of readers and writers, that I strongly recommend
all might consider joining
Today I am participating in their
"SPOTLIGHT" Author Blog Tour!!
Spotlighting author
Suzanne Burke
Australian author of
Acts of Betrayal
and many other titles
Suzanne is going to share some intimate insight into herself and her writing.
SPOTLIGHT
BLOG #1
Hi, and
thank you so much for joining me here today on the first stop of my Rave
Reviews Book Club 'Spotlight Author Tour'. Please join me in thanking my
awesome host.
Today I want
to share with you a part of the reason I write.
The
Hopes and Dreams scattered amongst the Cracks and Crevices that are me.
It's a
strange title for a post, isn't it? But that is what I'm compiled of. A mass of
hopes and barely explored dreams, all vying for attention and hoping like hell
not to slip through one of those cracks, or become wedged and immovable from
the depth of the crevices.
At times a
seething snakelike coil of unexpressed frustration and anger surfaces to be
plunged back firmly beneath the veneer of acceptability we all need to possess
in order to survive.
Can we
survive without compromise? Oh, yes, we can survive,
but in refusing to compromise, we can restrict our ability to truly live the time that fate grants us. I
have needed to compromise my hopes by reducing my expectations, until, over
time; the hopes have resurfaced, but in modified form. Because I had made them
more attainable, and by extension less likely to show me the bitter
disappointment of my failure to live up to my own versions of, Can do, Must do,
Will do, and Try but can't do.
BUT NOT IN MY WRITING.
Here I can
be free of all the bondages of remembered pain and disillusionment, or the
freedom-hampering legacy of disability. I let them escape into the safety of a
character yet to be written.
Ah, yes ...
my creations; I can admonish and astonish them, move them, and flay them raw
with emotion.
I can let
them retaliate, fully aware, prepared for, and willing to accept, any consequence that their retaliation
may bring in its' wake.
I can permit
them to feel the shattering soul changing taste of new love; I give them over
freely to explore and bathe in its wonder, and to lay stunned and barely
breathing, whilst awaiting its slowly evolving demise.
They can
laugh too loud and too long, or in some cases not at all.
They can
find their own sad movie to cry over and recall with a smile, and a shake of
their head. They take on with gusto the life I have granted them, they live it
and see it, taste it and smell it, and they die, or they grow.
They have
faults and fantasies, often combined. Good and bad coexist hand in hand within
the body I have borrowed to house them. They can be unconventional, patriotic
and proud, losers and winners, or simply disappear without color into the
crowd. They are resourceful and brave, or broken and bent, damaged or soulless
... or simply exhausted and spent.
I have
granted them existence so I can survive.
By doing so,
I have resuscitated my hope, and given form to some of my dreams.
It's all a
question of balance between the reality of the one and the unfettered joy of
the other.
How glad I
am that I do this crazy, exhilarating, terrifyingly glorious thing. This
freeing, dominating, amazing thing, we call writing.
Thank you
for being here to undertake a part of this journey with me.
Suzanne Burke lives, laughs, writes and enjoys her life in
the beautiful harbor-side city of Sydney Australia.
She is a mother and grandmother, now in her sixties, and
considers every moment of every day as a precious treasure to be valued and
explored, and not simply endured.
Her non-fiction works are written under the pen-name of
Stacey Danson.
They are both challenging and thought provoking works
covering the earliest years of her life, the topic of child abuse and the PTSD
that accompanied her into her later years
are not, by virtue of their subject matter an easy or comfortable read,
yet so many have read them. She will be forever grateful that her readers have
assisted in raising the awareness into this painful and enduring evil.
An awareness that is vital in any efforts to stem this tide
of inhuman acts perpetrated on the most innocent of us all … the children.
She escapes into the world of fiction in her thriller and
suspense novels, continually exploring other genres such as paranormal and
dystopian, and always delighting in the magical escapism offered in the written
word.
She is an avid reader and reviewer
who enjoys sharing the works she explores.
Follow Suzanne online:
Twitter handle - @pursoot
Website - https://sooozburkeauthor.wordpress.com/
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
