Suzy Krause

Time Traveling with Neuroscience!

noreply@blogger.com (Suzy Krause) — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 21:03:00 +0000

I've been having a very 90s/early 00s-coded time over here, and this makes me happy—because has anyone else noticed how much the 2020s have just kind of sucked so much?

It all started with a song on the radio that I hadn't heard since maybe 2004, which sent me down a musical rabbit hole featuring The Beta Band and Remy Zero and South. Later that day I saw that Wheatus was coming to town and I thought, there really is nothing I'd rather do than sing very loudly to Teenage Dirtbag along with a crowd of my peers and then pretend to act interested in the rest of the set along with them too, so I bought myself a ticket.

I often think about the neuroscience behind the law of attraction (which is basically that you have a network of neurons in your brainstem that filters the data coming at you and determines what enters your conscious awareness—I've read that that your brain receives millions of bits of data PER SECOND and of that, it processes about 50 (which seems like such a minuscule amount as to beg the question: are any of us really experiencing reality at all?)—and that this filter generally favours the information that aligns with your goals and beliefs and emotional state, and THEREFORE, your goals and beliefs and emotional state greatly shape the reality that you experience. SO, for example, if you're a person who believes you will someday be a famous singer, your brain is going to favour the bits of data that align with that, and you're going to be more likely to see opportunities to sing in public, to enter competitions, to be aware of all the different avenues for that dream to come to fruition, and to run full steam ahead down those pathways without self-selecting out of them. It's not so much that you can want a dream so much that it comes true, but...it kind of is? Just less in a mystical way and more in a psychological way.

So anyway, I think this is why, when I began immersing myself in 90s music (as well as dressing like Daphne Moon as much as possible and watching all the 90s-era films I could get my hands on) my brainstem filter began to send me back in time. (I had to pause while typing this to sing along very loudly to Don't Look Back in Anger. I'm back now!) I have, for example, noticed that more and more 90s bands are on tour through Regina all of a sudden. Or this: on February 20, I had an essay published in the Globe and Mail, and an excerpt of I Think We've Been Here Before appeared in the Village Voice on the same day. Isn't that such a 90s thing? Print media? Like, first of all, even being able to walk to the grocery store and buy a physical newspaper, then walk over to a friendly neighborhood coffee shop to sit and read it while System of a Down plays over the store speakers, but secondly, finding my words in those newspapers. It could be that I'm overly immersed in the literary world, where we are constantly talking about the loss of available spots in print media for authors to put their words, but that day felt so delightfully old school. I felt like Carrie Bradshaw, minus the heels (I break toes whenever I try to wear heels).

Then last week, I was invited onto a community radio show called the Queen City Improvement Bureau—exciting in and of itself because I'm a big fan of the QCIB (they accompanied me on many walks around the neighborhood in the early days of the pandemic)—but exciting in a specifically 90s way because we recorded in a radio station with a wall full of physical CDs behind me and gig posters everywhere and it just felt, for that hour, as I sat in my chair with that enormous mic in my face, like I was in a 90s sitcom about a funny little group of ragtag radio people. It did not have 2020s podcast vibes, you know? It was live to air, and the humor was dry and Canadian, and we talked about movies that the hosts saw live in theaters in the 90s (and also things like soda fountains and death).

On the same day, I did a TV interview with CTV, a live on location thing at my local grocery store. There maybe wasn't anything overly 90s about that (except maybe the fact that it was TV as opposed to social media?), but we were talking about my Globe and Mail column so the theme was basically just people being nice to each other, which doesn't feel overly 2020s.

Anyway. Maybe this whole post is just book marketing advice? If you time travel to the 90s using *~*nEuRoSciEnCe*~*, it is easier to do publicity. Thank you for your time.

THE ABCs of 2025

noreply@blogger.com (Suzy Krause) — Mon, 22 Dec 2025 20:51:00 +0000

Oh look, another year.

Decembers are coming and going like a kid on an old-school metal merry-go-round; if they keep speeding up like this, I'm going to stop being able to tell how many of them have passed. I barely have time to acknowledge them before they've gone all the way around and come back again. I feel existentially dizzy.

Maybe this annual ABCs Of exercise is becoming more of a grounding thing? A way to notice which things happened in which space in time so that when I'm fifty and it's all even more of a blur than it is now, I'll be able to know for certain where everything was.

So, without further ado:

A - Author friends came to visit! I always say that the best part of being an author and having author friends is that sometimes organizations just fly said author friends in so you can hang out with them (and so they can do events or whatever). In March, the Sask Writers' Guild flew Marissa Stapley in for Talking Fresh and I got to show her around Regina (Lake Fries at the Bar Willow, live music at The Cure, gift shop shopping at the Mackenzie Art Gallery, etc). In July, The Festival of Words flew Jennifer Whiteford in, so we got to hang out in Moose Jaw (I tried to take her for a walk along the river but I accidentally took her to an abandoned train yard instead. She said she still had fun) (We also spent a lot of time at the spa and I think she maybe liked that better than the abandoned train yard). And Adelle Purdham stopped by in April on her book tour; we went for tacos and then I interviewed her at the Everyday Kitchen, which was very fun.

B - Books (shocker). I read maybe 50 books this year? I don't think this is very many, compared to some people. I have seasons where I'll gulp down four books in a week, and then seasons where it takes me literally three months to finish one novel. Some of them were ARCs for upcoming releases, some of them were audiobooks (these were mostly thrillers), some of them were new releases, and some of them were books that have been on my shelf for a while.

C - College! I was invited to speak at a college creative writing class. It was a really cool little group of folks and we had such a blast (or at least, I did for sure and they definitely appeared to, but maybe they were in acting classes as well?). I hope they all write stuff that I get to read someday.

D - Denver! I got a grant from Sk Arts to fly to Denver, Colorado to do a couple of book events (Reading Den and an in-conversation at the Center for the Arts in Evergreen). Both of these were so much fun; I met a billion lovely people, but most importantly I finally got to meet some previously-only-online friends: Sarah Ann Noel, a friend I speak with literally every single day but had never met in person (we wrote a little article about our meeting and it was published on Write or Die), Melissa Payne, a fellow Lake Union author, and Eunice Brownlee, a friend from Instagram via Sarah (I think? Right, Eunice?). A very special, slightly surreal week!

E - Extra. In the summer, a friend of mine (Tim Lenko! Hi, Tim!) texted to ask if I would like to be an extra in a film his friend was directing. We shot our scenes at a funeral home, which felt kind of irreverent and hilarious. I wore a dress from my mom's closet from the 70s and thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

F - Film Screening. Tim—the same Tim as the one from the letter E—is a filmmaker too, and he screened his award-winning film in Moose Jaw in November. He invited me to come to the premier and be part of an artists' panel, along with another filmmaker and a visual artist. It was a really fun conversation and all of these interactions with Film People are really making me want to be Film People too.

G - Goodreads Choice Awards. I had the shock of my life when I saw that I Think We've Been Here Before was nominated for a Goodreads Choice Award, and then an even bigger shock when it went to the finals. I was relieved of the heavy burden of imposter syndrome for three glorious weeks. What a vacation. (It's back now.)

H - Happy to finally receive the Russian copies of Sorry I Missed You, which was published over there a few years ago.

I - I dyed [some of] my hair purple on a whim. I was dying Scarlett's, and she said, "YOU DO IT TOO, MOM" and it was one of those reflex-without-thought moments. I just...reached up and ran the glove with the dye on it through the ends of my hair, as if I were scratching an itch. Scarlett was delighted, and that was that. Her hair dye faded within a month. My hair is very blonde, so it sucked in that color, and it hasn't completely gone away even now. Glad to see my impulse control is still so lacking at 38.

J - Just spent a lot of hours in my living room this year listening to Sully play the guitar and requesting that he play my favorite songs.

K - Knorks. I went out for breakfast with Sarah one day, and there was this utensil that was almost like a fork, but not quite, on the table. She picked it up and said, "Hey, so here's something cool. My friend's brother invented this. It's called a Knork. It's like a fork but also a knife." And I used that Knork to eat my bennie, and then when I got home I ordered a set of four Knorks for my family because I liked it so much.

L - Live Music Challenge. At the beginning of the year, my friend Ashley and I promised each other that we would experience live music at least once per month for the entire year. And we ALMOST did it. In January, we went to an acoustic show at The Mercury. February was open mic night at The Cure. March: Ritchot Textiles, The Moonrunners, and Black Thunder in the basement of The Artesian (maybe my favorite show of the year?). April: Robyn's choir performed at the Knox Met. May: Tiny played at my reading at The Artesian AND I got to see Sully's band perform live for the first time (okay, THIS was my favourite show of the year. Of my LIFE). June: another open mic night at The Cure. July: there was a guy playing his guitar at a restaurant in Vancouver, and also I went to a weird little biker memorial in Grand Coulee where a cover band was playing at the hockey rink. August: Sarah and I went to Nuit Blanche and there was live music in the RPL. September: Ashley and I hit up Swampfest, Regina's finest and most creative DIY music festival on Willow Island. Loved it. Always love it. October: Elliot BROOD & Great Lake Swimmers at Darke Hall. November: fail. December: we'll see if it happens, but I'm hoping to go to Band Swap at the Exchange on the 28th (I'm writing this post early). I'm usually out of town that night, so this is exciting!

M - Meow Wolf. I have always, for as long as I've known of the existence of Meow Wolfs (which is not very long, honestly, but still), wanted to visit one. And this year, I did, in Denver, with Sarah. It was really weird, and I loved it.

N - New tattoos. I got a cat, in honour of the fact that strangers email me all the time now about the cat in I Think We've Been Here Before. I also got an hourglass and some rosemaling.

O - Okay. So here is a story about scissors: I went to Nuit Blanche with my friend Sarah, and there was a guy there giving out free freezies. I took my freezie and said to the guy, "Thank you. Do you have scissors? To open this freezie?" The guy looked sheepish and said, "No, sorry, I feel really stupid every time someone asks me that. I did not bring scissors. You'll have to take that freezie home, I guess, and open it with your own scissors." It was a hot night, and I was thirsty, and I really wanted to get into this freezie. I tried tearing it open with my teeth, but the plastic was way too strong. I couldn't do it. I carried this thing around with me for a couple of hours, gnawing at it like a rodent. Finally, I'd had enough. Exasperated, I threw the freezie in a garbage can. I could've taken it home, but I was tired of carrying something around that I really wanted but could not have. I sighed as I threw it away and said, "Ugh, my kingdom for a pair of scissors." So here's where the story gets weird and slightly unbelievable, but you'll have to just believe me because why would I make this up? A few minutes later, literally minutes, you guys, minutes after I threw my freezie in the garbage and said my kingdom for a pair of scissors, Sarah and I walked past this table in the park. Just a random table in the middle of Victoria Park. 10:30 PM. And the only thing on this table was, you guessed it, a pair of scissors. Like, I think I manifested them?

P - Parties—or, to be more precise, galas. In the month of May, Barclay and I attended three galas—one for his work, one for mine, and one fundraiser. We are not gala people, so we had to go out and buy gala clothes and gala shoes and gala makeup (me). It was fun, but a little bit stressful because I'm not a super fancy person.

Q - Quite a lot of public speaking again this year. I thought it would be a quieter one because I didn't have a book release, but that didn't end up being the case. Lots of book clubs, podcast interviews, readings, random other speaking gigs and occasions. I continue to be more and more comfortable in front of people, and this continues to be a thing that makes me really happy, a thing that still surprises me, that a person can be so scared of something but then do it enough that it actually becomes—dare I say it?—enjoyable.

R - (City of) Regina Writing Award. I did not win this! Courtney Bates-Hardy did! (And she deserved it.) But I was a runner-up, so I got to go to the awards ceremony and read from my [as yet unpublished] novel. I did win a writing retreat at a monastery! Cool!

S - Saskatchewan Book Awards. I Think We've Been Here Before was nominated for four Sask Book Awards: The Book of the Year Award, the Fiction Award, the City of Regina Book Award, and the Publishing Award. It even went so far as to win in one category, which was really neat. There was a gala in Saskatoon and Barclay and I made a little weekend out of it.

T - Toured the Globe Theatre. I got a DM on Instagram one day from an account called Hidden Regina, out of the blue, asking if I'd like to go on a tour of the Globe Theatre here in downtown Regina. I was like, "Well yeah!" So I did that.

U - Upset about...baseball???!!!?? I, and a whole bunch of other Canadians who normally do not care one iota about sports, got really, super invested in the Toronto Blue Jays this year. It was surprisingly fun, and time will tell, but maybe I'm a sports person now.

V - Vancouver! We hopped on a plane and went to Vancouver in July. It was the first Big Family Vacation we've taken since Scarlett joined our crew, and, therefore, the first time she's ever been on a plane. Barclay's sister lives out there, so we stayed with her for a week. It was really lovely! And now the kids, having had their eyes opened to the possibility of air travel, just want to fly everywhere.

W - Wrote The End on a new book! More on that later!

X - XXXVIII (I turned 38) & XVI (Barclay and I celebrated 16 years of marriage)

Y - Yes! I said yes to every single fruit I saw in the grocery store which I had never tried before. This was the year of rambutan and lychee and prickly pears and and pomelos and a few others I can't think of right now. (This is also the year I discovered I'm mildly allergic to pomelos.)

Z - Zipped off to Medicine Hat for my Grandma's birthday party. Almost the whole extended family on that side was there. That's a LOT of people. It was so good to see all of them again.

Goodreads Choice Awards Update!

noreply@blogger.com (Suzy Krause) — Wed, 26 Nov 2025 23:26:00 +0000

It's the most beautiful foggy day outside; the sky looks like tea with a lot of milk in it. I'm inside, at the kitchen table, drinking coffee with a lot of milk in it (aka a latte). What a milky day.

I'm laying low this afternoon because I'm a little peopled out (in a good way!). This past week I did a reading at Bushwakkers and visited two book clubs, one in Baltimore via Zoom and one here in Regina. I also have an event tomorrow night in Moose Jaw—a friend of mine (Tim!) is screening his film and he's invited me to be part of a panel discussion afterward (event and ticket info here)—so I need to get my social battery back up to full (or, like, even 75% would probably do it). All good things, but my fellow introverts know that social batteries don't differentiate between good things and bad things, just peopley things and non-peopley things (though I think I expend a little extra energy for meeting-new-people things and center-of-attention things).

Anyway. I've come on here to share some good news: I Think We've Been Here Before has made it to the final round of voting for the Goodreads Choice Awards (more on that here).

I've been surprised a time or two in my life, but this is honestly one of the more surprising things that has ever happened to me. I was not just skeptical about making it to the next round, I actually thought it wasn't possible—which is why I didn't even check the short list to see if I'd gone through. Someone messaged me to tell me I'd made it and I thought it was a mean prank. I felt sad. I FELT SORRY FOR MYSELF. And then I looked for myself and saw that it wasn't a prank and I just felt baffled.

I still feel a little baffled. But happy baffled.

Anyway, I'd really like to say thank you to everyone who took the time out of their day to vote for me. According to Goodreads, almost five million people voted in that first round, which is a number I have a hard time understanding. It's wild to think that the number of people who voted for me specifically could've been high enough to break through that kind of noise and move my weird little Saskatchewan Christmas apocalypse novel along. It's been a really nice little trip. It feels validating and fun. Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU.

But wait! There's more!

There is one more round of voting; it's a new round, which means that you can vote again; your first round vote no longer counts (why do they do it like this? No one knows!). This round closes on Sunday, November 30. After that, one winner will be crowned in each category and all I will have of this week is a fond memory and a really nice TBR list (I am going to read every single book in the sci-fi category; they all look AMAZING and I recommend you do the same).

Okay. Click here or on the graphic below to vote one last time if you want. I'll love you forever!

A Wrong Turn Backstage

noreply@blogger.com (Suzy Krause) — Tue, 18 Nov 2025 17:23:00 +0000

It was early in the morning; I was half-asleep, doing that thing you're not supposed to do where you check your phone before you even get out of bed and slowly fry your brain awake. On Instagram, a DM: someone sent me a link to the Goodreads Choice Awards nominee list with zero context. I didn't click on it. They probably meant to send it to someone else, I thought. Possibly, their account had been hijacked and this was spam.

For context, because not everyone is as terminally plugged into the Internet Book World as I am (and they will probably live longer for it), the Goodreads Choice Awards goes like this: Goodreads puts out a longlist of the most popular books of the previous year, based on their data—15 categories (sci-fi, fantasy, romance, etc), 20 books in each category. There’s a round of voting, the list is shortened to 10 books in each category, there’s another round of voting, and a winner is chosen in each category.

I never pay much attention to the GCAs. The list is generally made up of the year’s Big Books, the ones you see in People magazine and in every single bookstagram feed and at the front of Indigo in hardcover on their release day (I don’t know if I mentioned this, but my local Indigo did not have any copies, not a single one, of I Think We’ve Been Here Before in stock on its pub day and, here in Canada, neither did Amazon because three days prior they inexplicably cancelled every single preorder and pulled the listing!). The people who make up these lists are, like, Stephen King and Emily Henry and Richard Osman and Fredrik Backman.

All of this to say: if it sounds like I’m being annoyingly self-deprecating when I say I didn’t click that link because I didn’t think it could possibly have anything to do with me, I’m not. I really, really didn’t think it possibly could.

But then it occurred to me that, maybe, this person and I had a mutual friend who had been nominated. That was possible. So I navigated back to my inbox and clicked the link. It opened to the sci-fi page, and I paused. Most of my author friends write romance, lit fic, thrillers, poetry. Who do I know who put out a sci-fi book this year? I racked my brain as I scrolled down.

Oh. Me.

I saw my book there and had a moment of elation before the grounding realization: It’s a dream. My dreams are super vivid and I have ones like this all the time. I've won the Booker! I've gotten a six-figure book deal! All of Hollywood wants the movie rights to my novel and they're literally standing on my front lawn throwing money at my house! Oh no! They’re drowning in their own money! I heroically jump in and save the producers from drowning in the money and I’m a national hero! Jimmy Eat World writes a song about me—

Anyway.

The best evidence for it being a dream? I Think We've Been Here Before could not be on a list for best sci-fi of 2025: it was published in 2024.

I put my phone back on the night table and fell back asleep. That’s how fleeting my adrenaline spike was: I fell back asleep.

Later in the kitchen, making coffee, trying to drag myself out of my lingering sleepiness, I pulled the page up again. It was still there. Hm. I asked Barclay to see if his Goodreads account also had my book listed on there, because I'd gone from thinking it was a dream to thinking it was maybe a tech glitch. But no, it was on his screen too.

I scrolled to the bottom of the page and clicked on Rules and Eligibility:

Books published in the United States in English, including works in translation and other significant rereleases, between November 13, 2024, and November 11, 2025, are eligible for the 2025 Goodreads Choice Awards.

OH.

So then I believed it (barely, sort of).

Voting for this round closes on Sunday, and the shortlist will be announced the following Tuesday. Let’s be real: I do not stand a chance. But! I’m going to ask you to vote for me anyway (HERE!). Because that’s what you do when this happens. And because my weird little book about a farm family from Saskatchewan is, for a moment, sitting on a list between two John Scalzi books, like a concert-goer who took a wrong turn after using the bathroom and accidentally ended up on the stage between Taylor Swift and Sabrina Carpenter. Clap for her! She’s so confused about why she’s up there but she’s having a great time!

Under the Floorboards

noreply@blogger.com (Suzy Krause) — Fri, 03 Oct 2025 20:18:00 +0000

If you’ve been around here for long enough, you know the story about how my grandma went to an auction sale to buy a buggy and accidentally bought a whole house for $500 instead. Or, as well, rather. You know that she was 80 at the time and didn’t know what to do with the house, which was a 1000 square foot, 100-year-old Eaton’s catalogue Foursquare farmhouse and a real fixer-upper. You know that she sent my mom a text that said, Oh! I just bought a house! And you know that my mom drove to Gravelbourg to see the house, fell in love with it, and promptly began the arduous, painstaking process of renovating it, top to bottom.

You can read that whole story here, and see progress pics here.

I realized recently that I haven’t added newer progress pictures here in a long time—like, since 2018! I’ve done a little updating on Instagram, but not here. I’ll rectify this, I will, but FIRST.

First.

Ask me what my mom found under the floorboards in the attic.

…

I’m so tempted to just end this blog post here and wait for a few days so you don’t get to know the answer to the question right away. I’m a sucker for a good cliff-hanger. I love making people wait, letting them wonder. I’m doing it right now! Isn’t it fun?

(I’m getting the vibe from you, all the way from the other side of the computer screen and from back here in the past while I’m writing this to you, who will read it later today, that the whole making you wait and wonder is more fun for me than it is for you, and I’m sorry.)

Okay, I'll tell you; I'll start at the beginning:

As I said, my mom and dad have been hard at work over the course of the past decade, fully renovating the first and second floors of the house. They've done the basement too, and they’ve landscaped the yard and planted a massive garden and built a garage. It is gorgeous. It is almost finished. There's just the attic left, which is going to become the master bedroom.

So, it's often true, especially when it comes to very old houses, that before you can construct something, you have to take stuff apart a little. And it's also true, especially when it comes to very old houses, that when you take stuff apart, you might uncover...secrets. You might find things very purposefully tucked under floorboards. You might find, as my parents did, a letter from 1929, which begins, "Dear Ethel, I was so glad to hear from you and also to know that you arrived safely from prison to your home. We are all very well except that Lena Scottie is in the hospital sick with Diptheria."

The letter, which I will link to below, is five pages long, and in it, the sender implores Ethel to become a Catholic, and tells her that "all the Mothers and Children" miss her and talk about her a lot. The return address on the letter is St Agnes Priory School in Manitoba, a place where 'delinquent girls' were sent to be reformed (delinquent in the 1920s could mean anything from "has engaged in criminal activity" to "is a single mother" or "is neurodivergent"). It's not an overly juicy letter, other than the mention of prison or the fact that it was sent by one of the other "delinquent girls" at St. Agnes, but that almost makes it more interesting, doesn't it? Why hide a letter like that? Or, if you didn't want it to be discovered, why not rip it up, or burn it?

My mom is not the kind of person to say, "Oh, a letter addressed to someone else; not my circus! Not my monkeys!" Which is good, because I'm really nosy and would like to know why Ethel hid the letter, and why Ethel was in jail, and also what happened to Ethel, period.

So Mom called up one of the family members of the original person who built the house. She said, "Hey, I've got a letter here for the person who lived in this house who went to prison."

And they were like, "Prison?!"

And she was like, "Yeah, the letter was hidden."

And they were like, "Much like the fact that we had a relative who went to prison!"

Luckily, this person is kind of like my mom and me; they are also not a not-my-circus-not-my-monkeys type. They immediately launched into a full-scale investigation, interviewing other family members, driving to grave yards, even calling the office of St. Agnes, asking for intake records. You can read all of their findings, as well as the full letter, here and an update here.

It's wild, isn't it, to think about old houses, about how some secrets stay hidden and some make themselves known? It's wild to think about this woman, Ethel, who hid this letter instead of destroying it. Did it cross her mind that someday someone might find it and care enough to uncover her story, that members of her family might get to know her that way where previously she was kept a secret? I always think about how important it is to us, as humans, to be known and understood, and in reading Ethel's story, I don't get the sense that she was (I mean, one of the things this family member dug up was a newspaper clipping that told the story about how the Phillipsons came to Canada from England. It talked about all seven of their children, where they ended up, who they married, where they worked, but when it got to Ethel, all it said was, "Ethel, died young").

So, I don't know, I guess I'm glad for all of this, is what I'm saying. Glad for Ethel and her family. Glad for my mom, too—who among us has not dreamed of the day we might find a secret letter hidden under the floorboards in the attic of a 100-year-old house?

Just me? I think not.

One Year!

noreply@blogger.com (Suzy Krause) — Wed, 24 Sep 2025 23:56:00 +0000

Today marks one year since I Think We've Been Here Before was published in Canada.

And what a year it's been.

I'm a reflective person by nature, the kind of person who talks about a party the whole way home from the party, who possibly enjoys analyzing things after the fact as much as [or more than] I enjoy the initial experience of them. Maybe it's because I'm so anxious? I find that when I'm living through something, I'm very distracted by my anxieties, by the pressure to do it, whatever it is, right, to have fun, to not say something stupid, to, ironically, enjoy it to the fullest. But in reflection, the pressure is off. I'm just observing. Reliving the nice things without the possibility of disaster or embarrassment or failure. And maybe there's something to be learned there—is this what people talk about when they say they want to be more present?—but I haven't learned it yet.

The experience of releasing a book is no different; there is so much to reflect on after the fact, and people are constantly asking questions that provoke even more reflection. Questions like, "How did the book do?" And, "Was it successful?"

Great questions. Surprisingly hard questions! Let me try to answer them.

Something I didn't understand before getting into Publishing World was that there are a million metrics for deciding if a book did well or not. There are sales numbers, obviously. There's reader feedback. Trade reviews and Goodreads reviews and other various internet places where people talk about your book. There are the experiences that come out of publishing said book, both private and communal. Did you earn back your advance? Are the reviews generally positive or negative? And so on, and so forth. There are a LOT of metrics.

To start, I Think We've Been Here Before has the lowest number of sales out of all of my books—which is funny to me, because I think it's my best. But as of right now, it has sold more than 100,000 fewer copies than Sorry I Missed You, which is (don't tell Sorry I Missed You) my least favorite of my three novels. So by that metric, it didn't do very well. It also didn't get as many trade reviews as V&V or SIMY, nothing in Kirkus or Booklist or Library Journal. It doesn't have nearly as many Goodreads reviews as either of my other books. It didn't sit at the top of any important bestsellers lists.

But!

This book took me to Toronto and Denver and Evergreen and Saskatoon. It introduced me, through the process of asking for blurbs, to Marissa Stapley, who then invited me into her glorious circle of author friends (and honestly, if this was the only thing that came out of this book's publication, I'd call it a win, because these people are the best and I get to keep them even after the book stuff goes away). It was optioned for television by the incredible Paul Davidson, and found its way into the hands of people I would never have imagined, in my wildest dreams, would ever read my work. It was nominated for four Saskatchewan Book Awards, and won in one category, and that was a completely magical experience, from the longlist announcement to the awards gala, where I sat at a table full of new and extremely talented friends. And it opened up the coolest conversations with strangers in my email inbox; I heard from people who'd recently lost loved ones, palliative care nurses, a very sweet family of Jehovah's Witnesses, and so on (and on and on), and we talked about death and life and quantum entanglement and deja vu and Berlin and music and grief and writing. The reviews, though fewer, were overwhelmingly positive. I even credit this book with helping me get over my fear of public speaking, because it brought about so many podcast interviews and book events.

So, how did the book do? Not well. But was it successful? YES.

So. What's next?

Something I love almost as much as reflecting is daydreaming. However, reflecting is easier, because the material is all there; you just have to, like I said earlier, observe it. Daydreaming in the publishing realm is not quite so easy, especially now that I've been in it for so long. I feel very aware of the fact that nothing is guaranteed, that just because you managed to get a book or two published, that definitely does not mean the journey ahead will be all downhill.

Or downhill at all.

Or that there will continue to be a journey.

It's been an interesting year behind the scenes. I'm not going to go into the whole story just yet, because it feels like a foolish one to tell before it's finished, but I will say that I recently sent a new book to my agent. It's weird, definitely the weirdest one I've ever written. It starts out with a farmer standing in his field looking at a big empty place where not five minutes ago, there was a farm. At first, he thinks the problem is that he's losing his mind, but then he realizes that he's not losing his mind, a whole farm really has vanished in front of his eyes, and that's actually a much bigger problem.

So my agent is reading it, and hopefully she decides it's something we can sell together. It's is a very nerve-racking thing, sending off a book that has thus far only lived in my head. I mostly trust myself to know when something's worth writing, but sometimes I wonder, yikes, what if this was a really bad idea? What if I just spent two years working on a really bad idea?

I guess we'll see! And I promise, you'll be the first to know if that book becomes, you know, a book.

Straight to Zebras

noreply@blogger.com (Suzy Krause) — Tue, 19 Aug 2025 16:31:00 +0000

So I'm one of those "adults" who really, strongly dislikes being alone at night. Leave me alone during the day, fine—great, even! I love you!—night? No. My imagination is too good. The dark is too dark. And what if something like this were to happen again, when I was home alone with the kids? It wouldn't be good for my wussy nerves.

But sometimes, inevitably, I do find myself alone at night. It happened again recently, when Barclay went away for a few days for work. Obviously, the kids were here with me, but they're smaller than me, and likely smaller than any intruder is going to be, and they do very little to put my mind at ease, no offense to them.

So I was suffering, is what I'm saying, I was laying in bed at midnight, and the dark was encroaching, as it does, and my imagination was going, and I was watching Gilmore Girls, trying to distract myself from being alone. It worked. I drifted off to sleep...

...and woke up only a few hours later to this...sound.

This unrecognizable, unfathomable, unreasonable sound.

I had no idea what it was. I felt sure, as much as anyone can feel sure about anything at three in the morning, that I had never heard this sound before in my whole life. It was completely new. It was not the sound of someone breaking in, or of one of the kids falling out of bed—it was too loud, and too weird. It was not a real sound, I decided, not something from this realm, if you know what I mean.

(I don't even know what I mean.)

I will try to describe it for you:

It was a crash, so loud I could feel it in my chest. But it was...strangely musical? But not nice music: it was dissonant and ugly. And it just kept going. It was a sound that echoed and reverberated. It was hollow and frightening and otherworldly. I thought, I am dying! This is what dying sounds like!

Because it didn't sound like anything else.

Then it was just over, and I was sitting straight up in my bed, having sat all the way up before I even woke all the way up, and I began to second guess myself. Had I heard anything at all? Was it a dream? Could you dream a sound like that?

I sat there and listened for probably ten minutes. Nothing. Nothing at all. Not even a peep from the kids' rooms—and that made me doubt myself even more. Surely, if this noise was even half of what I thought it was, they'd be up and screaming bloody murder.

But my heart was pounding, and my brain was fizzing, and I knew I could not fall back asleep without at least walking through the house and making sure everything was okay. I was not relishing the thought of walking through the dark rooms, hoping something wouldn't jump out at me, hoping I wouldn't hear that awful sound again.

I went and looked at the kids first—fast asleep, both of them. Nothing amiss in either room.

Okay.

I looked in the bathroom, in the shower.

Nothing.

I tip-toed into the kitchen, where everything was fine, and then down into the basement—nope; I stopped halfway down the stairs. Too scary. If there was something down there, it would have to meet me upstairs because I was not confronting it in what is objectively the scariest place in the house.

The last room left unexplored was the living room. It was quiet, and mostly normal, except for one thing: my acoustic guitar was lying on the floor in the middle of the room.

I stared at it. This was weird. I was still much too tired to work it out. How had it gotten here?

I know, I know. When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras. Look around, use logic. I know. But I went straight to zebras; I always go straight to zebras. I thought, THERE IS A GHOST IN HERE AND IT THREW MY GUITAR ON THE FLOOR.

Like, I only thought that for a few terrifying seconds, but I did think it.

But okay. Here's what actually happened:

My guitar hangs on a holder above the piano.

Need I say more?

Probably not, but I'll say more anyway: the anchor for the guitar holder came right out of the wall.

At three in the morning, on one of the five nights of the whole year that Barclay was not home with me.

Unlucky timing at its very finest.

It came out of the wall, and fell, along with the guitar, directly onto the piano keys. The guitar then bounced off of the piano and onto the piano bench. It bounced off of the piano bench and onto the floor, and then it bounced across the floor, where it skittered to a stop in the middle of the living room, amidst the din of piano hammers striking piano strings and guitar strings striking the floor, echoing through both instruments and through the floorboards and through the thin wall into my bedroom on the other side, where I had been sleeping the fitful sleep of someone who just KNEW that Something was going to happen, purely because Barclay had gone away for work.

My question is: how am I supposed to grow into a well-adjusted adult who can be left alone at night if things like this keep going on?

A Quiet Month

noreply@blogger.com (Suzy Krause) — Mon, 02 Jun 2025 18:26:00 +0000

I'm sitting in a quiet kitchen, listening to the sound of the dishwasher and fifty birds yelling at each other outside my window. I've turned all of the lights off and opened only the blinds on the south side of the house. I'm thinking about making a latte, but dreading the sound of the coffee grinder.

I am...overstimulated?

May was a lot—which is funny, because I had been telling people it was going to be a quiet month. Releasing a book comes with a lot of social things, mostly concentrated in the month of the actual launch and then tapering off as people forget you exist and move onto the shinier, newer releases (such a relief, such a blessing, but it hurts your feelings every time anyway). ITWBHB had two launch months, because it had two different pub days, so it took up the entire fall and most of the winter. There was a trickle of events after Christmas, but one day in March I looked at the calendar and realized that there was only one thing left: my friend Adelle's launch party in April. She would fly in from Ontario, we'd do a little in-conversation thing at Everyday Kitchen, and I would be officially off the hook. There was nothing left on the calendar, not professionally, not personally. May was for working on my next book, taking naps and recharging my social battery which I worried, at that point, was permanently dead.

But then.

Okay, what was the first thing? Right. I found out, happily, that ITWBHB was shortlisted for some Saskatchewan Book Awards. There would be a gala in Saskatoon on May 9 where they'd announce the winners. Okay! That sounded fun, and I hadn't been to a gala since 2013. I was going to need to buy a fancy dress. Barclay would need a suit. This was so out of the ordinary for us; we're not fancy people. So I put that on the calendar, and it was The Only Thing in May. One big, fancy thing. Sweet. We asked my parents to take the kids for the whole weekend—after all, we didn't have anything else going on that month, and it had been a solid half a year since we had a night away from the kids. Might as well make it a little vacation, right?

Oh, but then my mom texted to let me know that we were having a family reunion in Medicine Hat. When? May 17-19. Okay. Doable. The very next week.

Oh, but then Barclay came home from work and said, "Hey, we've been invited to a gala!" And I said, "I know! It's on the calendar!" And he said, "No, a different gala. This one is on May third!" And I said, "Well, at least that's not on the same day as the other gala, or the family reunion!" And he said, "True!" And I said, "And we can get double the use out of our gala clothes!" And he said, "Awesome!"

Oh, but then Barclay texted me a few days later and said, "Haha, so what do you think about going to another gala?" It was a charity gala for Bring 'Em Up and the Open Door Society, and he was thinking about buying a table. I said, "Hey, we've got the gala clothes, we might as well." I put that one on the calendar too. May 23.

Oh, but then my friend Ashley invited me to her wedding vow renewal on May 24! Which was very cool; I had never been to one of those before. And if I curled my hair on the 23, I wouldn't have to do it again for the renewal. Perfect. I put it on the calendar.

Oh! But then I got another very nice email, telling me that I was a runner-up for the City of Regina Writing Award, for my next [as yet unfinished] novel, You Won't Believe Your Eyes. There would be an awards ceremony at the Hotel Sask on May 29! PUT IT ON THE CALENDAR.

Okay, and there were more things but you're like, Suzy, we don't need a play by play. We all have calendars, and they are all very full. Yes, yes, I get it. I'm sorry. I'm not trying to imply that my calendar is more overwhelming than yours, I'm just saying that this month was supposed to be empty, like a Saskatchewan wheat field on a clear, cloudless summer day, but somehow it ended up being more like a bustling Toronto street with bikes and cars and pedestrians and a the-end-is-near guy. Because by the time May finally arrived, the calendar also contained a book reading, and a friend's book fair, and a second family reunion, and Sully's first public musical performance with his band (which ended up feeling like the most important thing of the whole month).

I bought the dress, Barclay bought the suit. I wore the dress three times, and Barclay got five wears out of the suit. I did two readings, one from each book. I gave two acceptance speeches, got a plaque and a certificate and a nice little cheque. I caught up with maybe (actually) a hundred relatives and made a bunch of new friends. We spent a total of 22 hours in the car. I signed books, and bought books (namely I Hate Parties by Jes Battis, A Simple Carpenter by Dave Margoshes, and Everything Is Fine Here by Iryn Tushabe).

Sadly, near the end of the month, I also said goodbye to a very dear old friend. Because even when life is very busy and moving along at an amazing pace, it stops, too. Even when life is very vibrant and beautiful and exciting, it is sad, too.

So.

This morning, my kids went off to school, Barclay went to the office, and here I am, thinking about maybe making coffee. Thankful for the quiet. Processing.

And I know better than to say that June will be a quiet month.

A Letter

noreply@blogger.com (Suzy Krause) — Tue, 27 May 2025 16:05:00 +0000

Hey J,

I didn't get to say goodbye to you before you left. You kept coming to mind all week, more than usual. I meant to send a quick text to see how you were doing and tell you how much I was thinking about you, but then I got a text instead, saying you were gone. I missed my chance. I didn't realize how little time there was. I keep saying to people that I was so surprised, and that I feel a little ridiculous for how surprised I was. I probably should've known better.

Is this weird: I've thought about texting you to say goodbye. Like, after. Even though I knew it wouldn't be you who read the text message. Like, I know this is ridiculous, me sitting there trying to figure out how to get a message to you when I have already recognized the impossibility of that.

But, okay, here's one last story for you, J:

I'm working on this short story right now, and it's set in Scotland. So yesterday I was sitting in my kitchen, looking at old blog posts from when I went there with Barclay in 2011. As I scrolled down to the bottom of the first one, your name jumped out at me—you'd left a comment that said, simply, "And this is why I love you." It was a strange moment; I smiled to myself and thought, Of all the days I could stumble across this comment from fourteen years ago... It's the kind of funny little nothing-but-everything story I'd specifically save to tell you, because you always loved stories about synchronicities.

A light clicked on in my head at that moment: you are maybe the only person in the world who has read every single blog post I've ever written. You actually made a point of reminding me of that quite often, including in the last email you ever sent me. So if I wanted to say goodbye to you, maybe this is the place to do it? Is that silly? Maybe other people would think it's silly, but I actually think you'd like it.

So, okay. Goodbye, J. You meant a lot to me. You were a listener, a talker, an encourager, a friend, a motivator, an example, a cheerleader. You were one of the first people I told when I found out Sully was coming, one of the first friends to meet him after he was born. You were so open with me about your life, and I learned from you that openness is good and important and helpful and beautiful. You were the first person to "publish" something I'd written. You were funny, and you made me feel special and safe. And this is why I love you.

I really, really wish I would've been able to say these things to you in time. I guess that's the last thing you taught me: next time, don't wait too long to say what you need to say. I don't think I'll soon forget this lesson.

Thanks, J. Goodbye.

The Ghost in the Central Branch

noreply@blogger.com (Suzy Krause) — Fri, 21 Mar 2025 23:51:00 +0000

I always walk around really conscious of my past self—is this weird? Do you know what I mean though? Like, Barclay and I went for a walk yesterday, in the east end by the golf course, and we were talking about something and at the same time we both went, hey, we were walking down this EXACT same path the last time we talked about this thing; we were right in this exact spot. And it was like our past selves were ghosts walking along beside us and we were laughing at them, at how little they knew about the future (to be fair, Barclay and I have never claimed to be fortune tellers).

But I love moments like that, where you can see your past self, totally oblivious to your present self, maybe worrying about something, or planning something, or working on something, and they have no idea how it's going to turn out but you do.

(Or at least, you know a little bit more than they do. Because someday, your future self is going to laugh at your present self for not knowing now what you will then.)

Anyway.

I had a moment like this today.

My ghosts are all over this place—that's one of the cool things about living in the same city for such a long time—and one of them lives in the Central Branch of the Regina Public Library. She went to see the Writer in Residence there about a decade ago, clutching a half-baked manuscript that needed two more years of edits before an agent would take it seriously, basically to ask if she was any good at this writing thing or if she should quit.

I don't know if you remember this, but you might: I wrote this blog post about the moment I pulled the trigger and send off that terrifying email to the WIR, and this blog post about the day I went in and met with her.

Today, I went to that same library for the Saskatchewan Book Awards shortlist announcement, and found out my book was shortlisted in four categories(!). As the SBA members stood at the podium and read the names of the nominees, I watched my shaky little ghost walk behind them, up the stairs and into the WIR office, manuscript in hand, heart pounding so hard I can hear it ten years later. My ghost went into the office worried that she was being silly, that this whole book thing was a bad idea, that the Writer in Residence was going to give her a few pity compliments and then drop kick her heart right out the window onto Smith Street.

She didn't, by the way. That woman, Dr. Nilofar, was one of the first professional people who told my ghost that she wasn't being silly, and that she should try to publish a book. It's one of those Really Important Moments in my life, which is why my ghost haunts that library still, walking from the sliding doors at the library entrance, through the stacks and up the stairs, trying to be brave because this thing was really, really important to her even though she felt kind of ridiculous saying that out loud to anyone.

The sad thing about these ghosts is that you can't talk to them. I always wish I could. I wish I could just yell back in time, like, even something vague and encouraging, just give them a glimpse into the future so they could know that what they're doing is working or that such-and-such a thing is going to be okay or, at the very least, just isn't going to matter in a few years.

But you don't get to. You have to live your life in order and find out how it's going by going there. And you have to be oblivious to the future versions of yourself doing the things you dream about doing someday. And I think maybe this is the key to being a person with big dreams: being aware of all of your ghosts. Knowing that no matter where you are in your journey, there are more versions of you ahead, so excited for you to catch up and see what's going to happen next.

An Icon

noreply@blogger.com (Suzy Krause) — Thu, 13 Feb 2025 17:08:00 +0000

There's this place here in Regina that does an open mic night every Monday. I've been to a few; it's a very nice time.

I have to be in the right headspace for them, because they can be a little heavy on the second-hand embarrassment, for which I have a very low threshold. Like, that moment when a person is up there doing stand-up and they deliver this joke you can tell they're really proud of, and the room just collectively stares at them, unblinking...? I can't handle it.

Even worse is when they wait a beat, like they think, oh, any moment now this joke is going to land; it's just taking a second. They know that if a joke takes a second and then lands, the payoff is sometimes even better, so they look out into the dark room, hopeful, searching so hard for that laugh. But there is no laugh and that pause only serves to amplify the fact that the joke was not something that was ever going to land—and maybe it's just this audience, this night, these vibes, but also: maybe the joke wasn't that good. And you can see these thoughts on their face; it's awful, watching someone recognize their own failure in front of an audience.

And it can get even worse! Because when people are embarrassed they get defensive and angry, and they might say something like, "Well people usually love that joke," or, "Whoa, tough audience." And you know they know, deep down, that it's not the audience's fault. You imagine them going home, walking into their apartment, sitting on the couch, staring at the wall. You imagine their sadness. And then you feel sad, when what you came for in the first place was the exact opposite of sadness. And that seems a little unfair!

ANYWAY.

All I really meant to say here was that I went to an open mic night on Monday with my friend Sarah, and it was lovely, and there was cheesecake and a little bit of secondhand sadness, but there was also a lot of secondhand triumph, and genuine laughter, and it was all very beautiful because it was all so human. And! A pleasant little surprise was that I ran into this guy again. I haven't seen him in years, but apparently he's a regular at open mic night now. He did two Bon Jovi songs; he danced, he got the audience to join in, he ran around the room during the instrumentals.

And when he spotted me in the crowd afterward, he came over.

He looked at me curiously; I wondered if he recognized me, and maybe he did but maybe he didn't. He said, "Hey, what did you think of my songs?"

I said, "You did great. It was so good. The audience loved you."

He said, "Yes, I know. I'm an icon."

A Kind of Nothing Post

noreply@blogger.com (Suzy Krause) — Fri, 07 Feb 2025 19:46:00 +0000

The other day, I went into a coffee shop and ordered, "a caffeinated coffee, please." As though caffeine were an extra ingredient that wouldn't otherwise be included. The barista squinted at me, thinking insults at me probably, but didn't say anything.

I took my caffeinated coffee to the bar by the window, looking out onto Victoria Ave. It had snowed, and warmed up, and cooled down, and snowed again, and warmed up again. The road was full of slush. The cars swerved and slid down the street and I tried to imagine summer. Clear, hot pavement and heat soaking into your back through your t-shirt and feeling the sun in your bones. Inconceivable! My bones were cold and the pavement was cold and even the caffeinated coffee didn't hold its heat for very long.

I got my iPad out, clicked around the internet a little. Tried not to look at the news, because I have a time and a place carved out for that right now, because if you don't have a time and a place carved out for the news right now, you might as well just throw whole weeks into a black hole. There is SO MUCH NEWS. We are going to drown in the news. Has there ever been so much news?

I sent a proposal to a magazine, half-heartedly added 700 words to my novel, and replied to some emails. Two guys came into the shop dressed in business suits. They sat at the table next to me and talked to each other for a few minutes. Then the first guy got out his phone and started watching a video with the volume up. Then the other guy got out his phone and called somebody, had a whole conversation at the top of his lungs, like the person on the other end of the phone had no ears.

And I was like, cool.

And I went home.

And watched the news for four hours.

A Breakdown

noreply@blogger.com (Suzy Krause) — Mon, 27 Jan 2025 18:10:00 +0000

I’ve just crossed the 50,000 word count mark on book 4/5*!

This is probably different for everyone, but for me, the 50,000 word count mark is a giant sigh of relief—actually, let me break it down for you, because I have a minute, and you have a minute (I bet), and I like writing about writing:

10,000 words: Barely acknowledgeable, easily doable. Can be achieved in a few days on a wave of caffeine and naïveté and the slightly misplaced confidence that this is your best idea yet and that the last 70k will fall out of you as easily as the first ten. Any old idea has the legs needed to make it to the 10,000 word mark, truly. You don’t mention it to anyone because you know how fragile it is and it would be embarrassing if you told people about every single first 10,000 words you ever wrote.

20,000 words: Okay, a little better than 10,000 words, but all you’ve really done is raise the stakes and made the idea harder to throw in the trash because now you’ve spent more time on it. Killing your darlings becomes harder the more darlings there are to kill.

30,000 words: Feels like the halfway point but it’s [probably] not. This is where things start to slow down and you start to reexamine not only the project but also your ability to write and sell and talk about books. You start to feel a bit silly as the adrenaline and false sense of confidence you once had wears off all at once. You think to yourself, “Maybe this is a novella?” But you know that no one’s going to want a novella from you, and you know it’s not a novella, and everything feels daunting and you start scrolling social media a lot. Despair, but still somewhat hopeful despair.

40,000 words: The actual halfway point! Just sheer panic, now! You have put a lot of time and effort into this book; you have told your agent and editor that it exists, maybe even sent along the synopsis and first three chapters, even though you don’t really know how you’re going to land the plane yet. What were you thinking? Cry a lot! Less hopeful despair, much less!

50,000 words: This is where you might realize, in a moment of sudden and undeniable clarity that feels, honestly, a little trippy, what your book is actually about. You notice all of the little Easter eggs your subconscious has planted all along the way that point to the larger themes and which kind of make you feel like a genius even though they weren’t intentional, but you also notice all of the red herrings and useless characters and plot points that have wandered into your book and don’t belong there at all and which are now congregating in all the chapters looking lost and awkward. You are going to have to ask them to leave, and it is going to be unpleasant. You think to yourself, that’s a problem for Future Me, and you ignore it. You experience a shot of adrenaline similar to the one you had when you first had this idea. You write faster again. You start daydreaming about the book again. You realize that, at some point, this went from being a thing you should probably quit to being a thing you can’t quit.

60,000 words: This milestone doesn’t even exist. You sail straight past it to 70k without acknowledging it.

70,000 words: This is where you get a little more clarity, maybe one last panic attack, one last shot of self-doubt (important clarification: I don’t mean you get the last shot of self-doubt ever, I just mean…okay, maybe I shouldn’t have said ‘last.’ There will never be a last shot of self-doubt if you are a writer). Maybe the first draft is done at this point, and you realize that when you go back to edit, the book is going to swell. Surprise! Celebration! You get to put it in a drawer for two weeks and reclaim some valuable brain real estate! OR you realize that your first draft is actually going to end up being 120k because you’ve overwritten it and you are not even close to being done. Agony! Anguish! WHY HAVE YOU DONE THIS TO YOURSELF?!

80, 90, 100, 110, 120k: More of the same, repeat until done.

So, now you have a bit more context for, “I’ve just crossed the 50,000 word count mark on book 4/5!” I’ve just had that moment of clarity (it happened last week at the Mackenzie Art Gallery, in the foyer); I’ve just realized that there are a solid five chapters that need to be cut, and I’ve just understood, for the first time, how this thing needs to end (but I don’t really know how to make it happen just yet. I need to do some research). It feels less like something I’m making up and more like something I’m uncovering, and it has crossed the line from “should I abandon this?” to “it’s too late to turn back now,” which feels like a terrifying relief.

Okay! Onward! TTYL!

*(I say 4/5 because it’s one of two books I’m working on right now and they’re kind of racing each other to see the light of day. The other book 4/5 is technically a complete first draft but needs a lot of work.)

My Year of Live Music

noreply@blogger.com (Suzy Krause) — Tue, 14 Jan 2025 17:17:00 +0000

I made New Year's resolutions this year! Two of them! And I've already forgotten what one of them was!

BUT, I for sure remember the other one: go to more shows (quantifiably, I'm thinking at least one per month, as a bare minimum).

I used to go to so many shows—it was at least a weekly thing. I mean, there was a time where it was part of my job to go to shows, and it is much easier to do something when you're paid to do it than it is to do something you have to pay to do. But also, there are the kids I have to look after. You can't just go to shows all the time when there are kids you have to look after. And there is also the matter of getting older and being so tired all the time, which might also have something to do with the kids (but who knows; maybe I'd be tired either way). Then there's COVID, which kind of wrecked the music scene for a while there, and, saddest of all, there's the fact that I'm getting to that age where I have a hard time accepting that there are still new bands coming into existence and I can't keep up with the constant onslaught of NEW BANDS TO KNOW ABOUT AND LISTEN TO and I'm tired and I just want to go to shows where I know all the songs, and the bands dress and look and banter the way I'm used to bands dressing and looking and bantering.

Like, I kind of look forward to being 60, you know? That magical age where all of the bands of your teen and young adult years start playing yearly shows at the Casino Show Lounge and it doesn't cost an arm and a leg and the crowd size is not overwhelming and there are nice plushy seats to sit in when you get tired. I know this is a thing that is going to happen because I have been to these shows; I have seen Nazareth and Honeymoon Suite and George Thorogood, and I have seen the 60-year-olds up at the front dancing and being so thrilled to be there and I have thought, that is absolutely something to look forward to. I'm ready. Death Cab, Jimmy Eat World, come on. And hey! I'm about as far from 60 as I am from 20! So. This is the meantime, I guess.

And the meantime is what I'm talking about right now. In the meantime, I want to get reacquainted with the music scene as it is, not as what I remember it to be or what I hope it one day will be, but as it is right now. I want to see the local bands and also the touring ones that may deign to stop in Regina, Saskatchewan if, in the first place, they deign to travel north of the American border. I've missed the venues, and the regulars, and the pleasant ringing in my ears the morning after a night out that means I have hurt my long-term hearing just a little bit. A kind of self-destructive souvenir I'll regret in about twenty years.

So! On Saturday, I went to the Mercury with my friend Ashley to see a lineup of acoustic sets by artists who referred to themselves, collectively, as The Disgruntled Poet's Union. It was lovely, and in a little twist of serendipity, John and Debra were there too, and we got to have a completely unplanned little one-year reunion (almost to the day, but not quite) of this meeting in the exact spot where it had originally happened.

I also appreciated this man who sat in front of us who brought with him a veritable library of books and a milkshake and read through the whole show by the light of his cell phone. Maybe, along with being a 60-year-old who goes to see my old favorite bands at the casino, I will also be a 60-year-old who brings six books to acoustic sets at the Mercury and reads in a booth with a milkshake.

The future is bright!

THE ABCS OF 2024

noreply@blogger.com (Suzy Krause) — Mon, 06 Jan 2025 20:28:00 +0000

Well there's another year gone. It flew past, a racecar.

Or am I the racecar? Or maybe time is the car and the year is the track and I'm in the car? No, I think time is the track. The year is the vehicle that carries us through time. Right? Or is time the vehicle that carries us through the year?

This metaphor is not great. I'm spending too much time on it.

No, that's it, actually: time is the fuel in the vehicle. The track is the year and the time is the fuel and I'm the bobblehead figure on the dashboard. Who's driving? It seems to be one of those autonomous cars. Terrifying concept, but probably safer than having me behind the wheel.

Anyway.

Once again it's time for the annual ABCs of post. I love writing these; I have done it for many years (since 2016, to be exact). You should do it too. They're fun to read at the end of each year—and helpful. I find that the years have started to literally blur together and I can't always remember which important things belong to which years.

So! Ahem:

A - Arlo! My sister had another adorable baby. It feels like you should get used to babies, the more of them you meet. You should get used to how tiny and perfect they are, to their impractically-sized nostrils and hilariously small toes, to the way they look like all these other people you know but still manage to be a brand new special-edition never-seen-before human being. But somehow they just get more miraculous, the more of them you meet.

B - Birthday filling. I went to the dentist on my birthday for a filling. I asked him, before he froze my mouth, if I'd be able to eat right after and he said, "Yes, why?" And I said, "Because I'm a dummy and I made plans for a birthday lunch right after this." And he was like, "It's your birthday?!" And I was like, "Yup!" The hygienist said she thought it was ridiculous that anyone would schedule a filling for their birthday, and I was like, "Well, I was just hoping this place had one of those deals like at Starbucks or Dairy Queen where you get a free filling on your birthday. And she laughed and I laughed but then when I went to pay at the end I found that the dentist had discounted me $300 off the price of the bill (I do not have dental insurance) and the receptionist said, "He said to tell you it's your free birthday filling." And the hygienist said, "Well good, because no one ever comes in here on their birthday." And I said, "Well from now on I am ONLY coming in here on my birthday."

C - Conferences: I got to take part in the Saskatchewan Writers' Guild's annual conference, on a panel with my friends Iryn Tushabe, Rhea McFarlane, and Peace Akintade-Oluwagbeye. I also went to a literary conference at the RPL and Talking Fresh in the spring.

D - Did a lot of interviews—podcasts, TV, radio, internet, in person, and newspaper. I tried to count them up, and I can think of almost 20 but feel like I'm missing some.

E - Enjoyed my summer. For the most part, this year, I was able to just hang out with the kids and have a real summer (with a few stolen hours here and there to get work done). The summer of 2023, my edits schedules destroyed any semblance of relaxation, so this was loooovely.

F - First Reads. I Think We've Been Here Before was selected for Amazon's First Reads program in the States, which means that it was available one month early, as an ebook, for anyone who subscribes to Amazon Prime. This was my third time in the program, and it's always such an honor (and a rush).

G - Grant! I got my first ever arts grant from SK Arts to take a book-related trip in 2025—to Denver, Colorado! More on that in next year's ABCs Of post, hopefully.

H - Hiking. People from mountainy places would maybe take issue with this one and say I should move it down to W and just call it walking. But I already have one for W and we did find a few places to "hike" in Saskatchewan this year. Our hills may be tiny but shut up; they count.

I - I Think We've Been Here Before was published, first in Canada in September, and then in the rest of the places in December. I had a party in November and so many wonderful people came out.

J - Just taught one writing workshop. The people I met that day were so lovely. I don't think teaching is for me, but I'm glad I did it.

K - Kept on doodling on sticky notes to try to keep my brain fresh.

L - Live music: This year, the only live music I saw was at festivals! Cathedral Village Arts Festival (Marissa Burwell, Andy Shauf, Natural Sympathies, lots of other sweet bands), Regina Jazz Festival (my mom's cousin's husband's jazz quartet played a set in a park on a rainy day and that was lovely), Shake the Lake (Steven Page, George Thorogood and the Destroyers). I continue to be sad about how scarce live music has been in my life since about 2020. This year! This is the one! Bring back the music!

M - Met so many author friends IRL—such a treat, for a person who lives in the actual middle of nowhere. Amber Cowie came to Regina in the spring, and then when I went to Toronto I met Samantha Bailey, Marissa Stapley, Kerry Clare, Sherri Vanderveen, and Vikki VanSickle. Robert Penner flew in from Winnipeg to go on tour with me, and I know she's from Weyburn, which isn't very far away, but I met Victoria Koops this year too!

N - News! My most exciting news in 2024 was probably the thing about my book being optioned. It was very fun to announce that and be excited with everyone. I reeeeealllly hope to have more exciting news on that front in next year's post.

O - On TV! Was pleasantly surprised a few times to hear that my book went on TV without me. This is my preference—not being the one on the screen, but still getting the publicity.

P - Public speaking. Dare I say that this is the year I finally conquered my fear of talking in front of people? This has been on every single ABCs list I've written since V&V first came out and I recognized both my intense fear of public speaking and also the frequency with which I would have to do it if I were to hang out in the author sphere. I had, for a while, begun to believe that my lot in life was just to be perpetually in panic attack mode, but I had an event just the other night and at one point I picked up my book to read from it and realized, with shock and awe and excitement, that it wasn't shaking in my hands. Like, at all. This is a huge deal for me!

Q - Quantum Entanglement! This was the year of it. And hopefully every year from here on in also is.

R - Read lots of books. I don't know how many. Lots! Not lots compared to some people, but so many compared to others.

Or!

R - Russian copies of Valencia and Valentine landed in my mailbox.

S - Started working, EXTREMELY part time, for Barclay's landscaping company.

T - Toronto! I still need to do a whole blog post about that trip. What a daydream come true.

U - UM! The lovely people at Indigo put my books at the front of the store by the cash register. Thrilling, truly.

V - Voted! It felt like there were a lot of elections this year. Three, I guess? We voted in the ones we could vote in and tuned in to hear the results.

W - Worked on three books. Finished none of them. That's okay! I was busy doing other things.

X - XXXVII (I turned 37)

and

X - XV (Barclay and I celebrated our 15th anniversary!)

Y - Yes! We started doing Fart Walks with the kids. I saw a lady on Tik-Tok talking about the benefits of a post-supper walk, including steady blood sugar, better mood, increased circulation, and smoother digestion. She and her husband go every night and they call them Fart Walks, because of the digestion thing, I guess. I don't know about noticeable benefits, but I'm sure they're good for us. And like, one time, it was raining when we left and Sully said, "Well. I guess tonight we're going for a wet fart walk," and that was gross and funny and we all laughed and I've heard that laughter is the best medicine.

Therefore, fart walks are the best medicine.

Z - Zapped my friends in lazer tag, competed against them at that live video game place (the name of which escapes me right now), did an escape room, went to a dance party, and went to the arcade SEVERAL times. Apparently this was the year of acting like a preteen? Wonderful.

Okay! I'm sure there were other notable things about this year, but those are the ones that I thought of today. Tag, you're IT.

Talk About People Behind Their Backs!

noreply@blogger.com (Suzy Krause) — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 16:44:00 +0000

I had a dream the other night that I went to a library that sold books. And I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, Suzy, that's called a bookstore. But it wasn't, though. It was absolutely a library, but you had to pay for the books and then you got to keep them after. How did I know, in the dream, that it was a library, not a bookstore? Because there were librarians working there. They were absolutely librarians. You could just tell.

I know you think that's stupid. Okay, fine, bring me a librarian and a person who works at a bookstore. Just bring them to me and have them stand in front of me. 100% I'll know which is which.

So.

Anyway.

The library in my dream was named Indigo—no, I know, I know, that's the name of a major Canadian bookstore chain in real life. But in my dream, it was a library. It wasn't at all the same as the real life Indigo, because there wasn't a Starbucks attached to it. And, like I said, the librarians! They were all over the place.

So in this dream, I'm walking around this library, and I see this display with Valencia and Valentine (my first book) on it. Someone has made the cover artwork into a calendar, and it's very pretty and I call Barclay over and go, "Hey, look! They've made my book into a calendar!"

I know. I know libraries don't generally have calendars, and that Indigo bookstores generally do. Your beef is not with me; this is a dream. So I guess your beef is with my unconscious self, which is not here at the moment, because I'm awake. So chill.

Anyway.

In this dream, I'm standing there looking at the calendar and someone passes by and says, "Huh, I wonder why they chose that book to make into a calendar? It's her worst one."

And that person walks away and I just stand there, looking at my sweet little debut and thinking, Is this not a good book?

This, of course, is not the first time my brain has ever turned this question over. When I was querying that book and it got rejected, that was the first time I asked that question. And again when it was on subs and got rejected. And again when it was released into the world and people wrote mean reviews about it and, probably most of all, when people I knew in real life read it and then gave extremely half-hearted, "Oh, good for you for writing a book!" comments (or no comments at all!) (so well-meaning! I hold no grudges! I just internalize the self-doubt and move right along!).

But there's this saying, "Frontlist sells backlist," which means that when you come out with a new book, and people like it, they might be inclined to go off and find your older books and read those too. And this has been a small source of anxiety for me (there are those reading this who are rolling their eyes and saying to themselves, "Good grief! Is everything a source of anxiety for you, Suzy?" Yep!).

Because Valencia and Valentine was my very first attempt at fiction, and it was the most fun I've ever had writing a book, and it was a very vulnerable book to write, and one that sits very close to my heart, so when people shoot arrows at it, I get hit. And, also? It was probably my least well-received book—because it's a book about mental illness, and aging, and it's kind of sad and people found it fairly depressing, and again, I hold no grudges, but still! Ouch!

So I'm not really surprised about this dream I had, is what I'm saying, with the Valencia and Valentine calendar and the stranger doubting the validity or the goodness or whatever of that book. Because the stranger, really, was my own brain.

And because that book is now a full five years old, it's kind of faded away into the background—people aren't seeking it out, people aren't leaving reviews on it as much, people don't ask me about it in interviews. And I've been kind of okay to just let it float around out there, much more quietly—but now people might find it again and that's a little scary.

So I woke up from that dream and felt a little gross, the way you feel when someone sees you do something stupid and you can't take it back or make them unsee it. But then I logged onto TikTok and the very first thing that came up was...a video wherein someone was talking about how much they loved V&V.

I love, love, love when things like this happen. It feels good, of course, but it also reminds me that it's always a good idea to say good things about other people (or other people's books) behind their backs. You never know when it might find its way to them right when they could really use it.

The Dishwasher Post

noreply@blogger.com (Suzy Krause) — Wed, 20 Nov 2024 18:29:00 +0000

I've been about as active as a tree these past couple of weeks. Swaying a little in the wind, but mostly staying rooted in one spot. You want me over there? You'll have to literally chop my legs out from under me and haul me over in a wheelbarrow.

To be fair to me, because it's important that we're fair to me, it's been kind of a busy fall. Barclay went to Louisville, I went to Toronto, we all went to Saskatoon and Frontier. I had my book launch events and parties, I did interviews. The book was published in Canada in September, then hit First Reads in November, and will publish everywhere it hasn't already been in less than two weeks (this is by far the most prolonged publishing experience I have ever had). Behind the scenes, I've been working on other things, pitching other things, hanging out with my family, and trying to keep the house clean.

But I've also been thinking about how much I would like to write about the things that have happened this fall. It's been special, stressful, weird, fun, terrifying, miraculous, challenging, exciting, etc. Good. It's been very good. And I've learned a lot and grown a lot, and after 16 years of using this blog as a place to process life events, it feels like I haven't fully learned something or experienced something until I've written it down. But every time I sit down to write it out, I think, what first? Where do I even start?

Maybe it's like cleaning a house. You don't (or at least, I don't) start at the beginning of the house and clean it in order. I pick the most manageable thing and do that first. I load the dishwasher. An easy, small task that has a big impact and clears the counter off and helps me to see what needs to be done next.

Okay, so this is my loading the dishwasher post. It's not the first thing that happened this fall, or the most important, or the biggest. It's just the first thing I'm going to write about because, oddly, it's the first thing that comes to mind when I think about Fall 2024. Ahem:

When I travel to a different city, my brain short-circuits with enthusiasm. It screams, LOOK AT ALL THIS NEW STUFF. IT'S SO SUPERIOR TO ANYTHING YOU HAVE BACK HOME. I just love everything so much. I think, Why don't I live here? Look how beautiful these people are! The buildings! The trees! Their strangers are so kind, their sunsets are so pretty. Even their squirrels are better than our squirrels!

Rose-colored glasses, they call it. I always pack my rose-colored glasses.

So, okay,

I was landing the plane in Toronto—like, I wasn't landing the plane; I don't know why I wrote it like that but I'm leaving it because it's fun to imagine that I was landing the plane—but anyway, the pilot was landing the plane, and I was looking out the window. I saw the CN Tower and all of the lovely skyscrapers, and some tiny baseball diamonds and sweet little trucks doodling along that I could imagine plucking up off the roads and throwing right into Lake Ontario. As we got closer still, I saw rows and rows of what looked like lawn chairs, just perfectly lined up, a whole field of them, and I thought, what's this? It looks like an outdoor music festival! An outdoor music festival, on a Wednesday? In October? Amazing! I was so proud of Toronto for that. In Saskatchewan, we keep our outdoor music festivals to the summer months, because as soon as September 15 hits, everyone goes into their houses and starts complaining about the weather on Facebook. Oh,Toronto! I gazed down at it with my rose-colored glasses.

So I was sitting there in the sky, just thrilled that Toronto was holding some kind of outdoor music festival, and I was wondering who was playing and what I was missing and I was kind of marveling at how neatly the people had lined up their lawn chairs—maybe the festival planners had spray-painted lines on the ground so people would know exactly where to sit—when the plane dipped just a tiny bit lower and I noticed that all of the people seemed to be holding bouquets of flowers and I thought, wow! Everyone has flowers! That's just so lovel—and then I realized all at once that what I was seeing was not a music festival, not shiny happy people sitting in perfect rows holding bouquets of flowers and enjoying a concert on a Wednesday afternoon in October but actually...a graveyard. Neat rows of headstones with wreaths and funeral sprays on them.

And if that doesn't perfectly showcase my rose-colored glasses travel situation, I don't know what does.

Anyway. That's the dishwasher post. Tomorrow, I'll vacuum the floor. And I don't really know what that means just yet.

Ulp!

noreply@blogger.com (Suzy Krause) — Fri, 04 Oct 2024 20:15:00 +0000

In my second novel, Sorry I Missed You, there's an aging punk named Larry, who can't quite get over the fact that the scene as he once knew it has changed. He misses shows in friends' basements and non-orthopedic shoes and he's quite gatekeepy about the whole thing (but only because he cares so much and feels so adrift). Over the course of the book, he develops this dream of writing for Razorcake, a respected punk zine, and it becomes kind of a lifeline to him, a way to stay connected to the music of his youth in and come to terms with where he is—and what it is—now.

Razorcake actually is, in real life, a respected punk zine, published bi-monthly out of Los Angeles, California. However, the Razorcake in my book looks very different from the IRL one—it's more of an amalgamation of a few different sites and zines, and I had originally been planning on changing the name altogether, lest anyone familiar with the Real Razorcake read my little book and take issue with the things I changed to serve my plot. But then I was like, "Nah. I like this name,

and

I like that this is a real zine,

and

I like this zine,

and

no one from the real Razorcake is ever going to read this book."

Welp, fast forward to two days ago: I got an email from a guy named Todd who had finished reading Sorry I Missed You the night before. Oh, and...Todd just so happens to be the editor of Razorcake.

ULP.

It reminded me of the time I got an email from Ken Casey of the Dropkick Murphys, who also made an appearance in Sorry I Missed You. I didn't give him a very hard time in the book, but I also didn't take great care to speak effusively of him—because, like, again, as if the Dropkick Murphys are out there reading book club fiction about women working through relational issues in a coffee shop in Regina, Saskatchewan.

But again, I misjudged!

Luckily, both Ken and Todd are gracious and very nice people, and they didn't give me a very hard time (though they each did give me a little hard time) (but Todd also gave me some great music recs, so I feel like it was worth it).

But I've learned a valuable lesson—so valuable I guess I had to learn it twice, and I hereby solemnly swear that from now on, if I use the name of a real person or thing in any of my books, I will be so much more careful and conscious of the fact that one day their name could pop up in my email inbox.

(Also, thank you, Jennifer Whiteford, for tipping off your editor to Razorcake's presence in my book. It has made for a lovely email correspondence and several new bands on rotation over here. :))

(Also also, speaking of Jennifer Whiteford, she is also a novelist who has a book coming out THIS TUESDAY and it looks so good.)

Book Tour!

noreply@blogger.com (Suzy Krause) — Fri, 20 Sep 2024 18:55:00 +0000

Years ago, when I sold my first book, I made a list of writer goals. At the time, I didn't know very much about the actual life of a modern-day author. My ideals were informed by movies about fictitious authors, novels about fictitious authors, and magazine interviews with only very, very famous and successful real-life authors. I think this is why, when I made that list, it had on it all kinds of ridiculous, out-of-touch, nonsense goals. I really thought, there, I've done the hard part. Now it's all downhill; now I get to write down all my wildest daydreams and check them off as they come true, one by one.

LOL.

One of these goals? Go on a book tour! That was a feature in every single one of those movies and books, the debut author being sent by her publisher to various cool cities, picked up at the airport in a limo by a nervous publicist, somehow having amassed a large and loyal following in the three days since their book was acquired, edited, and published, despite not spending any time (on screen, anyway) doing any kind of social media marketing.

I was like, yes, that! Me! Want. Need, even!

But movies about writers are rarely accurate or realistic (despite the fact that they would, one would think, sometimes be written by writers) and one of the first things I learned as an author newbie was that most publishers don't really send most authors on books tours anymore. Yes, you might see authors going on book tours, but often those are paid for by the authors themselves, not the publishers (the exception seems to be that if you are already a very famous, very important author, then, as with everything in this business, you get to live that dream movie version of the author life—which is why my magazine exposure to only the most important writers of our time didn't give me such an accurate glimpse into the life of the...less important authors, which in reality is most of us).

I've released two books now. For my debut my friends threw me a party at The Paper Umbrella, which I never really posted about on here because I was so overwhelmed that entire summer, but it was beautiful and amazing and I was spoiled with a massive crowd of good friends and cookies decorated like the cover of Valencia and Valentine and twinkle lights in the back alley for when people got too warm in the shop and needed to get fresh air. It was so perfect that I didn't even mind that no one was sending me on a tour.

For my second book, I was meant to do a little signing at a book store in Saskatoon, as well as a launch party here in the city, and that was going to be the extent of my self-funded book tour, but everything got cancelled because it was June 2020 and there were, you know, other things going on in the world at the time.

So when I wrote my third book, the idea of a book tour was like a helium balloon I'd let go of long ago and completely forgotten about.

However.

When my agent sent me the deal memo from Radiant, who bought the Canadian rights to I Think We've Been Here Before, I was pleasantly surprised to see included in their offer that they would "support at least a three city tour" and that particular daydream came floating back into my brain.

It's fun when you let go of a dream and then it sneaks up on you again out of nowhere like that.

So anyway, all that to say, above is an early draft of my little book tour announcement graphic thing. There should be another date added soon, but the ones on there already are fairly finalized. If you're in any of these places at any of these times, you should come hang out. If you own a bookstore or are a librarian or have a book club and you want to hang, I'd be very happy to chat about adding your bookstore or library or whatever to the little book tour announcement graphic thing. If you're in Saskatchewan, you can book me through this form, and if you're not, email me at suzy@suzykrause.com and we can at least talk about it. :)

Book Soundtrack: I Think We've Been Here Before

noreply@blogger.com (Suzy Krause) — Fri, 06 Sep 2024 23:33:00 +0000

It is September 6, 2024, exactly two weeks and four days until pub day.

Or, so I thought.

I went into this month thinking to myself, okay, that is happening this month, but not until the END of this month. But then a couple of indie book stores put the book out, almost a full month early, and people started messaging me saying they were buying it. And then today, I woke up to more messages from people saying that Indigo sent out their preorders.

So what I'm saying is, this book is launched. This book is eager and sneaky and jailbreaky and it is OUT THERE where just any old person can get it and read it, and I can no longer smile smugly at everyone and say, "Sorry, you'll just have to wait until September 24," while secretly freaking out inside my brain trying to figure out how to flee the country before I have to start having awkward in-person conversations with people about my book.

It's here. We're there. Have mercy.

But in honor of this turn of events, I'm going share with you the Official I Think We've Been Here Before Playlist (pretend there are tooting horns now). If you've been here long enough, you know that I love making playlists and that I always make playlists for each of my books.

This time though, I'm going to share with you the lyrics from the songs that go with the book. You can do one of several things:

1. Listen to each song after you've read the corresponding chapter.

2. Listen to each song while you're reading the corresponding chapter.

3. Listen to each song before you read the corresponding chapter.

4. Listen to the whole playlist before and after you read the book and see if you feel any feelings either way.

I'd probably do a combo of #1 and #4. But you do you.

Okay. That's the preamble. Here's the playlist!

Chapter 1 (Nora): Last Christmas by Wham! (The Jimmy Eat World version)

Last Christmas, I gave you my heart
But the very next day, you gave it away
This year, to save me from tears
I'll give it to someone special

Chapter 4 (Hilda & Family): THE ONE MOMENT by OK Go

You're right
There's nothing more lovely
There's nothing more profound
Than the certainty
Than the certainty that all of this will end
That all of this will end

Chapter 5 (Nora and Sonja): WE WON'T LAST THROUGH DECEMBER by LJ Mercer

We won't last through December

My stomache's in my shoes

Chapter 9 (Petra): WE WILL BECOME SILHOUETTES by The Postal Service

I wanted to walk through the empty streets
And feel something constant under my feet
But all the news reports recommended that I stay indoors
Because the air outside will make
Our cells divide at an alarming rate
Until our shells simply cannot hold
All our insides in and that's when we'll explode
And it won't be a pretty sight

And we'll become
Silhouettes when our bodies finally go

Chapter 32 (Marlen & Hilda): SUBURBAN TREES by Jump, Little Children

(Note: This is a song I stumbled across on a Spotify playlist while I was doing my final edits. The scene where Marlen turns on the radio and the song The End of the World by Skeeter Davis is playing was already in there by then, so this felt like such a lucky find.)

Credits on the wall

scrolling ultra vision

static on the call

applauding the decision

End of the World

is playing on the radio

Chapter 36 (Hank & Irene): IN THE VALLEY BELOW by Dove Season

The season's comingThere's room for both of usYou can't choose your loveYou can't choose your loveI could use your loveCan't lose your loveIf this is the endLet's start all overStart all over againI believe we canStart all overOn earth as it is in heaven

Chapter 37 (Nora & Jacob): LOVER by Taylor Swift

We could leave the Christmas lights up 'til January
This is our place, we make the rules
And there's a dazzling haze, a mysterious way about you dear
Have I known you 20 seconds or 20 years?

Chapter 55 (Marlen & Hilda): SONG OF GOOD HOPE by Glen Hansard

Watch the signs nowYou'll know what they meanYou'll be fine nowJust stay close to meAnd may good hope, walk with you through everything

CHAPTER 59 (Nora & Jacob): APOCALYPSE NOW (& LATER) by Laura Jane Grace and the Devouring Mothers

The bliss of your kiss in the apocalypse
On top of the world, at the end of the world, with you

Chapter 62 (Nora & Jacob): IN THE AEROPLANE OVER THE SEA by Neutral Milk Hotel

What a beautiful dream
That could flash on the screen
In a blink of an eye and be gone from me
Soft and sweet
Let me hold it close and keep it here with me
And one day we will die
And our ashes will fly from the aeroplane over the sea
But for now we are young
Let us lay in the sun
And count every beautiful thing we can see

Chapter 68 (Everyone): STARS AND MOONS by Dizzy

I am starting to see stars and moons
(It's an awful sham, but I follow suit)
This is how it ends, a courageous boom
(Neighbours wave their hands, as we're passing through)
And it's awful sad how two lovers bloom
(Come and watch them dance, dance into their doom)
I am starting to see stars and moons
(Come and watch them dance)

Chapter 69 (Everyone): DON’T BE AFRAID, YOU’RE ALREADY DEAD by Akron/Family

Don't be afraid, you're already dead
Don't be afraid, you're already dead
Don't be afraid, you're already dead
Don't be afraid, you're already dead

Chapter 70 (Everyone): THE LAST CHRISTMAS (WE EVER SPEND APART) by The Arkells
(Note: I put this song on the playlist before I read all of the lyrics. Then when I went to write this blog post, I laughed at how perfect they ended up being...)

I'm sitting by the windowsill
I got nothing but time to kill
I took this all for granted, but I won't do that again
That'll be the last Christmas

BONUS TRACK:

TIME MACHINE by Daisy the Great

The sky is burning
No more need to hurry
We were right to worry
We were right to worry
The birds are gone now
The time has come now
Just close your eyes now
Just close your eyes now
The sea is crying
The moon is sighing
It's terrifying
It's terrifying
It's all around us
The end is ground us
The star has found us
I once read about a time machine
They learned to teach electrons
To go back to where they started
Should we go back to where we started?

Three Stories

noreply@blogger.com (Suzy Krause) — Tue, 27 Aug 2024 18:43:00 +0000

Have I ever told you about the time I was invited to an undisclosed location for supper by a complete stranger?

I don't think I've told this story here yet.

It happened a few years ago. I got an email in my inbox from someone who referred to themselves as 'The Concierge."

Dear Suzy, the message began, You are cordially invited to participate in The Influencers Dinner. This exclusive dining experience brings together twelve industry leaders ranging from TV/movie stars, Olympians, scientists, and business executives to famed artists, entrepreneurs, and Nobel Laureates for great conversation, food and drink.

Oh, I thought to myself, spam.

I read the rest of the email anyway because I nearly never don't. It had a specific date on it, and a time (7:00 PM sharp), and it said that the location would be provided upon RSVP (it did specify that the event might not be in Canada). There was also a bullet point list of what to expect:

* All attendees help prepare a simple meal together. No cooking experience is necessary.
* Guests do not discuss their careers.
* Once seated the attendees take turns guessing their fellow guest’s professions.
* The expense of the meal is covered by your host, Jon Levy.
* The guest list is kept secret.
* The invitation is non-transferable and only for you.

So then I was intrigued, right, because who wouldn't be? A meal at undisclosed location with quantifiably interesting strangers? It sounded cool, kind of shady, a little And Then There Were None-ish. I googled Jon Levy to see if there was a possibility that this thing might be real.

Here's what I found:

This

and this

and THIS.

Oh, I thought to myself, not spam.

I showed the email to Barclay. He said, "You should go."

I stared at him.

"You think I should?"

He nodded. "It sounds cool."

I frowned at him. "Doesn't it sound like we're all going to be murdered one by one by a host with a vendetta and I'm going to have to solve the mystery before he picks me off?"

"Well yeah," he said, "but there's a New York Times article saying it's not that. It looks legit."

He wasn't wrong. Still, I RSVPd no.

Did I ever tell you about the time I was invited to the Olympics in Tokyo?

This was a couple of years before the dinner party thing. I got a phone call from a guy I met once back in 2007. He lives in BC and he's a—well. He's a whole bunch of things. Podcaster, musician, studio engineer, etc. We hadn't spoken in years, but we followed each other on Instagram and he read my blog (maybe still does? Hi Jordan! Do you still read my blog?).

Anyway. He called me up out of the blue and told me that he'd been commissioned by NBC to produce their Olympics podcasts, and he was going to Tokyo to do it, and he wanted me to come along with him as the writer.

I told him I'd have to think about it. As one does.

Barclay got home from work and I told him about the phone call. I actually can't remember his reaction to that one, but it was probably similar to the dinner party thing. You should go and it sounds cool and all that. Barclay is truly the best, and that's one of the morals of these stories.

But, once again, I emailed Jordan and said I couldn't go.

(Side note, I just Googled him to make sure I was remembering correctly that it was NBC who commissioned the podcast and found out that, though the Olympics in Tokyo were kind of blighted by the whole Covid thing, Jordan went to the Olympics in Beijing in 2022 and won an Emmy for that podcast. One of two things is true: 1. I could've been on that team and won an Emmy or 2. I could've been on that team and kept Jordan from winning an Emmy and he's lucky I stayed home.)

So now you're blinking at the screen asking yourself, what is the point of these stories? You might be wishing I was standing in front of you right now so you should grab me by my shoulders and give me a good shake. You might be wanting more of an explanation as to why I said no to such objectively cool opportunities. Maybe you're wondering if I regret my decisions.

So.

Here's the thing: Sullivan was born almost 11 years ago and in that time, I have never—not once, not one single time—left the city overnight without him. I have done one staycation in a hotel in Regina while he slept at his grandparents' house twelve minutes away. I have, twice, gone for a day trip while he was in school.

I have watched friends go on trips without their children. Barclay has gone on trips alone. I see these people do this and while I do feel a twinge of envy, mostly I just think, HOW ARE THESE PEOPLE DOING THIS? It feels like watching someone swim with sharks or jump out of an airplane or sit with their legs dangling over the side of a mountain—things I abstractly want to do but cannot comprehend doing. My jealousy toward those who can is tempered with terror. I can't picture myself doing that, just like I can't picture myself stepping off a high diving board.

I know it's not healthy. I know it's objectively kind of silly. But it's my fear, not yours, and if you were right inside my head, you'd get it.

Have you read Valencia and Valentine (it's okay if you haven't, but there are spoilers ahead)? I wrote that book when Sully was a few years old and this terror was new to me. In the book, there's a woman who is terrified of leaving her city. She can't fly, she can't drive. She goes to the airport and eats airport muffins while she watches the planes take off, and she reads travel books from the library and she daydreams, but she doesn't get up the courage to get on a flight herself until <spoiler> she's an elderly woman.

Lots of people on the internet were big mad about that ending. They said the book was depressing, because this woman spent her whole life afraid to do something and only did it at the very last minute, and even then she only went as far as the airport in New York and then turned around and flew home again. They felt that she didn't conquer her fear. But lots of other people understood the ending, and I think the people who understood it are the people who get that conquering a fear doesn't have to be this huge, extravagant thing, especially when your fear feels so insurmountable, and that there's not really a time limit on it either. To have done something that scares you, even at the last minute, and even if it's something that most people feel is no big deal...is a big deal. </end spoiler>

All that to say: I said no to Tokyo and to the Mystery Dinner Party because I was afraid. And both times, I thought of the book I had just written and published, and I thought of the scene where Valencia is sitting in the airplane seat looking out the window and thinking I should've done this sooner, and while I felt a tiny bit hypocritical, I didn't feel hopeless or regretful about any of it. I just thought, hm, I'm already working this out subconsciously. I'll get there someday. And wanting to get there is probably half the battle.

Okay, one more story.

When I signed with my Canadian publisher, they asked me to go get blurbs from a few Canadian authors. I already had some American ones, but this was a Canadian book published by a Canadian publisher, so we wanted to have some Canadian authors on the cover of it. One of the authors I reached out to was Marissa Stapley (I've told this part of this story before, here). Long story short (because you can read the long version of it at that link), Marissa read my book and sent along the loveliest blurb.

Then, in June, she also sent an email asking if I would like to do an event with her in Toronto. Just me and her, at a bookstore, talking about our books.

I admit, I dismissed it right away as something that would be amazing, but which would not be happening. I would allow myself a quick daydream, like I had with the Tokyo and dinner party emails, and then I'd come back to reality, my reality, where I can't leave the kids, and I would send a sad and apologetic email saying thank you so incredibly much, but no.

I closed the computer and told Barclay about the email, and he did his usual supportive-but-not-pressuring husband bit. And I said, Yeah, yeah, I know. But no.

And he said, But maybe you should actually think about it. Before you say no.

So I did. Being invited to go to Toronto and do an event with a literary superstar was absolutely a dream come true—but even more than that, Marissa and I have become friends, and I really think it would be so fun to actually meet her and go for supper and get to know her IRL. Not to mention the other friends I've made but not met who live in the Toronto area—other authors and people from the blogging world and people from the publishing world and a whole sweet book club of people I've met only on Zoom...

I thought of Valencia on the airplane saying I should've done this sooner and I thought of the angry Goodreads reviewer who said that she couldn't think of anything more depressing than an adult being stuck in a jail cell they've made up in their head (and I mean, this is a terrible perspective on anxiety but I still thought of it). I thought of Tokyo and all of the interesting people I might've met at the mystery dinner party. I thought of the times I travelled on my own before becoming a mother, and about how much fun I had then, and I thought of how often I talk to my kids about anxiety and fear and how I tell them that sometimes it's okay to sit something out if you feel like you need to, but sometimes it's really, really worth it to push yourself and do something that feels scary.

And then I realized that if I kept thinking, I would go in a circle and end up at the beginning, so I stopped thinking and I sent Marissa an email.

I said yes and I hit send before I could change my mind.

And today I'm booking my flights.

So. If you are in the Toronto area on October 10, you could come to Type Books (Junction) at 7:30 pm and witness a 37-year-old lady doing something incredibly normal and chill, but you'll know how big of a deal it'll all be inside my head and we can exchange knowing glances.

Spiraling

noreply@blogger.com (Suzy Krause) — Tue, 13 Aug 2024 23:42:00 +0000

Our mailman is one of those weirdos who listens to podcasts at full volume on his phone's speaker instead of using earbuds or headphones. So, every single morning at about 9 o'clock, I hear what sounds like a small crowd of self-important men making their way up my sidewalk, talking over each other, forcing laughter, saying, "Yeah, no, but here's the thing, my guy, here's the thing—"

This is about the time I'm making my first cup of coffee for the day. The kids go downstairs and play video games, and I sit next to the open window and try to work on the new book, or publicity stuff for the other book, or, if nothing's flowing in either of those places, I'll come on here and write a blog post.

Clearly nothing's flowing in either of those places at the moment, because here I am.

This is kind of to be expected though and I'm trying to be gentle with my brain. My next book comes out in a little more than a month (unless you're in the States, because the pub date there has been changed, but more on that later), and I'm in this awkward space where I know I'm supposed to be yelling at everyone to post about my book! and preorder now! and ask your library to order it in! but...I still feel so weird doing that. I thought this part of things would get easier as I gained confidence in myself, but I have learned, as I've said before, that publishing is a humility boot camp and I have not actually gained said confidence.

Maybe later?

But now is not later, and I know this because I posted a giveaway the other day on Instagram (which is still open), and the way you enter is just to share the giveaway post, either on Instagram, or by text message to a friend, or with your book club, or on Facebook, or whatever, and it is so ridiculous how nervous I was to do that. I made the post the day my author copies came in the mail and then sat on it for a week, and then decided I might not do it after all, then made a quick mental u-turn, cutting dangerously across several lanes of oncoming traffic (this is maybe a metaphor for ignoring my self preservation instincts?) and hit that terrifying post button head-on.

Then I spent the whole day cringing, wound up so tight I thought I was going to snap my neck if I turned to look at something behind me. The worst was when the name of one of my friends appeared on my screen. I worried they were secretly judging me for being so annoying about the whole book promo thing—or, worse, not secretly judging, but openly judging in group chats and in-person conversations with other people I know. And I was sympathizing with them! At what point do you start rolling your eyes a little, you know? At what point do I start to sound like the self-important men on my mailman's blaring podcasts? Join my Patreon! Buy my sponsored products! I have opinions about the infrastructure of New York!

There's just so much noise online these days, and we're all very tired of being advertised at; I'm worried about adding to it. Words like 'must read' have begun to sound less like a glowing endorsement and more like a homework assignment. I wish my books could just go out into the world, separate from me, and do their thing, but they're clinging to my legs, hiding behind me, making me speak for them like shy children. And I have to do it, because if I want to write more books, I need to sell the ones I've already written. I hate the word 'hustle' and yet hustle I must.

I guess at some point you just need to trust that your friends are going to love you even if they need to mute you on social media for a month or two? Or maybe you can even dare to believe that some of them enjoy seeing your name pop up on their screen, yet again, because they understand that a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do and she is so, so, so sorry but she's gonna do it anyway?

Anyway. There is no point to this ramble. I'm just spiraling (just a dainty, neat little spiral, nothing dramatic) and I need you to know that I am EXTREMELY aware that I'm very annoying, and I will continue to be annoying until probably December, and then I'm going to chill right out and be so fun to be around.

(But actually I will be spiraling in a different direction at that point because my book will be out in the world and I never handle that well. Who keeps letting me do this?)

Quantum Entanglement and Modest Mouse

noreply@blogger.com (Suzy Krause) — Mon, 12 Aug 2024 22:33:00 +0000

I have this friend; her name's Becky. We've known each other for almost two decades now, but we didn't become Actual Friends right away. She was one of those people who just kept crossing my path until we realized we were destined to be in each other's lives.

We went to the same school in The Middle of Nowhere, Saskatchewan but ran in different circles. She moved to Saskatoon after that and just so happened to live in a house with a close friend of mine. I'd stay in that house when I visited that friend, but didn't really interact with Becky at all when I was there (although! Once I played a Modest Mouse album on my friend's laptop and Becky got into them because of that, so that counts as the very first of many music recommendations to pass between the two of us. Years later, I would go for coffee with her for the first time and we'd talk about music and she'd say she liked Modest Mouse and I'd get so excited to have something in common with her and she'd tell me that it was me who'd introduced her to them in the first place).

When I moved to Regina and started dating my now-husband, he mentioned one day that he'd said my name at work and one of his coworkers had been like, "Huh, I wonder if that's the same Suzy I sort of know." I said, What's the girl's name? And he said, Becky. And I said, Of course it is.

We became real friends after that. I don't think we really had a choice, which is a good thing.

She moved away a few years ago, but we stay in touch, texting and visiting and sending snail mail. And here's the weird thing: on some other inexplicable level, our brains have stayed in touch even without our technological aid.

The first time I really noticed this, I was sitting at my desk working on a book and a song popped into my head that I hadn't heard or thought of in years—probably since I was a teenager. I texted Becky:

Remember this song from, like, 1998? It randomly popped into my head this morning.

Her reply:

SUZY. That song just as randomly came to me today; I've had it on repeat over here!

This keeps happening, and it never gets less weird—if anything it's stranger each time because the probability goes down. Chances of something like that happening once? Slim but not nonexistent. Chances of it happening over and over...?

So weird.

And it extends beyond music. She'll become interested in a very specific topic and text me about it, only to find I've been reading articles about that thing and listening to podcasts about it already. A person from some leg of our shared history will come to both of our minds, unbidden, at the same time. I'll think of her and my phone will light up with her name on the screen. It's like some part of our brains, at some point, got synced up.

One day, a year or so after the first notable instance of our invisible communications, I was listening to a podcast (and I so wish I could remember the name of it so I could share it with you) on which a physicist was explaining the concept of quantum entanglement. He was talking about how scientists had figured out how to entangle two particles so that they behave as one object. They could put one particle on a spaceship and send it into outer space, and still the objects would not become unlinked. The podcast explained that this was a process that happened naturally as well, but it wasn't very well understood yet how.

As described by Space.com:

"Quantum entanglement is a bizarre, counterintuitive phenomenon that explains how two subatomic particles can be intimately linked to each other even if separated by billions of light-years of space. Despite their vast separation, a change induced in one will affect the other."

Or, as Einstein famously put it:

"Spooky action at a distance."

I found this concept fascinating. It feels, at first, a little magical and abstract, but I think the thing I love most about it is that it's just...science. It's testable and provable and it points to the fact that there is so much more going on around us (and within us?) than is physically or easily observable.

So. Am I saying that Becky and I are entangled on a quantum level, and that's why we always get the same super-random songs stuck in our heads, or get obsessed with the same topics at the same time without each other's knowledge, or any other number of strange coincidental things? I don't know. I've done a lot of reading about it, and there seems to be some debate about whether it's possible for people to become entangled with each other, but there also seems to be some proof of it. And when I was writing I Think We've Been Here Before, I decided that in the world in which I was setting this scenario and these characters? Yes. It's possible. And this is the cool thing about writing fiction: you get to learn as much as you possibly can about the way the world actually works, you get to marvel at it, sit in awe of it...and then, once you feel like you have a grasp on the rules, you get to break or bend or stretch whichever ones you want to suit your purposes. You get to fill in the blanks where scientists have said, "We don't know about this!"

It's very fun.

Book Soundtrack: Sorry I Missed You

noreply@blogger.com (Suzy Krause) — Mon, 03 Jun 2024 19:41:00 +0000

Shortly after Sorry I Missed You came out, I began to get emails and texts and passing comments from various people asserting that they knew—they knew—exactly who I had used as inspiration for the character of Larry, the slightly embarrassing, badly-aging ex-punk. And their confidence was so funny, because no two people guessed the same person, and no one guessed the person who had really inspired him.

Partly because no single person had inspired him—he was an amalgamation of people I’ve seen in coffee shops and people I’ve met once or twice and now follow on instagram and people I knew in high school and people I know now and…well, me.

Actually, mostly me.

I get why people didn’t guess that one—Larry is a man, first of all, and I’m not a man. Larry is a solid decade or so older than me. Larry listens to old punk at the exclusion of all else while my taste in music spans a lot of genres and decades. Larry is a whole bunch of other things that I’m not.

Besides all of that, a lot of people just plain didn’t like Larry, and thought I had written him in an unlikeable way because I didn’t like him either. So how could he be me? If I were basing a character on myself, wouldn’t I cast them in a more agreeable light?

But this is true for pretty much every unlikeable character I’ve ever written: I think they come across as unlikeable or unliked because they’re based on me—because when I’m writing looking inward, I’m not afraid to be mean the way I would be if I’d been inspired by someone who could conceivably read the book and recognize themselves. Aren’t we all our own worst critic? And isn’t that, kind of, an asset in this case?

So what of mine did I give to Larry? A deep love for music—live music, especially—and an instinct to be a little gatekeepy about it, borne mostly out of sadness for the way the world is changing, sadness for the way that he himself is changing, sadness that things can’t just stay the way they were (because how they were, in that little pocket of time, in those venues, with those people, was just so fun. And maybe Larry, like myself, suffers from a lack of self-awareness about this. He has a hard time recognizing that things are fun for the next generations too, even if it looks different now).

But, as characters often do, Larry also gave some things to me!

Like I said: he was more than a decade older than I was when I wrote that book, so the music scene of his youth was pretty different from the one I’d experienced. I grew up in Frontier, a tiny village far, far away from…well, anything. We did not have a thriving punk scene. We did not have an indie record store. We didn’t even have high speed internet; if I wanted to download a single song it required four hours of internet connection, usually thwarted by a family member innocently picking up the phone somewhere in the house. So my exposure to punk music in my teen years was limited to a couple of local bands (“local” meaning within a two hour radius of me) and a CD binder I borrowed from a friend for the better part of a year that contained a lot of burned CDs and every single Fat Wreck Chords compilation album ever made. There was also one Very Exciting Road Trip to Calgary for the Warped Tour at the end of my grade 12 year. After that, I moved to Saskatoon and started going to punk and hardcore shows at the Bassment all the time, but that scene was, by then, fairly far removed from the DIY punk scene of the 90s.

So I had to do a little research, is what I’m saying, which was very fun. I read Razorcake and a lot of very pretentious but wonderful blogs and I scoured Reddit and followed several musical rabbit holes all over the place on Spotify. I found, expectedly, that people who are really intense about music are intense about it in very similar ways across genres and generations—and maybe that’s why so many people read Sorry I Missed You and thought, “HEY, that’s meant to be so-and-so!” or “Hey, I think that’s me!” or whatever.

Annnnyway.

Here’s the playlist I made when I was writing that book. It has a few songs from my “research,” as well as a lot of songs about ghosting and being ghosted, songs about aging, and songs about getting over people who feel impossible to get over. Because those are the things that book is about. :)

The Sky is Falling!

noreply@blogger.com (Suzy Krause) — Wed, 29 May 2024 17:09:00 +0000

I went downtown yesterday and found it full of police cars and a firetruck and a crowd of people looking up at one of Regina's very few skyscrapers. My first thought was that someone was going to jump, but before I could worry about that for too long a lady yelled at me, "THERE'S GLASS FALLING FROM THE SKY!"

I looked up.

That's not a great instinct, is it? Apparently I have not one ounce of self-preservation.

But the crowd of people was acting very casual. Even the lady who yelled at me wasn't frantic; it felt more like she just wanted to be the one to tell people, like it made her feel important to be the one spreading the news, and I thought, fair enough. It's fun to get to be the one to tell people stuff, and how much more when that stuff is really important? Like, "The sky is falling!"? Chicken Little knows. There's a reason that story is an enduring classic; it's so relatable.

All this to say, no one seemed worried, so I wasn't worried either. Like, if there was glass falling from the sky in an actively harmful way, wouldn't everyone be running for cover? Screaming? Shielding themselves with their jackets and backpacks and significant others? But everyone was just staring upward, eyes and mouths open, like they wanted to be showered in glass from the heavens.

It's times like this when you really understand that people, at the very core of their being, think they're invincible. Like, none of us would ever say it it like that, but we do. We say, "See you later," as we leave our friends without considering that it's entirely possible we might not see them later. We do risky things all day every day without a care in the world. We hear there's glass raining from the sky and we look up.

We are so silly!

Anyway, I walked on. (I saw on Instagram later that a pane of glass from high up on one of the towers had blown out, or something. I hope it didn't hit anyone.)

I was listening to music in my headphones as I walked, and I was at the part in Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth with Money in My Hand, about 60 seconds in, where there's a bell ringing in the background, and I suddenly became aware that the bell was not only in my headphones but also outside of my headphones. I paused the music and looked around and, sure enough, there was a man standing nearby with a bell, ringing it over and over again, only slightly off-time with the one in the song. It was odd, to feel as though whoever was ringing the bell in the song had climbed out into my real life, standing right there in front of me. He was also yelling, at the top of his lungs, "JESUS LOVES YOU! JESUS LOVES YOU! JESUS LOVES YOU!" He had literature to hand out.

Everyone around the man was ducking and trying to avoid eye contact with him, and I starting laughing to myself as I hurried past. I was thinking, this is probably what we all should've done when there was glass raining from the sky. We're not afraid of dying, as a society, because we don't actually think we will, but we are terrified of Jehovah's Witnesses.