometimes I
(06:08):
read them first you talk aboutgoing on a walk with a friend in
Singapore, and you said, duringthis walk, the seeds of this
book were planted. Can you tellus more about that? Yes, yes.
Okay, so for me, when I write, Ihave to be viscerally affected
by an emotion. So whether that'sadoration, fear, you know,
(06:42):
feelings of all kind, you know,really, really visceral
feelings. I have to have thatfeeling first. So I would go and
walk around this very beautifulpart of Singapore where there
are these old colonial estates.
There are very few left now, andthere are these very unique
architectural buildings calledblack and whites, and so they
have kind of influence ofBritish colonial architecture in
(07:05):
the tropics, mixed with sort ofIndian Malay
Chinese influences ofarchitecture. And they're just
very beautiful. And I would walkup there, and there was this one
house, and there was somethingabout that house that felt like
there was a mystery in there.
And I was led by my owncuriosity to think who lived
(07:27):
there, who loved there, whoworked there. And I heard a
voice, and I heard a voice of acharacter who is a young
domestic servant demanding me totell her story.
I was really busy. I had threekids, I was finishing up my PhD,
(07:47):
and I was like, What is thisvoice? And go away. I'm kind of
busy. And that voice didn'tleave me for 15 years. Wow.
I think part of it is I'm just anatural, curious person. I want
when I go somewhere, I want toimagine what it's like. You
know, back when people mighthave originally lived in places,
(08:09):
imagine the characters and thepeople who were there. So I just
went with it. So I had to have avisceral feeling and curiosity.
And the visceral feeling was,a curiosity around a woman who
had passed away in Vancouverbefore we had left for
Singapore, the first time, in areally terrible situation, and I
(08:31):
was really curious about herbackstory. So again, it's like
it had touched the corners of mylife, and then I fictionalized
this world of a woman back inthe 50s who was a domestic
servant in a big colonial houseduring a time in Singapore in
(08:52):
history where they were comingout of the war and they're just,
I don't think there's beenenough time for the world to
heal itself, really. And yet,there was all this movement
around independence. There wasrising factions of communism,
and so that time as well, andthe real brush of history with
(09:12):
Maria Hertog and her story, Ijust cobbled it together.
Well, okay, so tell first, canyou give everyone a little
Cole's Notes version? Tell us,give us a summary of the book.
Okay,it starts with the PROLOG of my
(09:34):
main character. May may go andshe is very close to death, so
she's experienced a nearassassination, and she recalls
her first formative friendship,and that friendship was a very
unlikely one, because it waswith the young girl who was the
(09:55):
mistress of.
Of the family that she wasserving.
So she tells her childhood storythrough the detective who's
investigating. You know why, whythis near murder happened?
And through that, you hear, youlearn that
(10:15):
she was a girl like all girls,looking for love, looking for
belonging.
Also someone whohad heard about this notion of
heaven and was looking for it inplaces like the lipstick palms,
the frangipani trees, thingsthat she would eat and she then
is dragged intohaving to keep secrets for the
(10:44):
Mistress of the home,and so she's forever going to be
in servitude to thispressure, and she breaks out of
it, and she's able to find asense of freedom, but really
she's only ever serving adifferent kind of master.
(11:10):
There islove, there is deep friendship,
there is betrayal, there issadness, and I think in the end,
there is a resolution to findinga type of home that that gives
you,gives you peace. So I don't want
(11:31):
to give it all away, but it'slike you said in your questions
to me.
Publisher has has placed it inthe liter crime fiction genre.
But I didn't set up to write acrime fiction story like it's
not a procedural. It's not,you know, who done it? It's a
(11:54):
why done it?
Well, I know, yeah, I said toyou, because I was trying to
think about the genre to explainto people, and I came up with
literary, historical fiction,crime, political, romance novel,
yeah, I think it's a lot ofthings
(12:19):
tell us about the title of thebook. What does, where did that
come from? Tell people,okay, so I truly feel that art
influences art. So that was mebeing curious about the
architecture, right? That waskind of the initial pull.
I'm always open toletting art influence me, wash
(12:42):
over me, not everything is goingto impress me in in the in the
sense of, you know, Oh, doesthis mean something to me? But I
remember listening to the CBC,driving across Lions Gate Bridge
and listening to some beautifulchoral music, and I had to pull
over to the side of the road.
(13:07):
The music was so beautiful.
Well, I crossed the bridge andthen pulled over,
and it was music. And the titleof the choral music was called
until even the angels and Iwrote down, I found the piece of
music and went down the rabbithole and found out that it was
(13:27):
originally a poem by DorothyWalters, and that the composer
had put together this music. Andthe poem I posted in front of
wherever I was working, becausesomehow I there was a puzzle in
there that I was like, Okay,it's got to mean something. It's
(13:48):
got to meanthat we're always, we're always
seeking for what our heart islonging for. But for some
reason, the world keepspreventing us from getting that.
And it's almost like until eventhe angels wake up and take
notice,meaning our greater angels, or
the greater good were, we'renever going to achieve that. The
(14:10):
original working title was 24mount Rosie Road, which is the
actual address of the home. Andfor years, for 10 years, that
was the title. And then Ithought, well, that's someone's
house. Like, that would be like,Oh, whenever you the name of
your address of your condo, youknow, like, it would be sort of
strange title, although I lovedit, because it was like, who
(14:33):
was Rosie, which is anothercharacter that we get to know in
the story.
And just yesterday, craziestthing, Amy, I met a woman who
lived in 24 mount Rosie road.
She had me over for coffee. Noway, told me the whole story.
I've never been inside thehouse. And she shared shared
photographs with me. She sharedme, shared with me the the a
(14:55):
copy of the diary of.
A man who originally lived thereduring the Second World War.
Like, I've still got lots ofresearch that I could have done,
but then at some point you'relike, you need to relinquish all
of that and just follow your ownversion of what you want to
create.
(15:16):
So that's kind of the story. Soanother question I have is
there's a very strong sense ofplace in this book, The
landscaping, the flowers and thehistorical buildings you've
mentioned both already.
How do you feelthe book unfolded because you
were actually living in theplace that you were writing
(15:40):
about, as opposed to, like, ifyou'd written it from Vancouver
or somewhere else, like, how didyour surroundings serve as a
catalyst for your writing?
So here I have to do a shout outto the SFU Writers Studio. So I
started writing the first fewchapters of the book. While I
(16:01):
was taking the Writers Studiothrough SFU and my mentor, Kevin
Chong, who's just the mostamazing guy, he asked me the
same question, what was it aboutSingapore that got all of your
juices flowing so much and youwere immersed in this
(16:23):
environment that clearly wasgiving you a lot of creative
energy.
I can't explain it. I mean, Igrew up in southeast as a child,
so that could be part of it isthat you know these,
these, you register in your bodyand in your memory, and your
(16:45):
memory bank all those feelingsand smells and clues about what
life is about when you're whenwe're very young. And so maybe
they were kind of reactivatedwhen I first came back as a
young mother and and so therewas that. But then, you know, I
was back in Vancouver for the 10years writing it as well. But
(17:06):
somehow it stayed with mewherever I was. And the beauty
of technology is, you know, youcan look up
old, old photographs. You canlisten to oral histories on the
National Archives, which I did.
In fact, I had a whole chapterthat didn't end up going in
about the editor of The StraitsTimes who made the choice of the
(17:27):
photograph of the Maria heritageof Maria Hertog that triggered
the riots. And anyway, like youcan, there's so much access that
you can have. You need to beright? You need to keep that
sense ofof knowing a place with you when
you're writing.
(17:48):
But, I mean, I'm, I'm writingnow a piece
about Vancouver here, right? So,so I think it doesn't really
matter. It helps when you'rehere, but then sometimes it
doesn't. Sometimes you're like,Oh,
I'm so done with this. I want tobe in a cold environment or a,
you know, a landscape that'svery different from here.
(18:13):
Let's, let's move over and talka bit about the writing process.
AndI'm curious, especially because
you wrotea mystery of sorts. Did you know
the ending from the start, or,you know, there's different
methods, or did the charactersreveal themselves over time?
Like, what's your process?
(18:37):
I did know the ending,and that's really what helped me
get there.
The writing process for me hasto begin, like I mentioned, with
a visceral feeling, but then Ihave to be very still, very
quiet. So for a long time, Icouldn't write with any noise. I
(18:58):
can't go to coffee shops. Andstill find that hard,
because I have to, I guess I'mvery voice driven. I have to
hear the voice. So I guess I'm aPanther who has to, who has to
lead with voice. So explain thatthere's so for people who don't
know, there's Pantsers andthere's plotters, yeah,
industries, sothe Panthers fly by the seat of
(19:20):
their pants, so to speak. Andthe plotters know everything
that's going to happen, right?
There's two different Yeah,yeah. I don't think it applies
just for mystery writers. Ithink it's sort of all kinds of
writers, yeah, but yeah, Idefinitely for this. I was a
cancer and, you know, it took mea long time to finish it, but it
(19:44):
was also because life was goingon and I had lots of other
commitments, but I would alwaysfind time to list be still and
listen to that dialog. So I hadthat voice in my head, and then
I might pick up snippets of i.
Uh, not just, not just dialog,but also action and structure
(20:05):
and plot. And I just myanalogies to sewing. Are you a
sewer? Do you know anythingabout sewing? No, I'm a knitter.
I do have to do sewing in myknitting, but it's, there we go.
It's not exactly like off, but Idon't work off a machine or
anything. Yeah, I don't sew, butmy mother did. So I grew up
listening to her the sewingmachine, wearing and going into
(20:27):
her area where she'd sew. Andthere'd always be those patterns
where you'd, you know, you'dhave a collar, you'd have a
sleeve, you might be working ona pocket. And so that's my
analogy with writing like I'dget a snippet of dialog, I get a
little bit of a like characterpaint, like a painting of a
(20:50):
character in my mind, and thenslowly try and sew it together.
And so when the publisher cameto me and said, we've got 14
weeks. Can you give us the fullmanuscript. I was like,
Of course I can, but I had toliterally sew the thing together
because I had so many differentparts, and it was the most it
(21:12):
was such a gift. Because I waslike, okay, when am I ever going
to get this opportunity again?
Penguin, Random House SoutheastAsia is part of this amazing
global brandto be recognized with writing
something for them. What anincredible opportunity. So my
process,hear the voice. I'm a pantser,
(21:33):
not a plotter. I have to bestill and then the best
situation, and you hear thisoften with writers, is to have
an uninterrupted time of like three
hours. Say if you can have thatevery day, every other day, and
whether you're editing whatyou've just done, or whether
(21:56):
you're following again thatcharacter and putting obstacles
in her past every time you justgot to make it trickier and
trickier for her or him or yourcharacter to reach their goal,
because that's what's going tokeep the reader engaged.
I guess that's how it works. Andthe second project I'm working
(22:18):
on, I'm working on a bunch ofthings, but my second book, I'm
plotting it out.
It is like,completely plotted. I can't hear
a voice,right? So it's almost like I've
talked to other people aboutthis. Is it the female brain
versus the male brain? I don'tthink that's true, but is it? Is
(22:40):
it one way of thinking versusanother, and you're just forcing
your way of thinking into beinga plotter? I should be a
plotter. It's much moreorganized and all that, I can't
tell it's helping me, but I'mnot feeling the voice. So I
guess framework, framework isthere. I'm grateful for trying
(23:02):
it this way.
But the best thing for me think,because I put myself right
inside the character, I thinkthat's, that's the, my preferred
way of going. We'll see whathappens now you talk about
kind of knitting or sewing theproject together under a
(23:24):
timeline when you approached apublisher for the first time,
what stage was your manuscriptin? And I'm just kind of
comparing this because I'veworked in the magazine world or
newspapers where sometimes, asan editor, I did not, or often I
did not want a full I didn'tlike it when people pitch me a
(23:45):
full story like all written,because then you can't shape it
in any way. But I'm wondering ifthat's the same with publisher
or what. What's that like foryou?
Oh, there's so much to talkabout in that, because
I think writers, have a lot ofconflicting information out
(24:05):
there. Some places will say wewon't accept anything but a full
manuscript, and then thinks,because you think, Okay, well,
I'm almost there, or I'mI'm actually too far. I've got
too much, and I need someone tokind of help me, guide me. So in
my case, I had too much, and itwasn't knitted together. The
(24:38):
publisher here is very I mean,they're a business, so they need
to know, and especially for afirst time writer,
who the heck are you? How are wegoing to market you as you know,
a Canadian living in Singapore.
How is it that you know aboutthis place? And yet, my
(24:59):
publisher?
Her, Nora, who's just amazing,believed in the story, and that
was, that was the thing shesaid, your characters are
believable. I want to know whathappens. I'm intrigued by Amy.
And you know what has made her,you know, turned her into this,
this woman who's had all thesechallenges in her life. So I
(25:21):
submitted online the first threechapters, which is often what
you do, yeah, that's Yeah,right. And then a couple of
a couple of weeks later, theyasked me for my bio, so I shared
that. And then two months later,they they said, Okay, we want to
go forward, and we want youryour manuscript in 14 weeks. Oh,
(25:44):
my God. So I had too much. Andso essentially, I had to
reduce, and, I mean, you can useall kinds of analogies, whether
it's cooking, you know, I hadto, like,
literally, reduce the sauce downto a more. Something
that was more delicious to beable to serve.
(26:08):
So, yeah, it took but it was agreat exercise, and it was my
first time. So a lot of things,I was like, I don't know what
I'm doing. And the editorialprocess was great. So penguin
Southeast Asia. Penguin Randomhas Southeast Asia has, as you
can imagine, differentoffices across the region. So
the editorial team are in India,marketing and sales are in the
Philippines, and then thepublisher is here. And then the
(26:31):
I did two sets of edits. I don'tknow if this is interesting, but
we did structural edits first.
So Amy came into the room. Sheturned on the podcast machine.
It was, you know, a paintingbehind her. She talked about how
(26:52):
she had picked up her sons. But,like, what, where are the sons
like? And so it's like, it'salmost like moving furniture
around. Did she come in throughthe basement, and like stage,
like a stage direction exactly,and then the set interesting.
That's interesting they they didwas copy edit. So it's like the
fine detail of like, everythingwe moved. We merged some
(27:17):
chapters together, we separatedothers. We moved a little bit
around, but most of it wasmaking sure that words were
understandable in terms of, youknow, like a universal word, if
we were, if we were, if I wasusing a regionalized word.
And can you give an example ofhow, through working with the
(27:39):
publisher like you came in,obviously, with all your strong
ideas, and as the author, andgive an example, maybe of
something they had you changebecause they structurally,
because it didn't work, or maybeit'd be more marketable a
different way. Like, can yougive an example of how that kind
of the partnership?
(28:02):
Um, I really didn't have anystrong ideas. I was just so, so
grateful that it was landingsomewhere and someone was giving
it a chance.
The editorial team,so there was one copy editor,
and then, sorry, one structuraleditor and then two copy
(28:24):
editors. So they saw, so I guessthe thing was, they saw a few
different things,which was really interesting,
and mainly it was point of view,because what I've got going on
here is First Person with MayMay, when it's her telling her
(28:48):
story, and then with thedetective, it's third person. So
we really needed to make thatsomething that was not going to
be onerous for the reader. Andso they really, really helped
with that. Is I was so in it. Itwas hard for me to as much as I
could. I always read everythingout loud. So if I start
(29:12):
from yesterday's work, today,I've got to read what I wrote
yesterday out loud. I've got tohear it. Maybe it's just because
I've just someone who has tohear things I did a lot of, like
voice singing when I was a kid.
So maybe, like, I have to hearthe sound of it.
And so the point of viewswitches was where we where I
(29:34):
worked, well with the team ofeditors. But in terms of
changing a lot, I didn't haveany ish, there wasn't anything
likereally of note to talk about
where we disagreed or anythinglike that. No, it was. It was a
really good relationship.
Do you have a something you mosthope people will take away from
(29:58):
this book? Or you?
And is that not really yourbusiness or your your goal?
Like, what is there? Do you haveany objectives for the reader?
I hope that people find that thepace of it is a bit of a page
turner that people want to know.
You know what happens to themain characters, but also be
(30:22):
exposed to that, that slice ofhistory in Singapore about Maria
Hertog and all of thedifferent struggles that
Singapore was trying to builditself into a nation state. So
it was like a reallyinteresting, challenging time.
(30:45):
I hope people find that it'sintriguing. They like the plot
twist. Lots of different peopleare asked are sharing different
facets of why they enjoy it. I'mjust delighted. It's in the
hands of the readers.
Well, what are you working on?
Now, it sounds like it's adeparture. So what? What can I
(31:08):
I'm working on somethingcontemporary, and I'm exploring
identities of young women, younggirls, uh,
living and working, living inthe international private school
scene in Asia. So you've read abook called
(31:31):
River West River East, or RiverEast River West. I'm sure how
it's called.
I met the author there,and she blew me away with with
that. I think she won thewomen's Fiction Prize this last
year for it. I was like, wow,you can you can do this. You can
(31:52):
write aboutwe there are so many boarding
school stories. There are somany school stories, but I
haven't read one that's set inthis very rarefied air of the
international schools in Asiaand how girls feel about who
(32:12):
they are, what what their youknow,
what their hopes are, theirfuture looks like. So it's
that's what I'm exploring rightnow.
Um, so tell me before I can'tlet you go without asking what
(32:32):
you're reading right now,because last time you gave some
you had some really goodsuggestions. In fact, when you
came on before the book, one ofthe books we discussed, the
friend was has since been madeinto a movie with no, have you
seen it? I haven't have you. No,I can't wait with night with
Naomi Watts, so you're on thepulse of something I was a book
(32:55):
I'd never heard of. And what?
What are you reading now?
Okay, I'm reading orbital.
Oh, okay. She's holding up thecover here. That looks like a
cool cover. Looks verycelestial.
Uh, Samantha Harvey, I think shewon the Booker Prize last year
for it. And it's, it's anovella, so it's only 180
(33:19):
pages. Sounds even good bookclub pick, I often find we can
29 pages. We can't get bookclub. It's hard for all of us
often to read when I'm writingit. Yeah,
yeah. So that's what I'm readingfor my book club on Wednesday,
and I gotta quickly finish it.
It's beautiful, andshe's just so it's about
(33:44):
astronauts flying through space.
And basically, they orbit, theyorbit the Earth, I don't
know, something like six orseven times a day. And so can
you imagine, like seeing thebeauty of the world and all the
tides and the stars and thelike, the structure of like,
(34:06):
looking at the world from so faraway, but seeing it like seven
or eight times a day. Yeah,that's cool, and it's really
beautiful. What I'm not findinga action like, there's, there's
more of a descriptive,beautiful. Here we are in space
looking at the world. Isn't itbeautiful, which I love, but I'm
(34:29):
also someone who, like, needs aquick like, Hey, where are we
going? Becausethat's what I've been through
with this book that I'vewritten. I've been reading a lot
of, um,Lisa C, do you know her? Yes,
yeah. Propelling read, and it'sa lot about the history of
historical fiction based inChina, but you always learn
(34:52):
something about it, like the teagirl of hummingbird lane. You
just learned so much about thetea industry, which to.
Find really fascinating. Andalso about the Adopt div
children from, I think in the80s, there was that big push in
70s and 80s for young girls,Chinese girls, to be adopted
(35:15):
into western families. And soshe talks a lot about what that
looks like for these girls asthey grow up. So really, like,
really, quite good. But myfavorite book last year was
shark heart. Emily habeck, ohyes. Now, did I share that with
you like it did? It's somethingthat you'd never think of as
(35:38):
being something that would be sopropelling, but it's a
beautiful, beautiful love story.
So that's out there.
Those are good. Those areunique. Those aren't, you know,
the typical I like that offpiece, just choice which I like.
I think I tried the middlestuff, everyone's, you know, the
Miranda, July book, all foursand stuff like that. I really it
(36:02):
wasn't my thing, so I'm just alittle bit more on the
less less crisis driven and morestory driven.
Well, thanks so much forjoining. I know you're you're in
a coffee shop in Singapore, so Idon't think it's loud, but I
know that with things going onthere so early, good luck with
(36:26):
the rest of yourpublishing tour and all that.
And I'm excitedready I spoke. I hope to have a
small launch in Vancouver in thefall, so I'd love to see you
there. I will be there. Others.
Okay, thank you so much. Thankyou. Okay, bye.
(36:51):
Thanks so much to Suzanne forcoming on the podcast again. Her
book is called until even theangels, and it's out now, and
it's really rewarding tointerview Suzanne for a few
reasons. I've had her on before,before she took off on her
journey, and I knew she wasworking on a manuscript, but
(37:15):
I talked to her about that booka few years ago, and then she
was in Vancouver, oh, like, sixmonths ago or more, and we went
for a walk. It was kind of latesummer, and she started to talk
to me about where she was in thepublishing process. And, you
know, she was at the very end,and there was just final edits
(37:36):
being done. But we, you know, wetalked and walked for like an
hour and a half, and it wasreally fun to then hold the book
in my hands and read it afterkind of hearing, kind of first
hand. And you heard a lot ofthat today about the journey to
being a published author. Soanyway, thanks so much for
(37:57):
tuning in, And I will talk withyou soon you
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