SueHarrison.com

We are in the process of compiling frequently asked questions. If you have a question you would like to ask Sue please email it to her at sue@sueharrison.com.

Question: First of all, I’d like to say what a great fan of your work I am. Your books are wonderful! As for my question, did you originally plan to make Mother Earth Father Sky the first installment in a trilogy, or did you come up with the stories for the rest of the trilogy after its success?
Answer: Dear Storygirlkate, Thank you for your kind words about my novels! Actually the first version of Mother Earth Father Sky was huge and long, and I was getting many rejections on it. At the advice of an agent, I broke the novel up and rewrote a section into what we now call Mother Earth Father Sky. After its success, I had all that other material, and so with quite a few changes wrote the other two books of the trilogy. Thanks for asking!

A comment from Tiffinnie: I am a big fan of your books and am curious if you are working on another trilogy.
Dear Tiffinnie: Thank you for your interest! My publisher has encouraged me to try a different genre.  I have just completed a mystery thriller.  The book is quite different from the novels in my two Alaska trilogies, but one that I believe my readers will enjoy.  The novel’s working title is BILLIONS. This is the positioning statement or “hook”.

The day Marisol Smith became a millionaire, she worked the 5 a.m. shift at the Main Street Cafe.

Question: Could you please tell me a little about your childhood and why you decided to become a writer?
Answer: I grew up in the little town of Pickford (population 600) in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. This is a very under populated and remote area of Michigan with lots of woods and rivers. Our average winter snowfall is more than ten feet (three meters). Pickford is within a hour’s drive of three of the Great Lakes (Michigan, Huron and Superior) so we spent much of our summers on the beach enjoying various water sports. I am the oldest of five children. My father was a teacher and my mother a musician (piano and organ). Both of my parents love to read, and we had a house full of books. When I was ten years old, my grandmother gave me a copy of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s book, LITTLE HOUSE IN THE BIG WOODS. This is a beautifully written novel about pioneer life in the 1860’s. The words seemed to sing, and I could see the whole book in my mind as if I were watching a movie. I was fascinated with the idea that words could “make pictures” in the mind, and decided that I, too, wanted to write books, and that I would write novels.

Question: Why did you decide to write about Alaska and the ancient history of the Aleut people?
Answer: In the winter of 1977-78, when my children were old enough that I could consider beginning my first novel. (Our son Neil was five and our daughter Krystal three.) I read Alex Haley’s novel ROOTS, a history of the African-American people in the United States. That novel was a great inspiration to me, and I began to hope that I could write about the “roots” or beginnings of the Native American people in North America. I first began to study the Natives of my own state, Michigan, but then realized that if I really wanted to write about the very first people on this continent, I had to study Alaska and its Native peoples. Anthropologists and archaeologists generally agree that the Native peoples of North and South America originated in Asia and traveled to North America by way of a now-submerged land bridge that straddled the Bering Straits and connected Siberia with western Alaska thousands of years ago.

I began research on various Native groups and came across a small book written by Dr. William Laughlin entitled, ALEUTS, SURVIVORS OF THE BERING LAND BRIDGE. In this book, I read that Dr. Laughlin had uncovered a village that was nearly nine thousand years old and that he believed the people who had lived in that village were the ancestors of the present-day Aleut people. I was hooked, and the more I read about the Aleut culture and the Aleut people, the more excited I became. They lived in a very harsh and hostile environment, had learned to hunt whales for meat and survived a number of volcanic eruptions — all fine material for an exciting novel.

Question: How long did it take you to get your first novel published?
Answer: I began my first novel MOTHER EARTH FATHER SKY in the winter of 1977-78. After three years of research and nearly four years of writing, I had completed my novel (at least to the point that I felt I could submit chapters to agents and publishers). Although I sent my first query letter in 1984, I did not find an agent until 1989. Slightly discouraging! At least two of those five years were spent in rewriting the novel according to suggestions made by agents. Finally in January of 1989, my novel was accepted by agent Rhoda Weyr who sold it several months later at auction to Doubleday of Bantam, Doubleday, Dell. MOTHER EARTH FATHER SKY went on to become a national bestseller in the United States and has also been translated and published in twenty countries in Europe, South America and Asia. It was chosen as a Best Books for Young Adults (a crossover from the adult market) by the American Library Association in 1991 and was a Main Selection of the Literary Guild Book Club. Quite a good outcome for a much rejected book!

Question: You say you sent your first query letter in 1984, but did not find an agent until 1989. You add that two of those five years were spent in rewriting according to suggestions made by agents. Did the suggestions those agents made stand when the book was published?
Answer: One of the agents who rejected my first novel, Mother Earth Father Sky, gave me very good general advice as to making the book more marketable (pare it down, concentrate on one or two main characters, add a little more information about the climate and location). I did all these things – a truly extensive rewrite – and within a year of completing the changes was taken on as a client by Ms. Weyr who sold the novel to Doubleday, and since then to publishers and bookclubs in twenty other countries around the world.