Kelly, Susan S. 1954-

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KELLY, Susan S. 1954-

PERSONAL: Born July 8, 1954, in Greensboro, NC; daughter of Fred (in textiles) and Aurelia (a homemaker; maiden name, Fulton) Stafford; married Richard Sterling Kelly III (in real estate), January 14, 1978; children: Richard Sterling, Fred Stafford, Susan Preston. Ethnicity: "Caucasian." Education: University of North Carolina—Chapel Hill, B.A., 1976; Warren Wilson College, M.F.A., 1999. Politics: Republican. Religion: Episcopalian.

ADDRESSES: Home and offıce—522 Woodland Dr., Greensboro, NC 27408. Agent—Jennie Dunham, Dunham Literary, 156 Fifth Ave., Suite 625, New York, NY 10010. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Writer.

AWARDS, HONORS: Carolina Novel Award, Banks Channel Books, 1996, for How Close We Come.

WRITINGS:

How Close We Come (novel), Warner Books (New York, NY), 1997.

Even Now (novel), Warner Books (New York, NY), 2001.

WORK IN PROGRESS: Five contemporary novels, What You Need to Know, By Accident, Phantom Creek, The Last of Something, and Tell Them Who You Are; a comic novel.

SIDELIGHTS: Susan S. Kelly told CA: "It seems to me that anyone who reads voraciously, who wrote poetry and stories as a child, must eventually long to write as an adult. That's my story. Writing entertains me. I'm interested in the relationships and occurrences and details and backgrounds and misdeeds and accidents and thorny situations in the everyday lives of regular people. I'm interested in what they're prey to, what they hope for, what they do in the name of the various kinds of love.

"I'm influenced by a wide range of fiction, from the retrospective voice in To Kill a Mockingbird or the idiosyncratic southern voice in Lewis Nordan's works, to the marital depictions and dissections of John Updike, to the familial intricacies portrayed by Joanna Trollope, to name just a few.

"I sometimes refer to my writing process as 'collating' rather than writing. I keep innumerable notes, observations, memories, and descriptions in files titled children, school, characters, scenes, age, religion, family, marriage, divorce, et cetera. When I have an idea for a book I begin combing the one-liners and paragraphs and trigger words in these files, looking for images, situations, details, even dialogue snippets, that pertain to my idea and theme. Eventually they cohere, and I begin weaving them into a full novel.

"Basically I write what I know: about families, children, memory, marriage, what shapes us. I am fascinated by the familiar, addicted to the ordinary.

"Recently I've begun work on a comic novel, as an experiment. My first published novel was an experiment (a challenge to myself to write a short, episodic book dependent on dialogue). I'm finding it more difficult than previous writing, but I'm spending a lot less time writhing in my chair in sympathetic pain, guilt, confusion, despair, loss, or passion with characters in some of my earlier books. Sooner or later I'll return to my first love—domestic realism."