Member Spotlight: Susan (SueBird) Sparrow

Why is writing important to you and why do you think it’s an important medium for the world? I started writing as a kind of a therapy after I was diagnosed with a rare genetic disorder that causes vision loss. Talk about making lemonade out of lemons – I discovered that as my vision deteriorated, my imagination blossomed! These days I can’t write all the stories in my head fast enough. I’ve always thought writing is the most important medium of expression because of the perspective on the rest of the world one can gain just from opening a book and reading the ideas and information contained within. It still seems like magic to me!

What are your tried and tested remedies to cure writer’s block? I’m always working on a few different things at the same time, so when I get stuck on one, I simply move to another. I’ll work on that one for a while, then jump back to the “stuck” one. It seems to work for me.

What is your favorite time to write? Definitely in the morning before I’m fully awake and the parameters of my daily life have been reestablished.

What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever received and would like to impart to other writers? Write unabashedly, as if no one you know will ever read it.

What excites you most about being a writer in today’s age? The ease with which we can make all types of connections – with arcane bits of research data, with fellow authors, with publishers and agents – the list is unarguably endless. I also love that, besides everything I can imagine, I have the freedom to use everything that’s come before now in my writing. We do live in interesting times.

SueBird Sparrow’s The Devil Drinks Monsoons is out now with Bayou Wolf Press.