Where Writers Write: Sue Mell

 Welcome to another installment of TNBBC's Where Writers Write!

 

Where Writers Write is a series that features authors as they showcase their writing spaces using short form essay, photos, and/or video. As a lover of books and all of the hard work that goes into creating them, I thought it would be fun to see where the authors roll up their sleeves and make the magic happen. 

This is Sue Mell. 

Sue's story collection, A New Day, was a finalist for the 2021 St. Lawrence Book Award, and was released from She Writes Press September 3rd, 2024. Her debut novel, Provenance, won the Madville Publishing Blue Moon Novel Award, and was selected as a Great Group Read by the Women's National Book Association and as an Indie Fiction Pick by the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses. Her collection of micro essays, Giving Care, won the Chestnut Review Prose Chapbook Prize. She earned her MFA from Warren Wilson, was a BookEnds fellow at SUNY Stony Brook, and lives in Queens, NY. Learn more at www.suemell.com. You can also find her here: Substack , Instagram , Facebook. 

Where Sue Mell Writes

The bane of a short person’s writing life is finding a chair that allows your feet to comfortably reach the floor, and this petite—and very expensively reupholstered—blue armchair was the preferred seat of my creativity for many years. But then my mom took a catastrophic fall down the stairs of the house in Queens where I grew up, and I wound up moving back home from San Francisco, and becoming her caregiver. By the time I finally gave up my San Francisco apartment and shipped my stuff back east—almost all of it still sitting in a storage unit—I’d grown used to simply writing in bed. The more crucial requirements being quiet and a window where I can see the ever-changing sky and light, the seasons reflected in the trees and attire of people passing on the street below.

 

The space where I’ve been writing for the past six years is what used to be my parents’ and then my mom’s bedroom—which seems like it should require at least some therapy! At first, we didn’t know how well, or even if, she’d survive her fall, and during the many months she was in rehab, I didn’t change anything in what still felt like her room. But over time I slowly moved my mom’s things out and made it my own. Though it still holds a temporary feeling of “for now.” An interim space I’ve carved out for an indeterminable period that only grows shorter as time goes on.

 

My mom’s bedroom is now downstairs in what used to be the dining room, and a month or so ago, when I bent over to change her in the bed, I made a foolish twist, tweaking my hip in such a way that I pinched a nerve. Ice, heat, and chiropractic have helped, but it’s still painful for me to sit for any length of time. So I now work at a “standing desk,” otherwise known as the little riser I bought to bring my laptop’s camera to eye level for Zooms. Besides the physical benefits, standing grants me a more expansive view. Birds and cars zipping past, branches swaying under the weight of a squirrel in the old mulberry tree, and right now a slouchy guy in a white tank top sauntering across the avenue. Maybe he’ll end up in a story.

 

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A New Day: Stories: Mell, Sue: 9781647427429: Amazon.com: Books

For fans of Lily King’s Five Tuesdays in Winter, a contemporary short story collection that explores the depths of everyday humanity and the universal yearning for new beginnings.

Linked by their personal and professional relationships, the characters in these thirteen stories—all set between 1982 and 2012—struggle to achieve happiness and success. A coke-fueled night with a photographer costs a young woman her job in the display department of Bloomingdale’s, but holds a hidden promise. A sculptor tries to resurrect his relationship with an old flame on the same day her best friend is undergoing a bone marrow transplant. An aspiring actress drifts from house-sit to house-sit until an armed robbery at the restaurant where she works makes her question a lifelong pattern of impermanence.

Moody, elegiac, and full of longing, with ricocheting themes of desire and loss, A New Day’s stories are steeped in the highs and lows inherent in the pursuit of love and creative expression.

The 40 But 10: Lori D'Angelo

I had decided to retire the literary Would You Rather series, but didn't want to stop interviews on the site all together. Instead, I've pulled together 40ish questions - some bookish, some silly - and have asked authors to limit themselves to answering only 10 of them. That way, it keeps the interviews fresh and connectable for all of us!

Today we are joined by Lori D'Angelo. Lori is a grant recipient from the Elizabeth George Foundation, a fellow at the Hambidge Center for Creative Arts, and an alumna of the Community of Writers. She holds an MA from Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and an MFA from West Virginia University. Her work has appeared in various literary journals including BULL, Drunken Boat, Gargoyle, Moon City Review, Reed Magazine, and Rejection Letters.

Why do you write?

I write because I can’t not write. I have things I want to say, and writing is the way I make sense of the world. I think that writing helps me process reality and try to deal with the way the world is versus the way I think it should be.

 

If you could have a superpower, what would it be?

Maybe the ability to time travel or fly. Flying would actually be really cool because you could avoid the hassle of commuter traffic, which is the bane of my existence some days. Time travel is just something I’ve really interested in, that and the multiverse. I’ve read and thought a lot about those topics. I think it’s interesting to think about not only what is but what could have been.

 

Describe your book in three words.

Monsters. Love. Hope.

 

What are you currently reading?

Shelved Under Murder by Victoria Gilbert, Before We Say Goodbye by Toshikazu Kawaguchi, and Chaos by Patricia Cornwell.

 

What genres won’t you read? 

I’ll read pretty much anything, but I have struggled to get into graphic novels. I think I just prefer to create the pictures in my head versus having someone else create them for me. Plus, these can be difficult to read electronically, and I do tend to read a lot of books online in the Libby app.

 

If you were stuck on a deserted island, what’s the one book you wish you had with you?

Pride and Prejudice. No matter how many times I read that book, I continue to be delighted and surprised by it. Even though I know what’s going to happen, each time I read it, I still feel the tension, the conflict, and the joy as if I don’t know what’s going to happen. It’s just such a masterful novel.

 

You have to choose an animal or cartoon character that best represents you. Which is it and why? 

I love cats. When I was a kid, I used to love the cartoon character Garfield. I think I probably like Garfield because he likes sitting around, eating lasagna, and making wisecracks. As a writer, I definitely enjoy using humor to make sense of the world.

 

What would you do if you could live forever? 

It would be cool to travel and see the whole planet. I don’t know if that’s more something you could do if you could live forever or something you could do if you had unlimited time and resources. If you could live forever, it would definitely give you the resource of time, and having all the time would hopefully give you the ability to access other resources as well such as the money you would need to see the world.

 

What songs would be on the soundtrack of your life? 

“If We Were Vampires” by Jason Isbell, “March, March” by the Chicks, “Said I Loved You . . .But I Lied” by Michael Bolton, “I’m in a Hurry (And Don’t Know Why” by Alabama, “Shallow” by Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper, and “I Won’t Back Down” by Tom Petty. These are some of the songs.

 

Are you a book hoarder or a book unhauler? 

I am definitely a hoarder. I like keeping books that I love for a very long time. I feel like books that I love become part of me, and I don’t want to let them go. Occasionally, when I move or I just have an overwhelming amount of them, I do let them go, but I prefer to keep them. I feel like the books you treasure become a part of you. 

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The Monsters Are Here – ELJ Editions (elj-editions.com)

Releases on Halloween!

You’d better strap in because Lori D’Angelo is taking you places. A little bit of Kelly Link, a little Kathy Fish, D’Angelo is most of all herself, bringing us the most imaginative collection of fiction I have had the pleasure of reading in a long time. The Monsters Are Here heralds a new voice in contemporary fiction—I can’t wait to see what Lori D’Angelo does next.

 

--Stephanie Vanderslice, author of The Lost Son and The Geek’s Guide to the Writing Life

 

Monsters are here. So are vampires, mermaids, murderers, werewolves, fortunetellers, and dozens of less outlandish but no less remarkable characters. Lori D’Angelo’s debut collection is as entertaining as it is unpredictable. Each story is a ride into the strange and stunning. Read this book, and you’ll be dazed, dazzled, and delighted.

 

—Mark Brazaitis, author of American Seasons and The Incurables

 

The monsters are here, and what a glorious invasion it is! Whether it’s an uptight vampire accountant stretching her fangs or a werewolf realizing she loves her dad-boded buddy, the characters in Lori D’Angelo’s debut story collection are wonderfully human. These, smart, often hilarious tales haunted me in the best possible way. 

 

—Shari Goldhagen, author of In Some Other World, Maybe

 

What an exciting debut for Lori D’Angelo with her collection, The Monsters Are Here. Each of these stories introduces a new spectacle of innovation and heart, of humor and horror. D’Angelo’s characters occupy worlds where the impossible overlaps the real and sincerity is bordered by absurdity. I loved reading these stories, eating them up one after another, so engrossed by these narratives, this writer’s vision.

—Michael Czyzniejewski, author of The Amnesiac in the Maze: Stories

What I Read in August

 Welcome fall, whether I want it here or not. Sigh. While I love the changing colors and fall vibes (sweaters, boots, pumpkin spice lattes) I really dislike the cooler weather and here in NEPA, winter quickly follows it. 

In August, I read 13 books in total, which is an acceptable and pretty average number for me. But for the most part, this was one of the most underwhelming reading months I've experienced so far this year. Only one was a 5 star read and one of the books was DNFd after the 100 page mark. 

I did align some of my reading with Women in Translation Month by reading a few translated titles too! 

Come check out which books I spent my time with: 

Under the Eye of the Big Bird by Hiromi Kawakami

I requested this review copy because I thought it sounded sooo frick'n good, but instead it ended up being a little bit of a let down.

Less novel, and more a series of interconnected stories depicting the near extinction of the human race, Under the Eye of the Big Bird is a cautionary futuristic tale spanning hundreds and thousands of years. After a series of not completely clear catastrophic events, both human and AI driven, those remaining were forced to isolate into separate societies, which then set off interesting and unpredictable evolutionary chain reactions.

The stories are not told in any particular order, and while I enjoyed each one on its own individually, it was easier to find the connective threads between some, and was much much harder with others.

Honestly, having finished the book and knowing what I know now, I'm tempted to give it a second read because I am certain it will all come crashing together more cohesively and the order in which each story takes place will make so much more sense. And it might even earn a higher rating from me. But sadly, my gigantic TBR is calling, and I cannot afford to spend time rereading a book just to make it all make more sense.

Onward, my fellow readers.

(though, if you do end up reading this one, and after having a similar experience decide to reread it in order to make it make more sense, I'd love to know if that works!!)

(and also, can I just say how much I dislike this title? It makes me think of "under his eye" from Handmaids Tale and Sesame Street. Sigh.)

The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa

This was recommended by someone who has incredibly similar tastes in literature, so when he mentioned I might like it, I ordered a copy post haste. I also bumped it up the TBR pile because this month is Women in Translation month so what better time, right?

It was a sweet and heartwarming story of a housekeeper who is assigned to care for an aging mathematician who has a unique memory condition. As a result of a traumatic brain injury, his long term memory stops in 1975 but his short term memory resets every 80 minutes.

The housekeeper and the professor soon find a comfortable rhythm. Each day when she arrives with her young son introductions are made at the door, a few routine questions around her birthday and phone number, or the shape of her son's head (which is quite flat and for which the professor kindly nicknames him Root), and the conversations almost immediately turns to numbers and baseball.

You wouldn't think it, with all the math references and theories and baseball statistics (all of which I know very little of and care about even less, lol), but it's a quick enjoyable read. One that focuses on finding friendships in the unlikeliest of places, seeing someone for more than just their disability, and learning to view life through the lens of others' joy. I especially enjoyed how the impact they each have on one another could be felt through the pages.

Q: What book have you read that contained a sub-area of focus that was a bit outside your comfort zone but that you still found to be wholly enjoyable?

Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin

Still keeping up with #WomeninTranslationMonth by inhaling this in one sitting while soaking up the sun on the back deck in the late afternoon.

A woman is dying in a room somewhere. Sitting with her is a boy, but he's not her son, and she is not his mother. He is making her describe the moments leading up to this moment, to the thing that landed her in this room, in this condition, and is desperately trying to get her to understand what is happening before she runs out of time.

This one definitely did not disappoint. I was expecting weird and feverish and I got so much more! Who cares that the ending didn't really resolve itself. It was dripping with tension and hidden intent and had my anxiety cranked all the way up.

This is one I would encourage you to read in one go. Although, honestly, once you start, I can't image how you would be capable of putting it down (even for a bio break).

Earthlings by Sayaka Murata

This was on my kindle for the longest time and I saw so many of you reading it lately. So with this being Women in Translation month, I thought, sure. Why not. Let's dust this bad boy off and get her read.

But ooooff. Really?

I like weird. This is not new news. But maaaan, you #bookstagrammers seem to like your weird on a whole different level! Shaking my head at how many of you are raving over this one.

<<<SPOILERS BELOW. BE WARNED>>>

What starts off with a young, confused girl who survived the horrors of a mentally abusive family and a sexually abusive teacher devolves into a now-grown-ass-woman who still believes her childhood fantasies, manages to marry and then convince her husband of them, and then completely unravels into a shared hallucinatory cannabalistic mindfuck.

<<<END OF SPOILERS>>>

I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it either. I couldn't find one likable character and if I had to hear about her alienness or the factory and brainwashing one more time...

Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi

Freshwater is an incredibly astounding and meaty debut.

It's a chewy, layered read that begs for every ounce of your attention as our main protagonist tries to decipher whether she is in the clutches of a many year psychotic breakdown or if she's possessed by ogbanjes, evil spirits that co-inhabit a child's body, wreaking of mischief and grief.

Told sometimes from the perspectives of the spirits in plural, and other times from one spirit in particular, Asughara, who was "birthed" on a night in which Ada was sexually traumatized, we learn of the terrifying ways in which these other selves separate Ada from the experiences around her, literally fracturing her. They convince themselves that they are 'protecting her' from further harm, pushing her back inside herself, locking her away in her mind, without a care for the harm they cause her and her body in the moment.

It's a brilliant and tender spin on split personality disorder, and one in which Emezi creates such an empathetic character in Ada. We're made to innocently stand by and watch as she alternately struggles against those who share her body and the ways in which she caves in and grants them control.

Body dysmorphia, gender dysphoria, cutting and disfiguration, sexual deviance and anxieties are all explored within these pages. Freshwater gives us an exquisitely mesmerizing peek inside the war between human and god, fought completely within the confines of one woman's skin and bones.

The End We Start From by Megan Hunter

Enjoyed this one on the back deck in the late afternoon sun in nearly one sitting. Incredibly sparse, and very reminiscent of Jenny Offill, Helen Phillips, and Laura van den Berg.

A woman gives birth to a baby boy at the onset of rising floodwaters. She and her husband are forced to flee to safer land as the world around them dissolves into pandemonium. Loss, motherhood, and survival are explored in beautifully lyrical and haunting prose.

It's frightening because Hunter created a world that isn't too far fetched - the possibility of a major climate event isn't just the stuff of movies anymore - but it's also hopeful and optimistic, which makes the bleak circumstances our narrator finds herself in a little more bearable.

Another great addition to the #postapocalyptic genre!

This World is Not Yours by Kemi Ashing-Giwa

Nope. Got 42% of the way in and I want out. I usually love Tor titles but this one just isn't doing it for me. It's too heavily focused on the lives of two married women and the men their home colony "pairs" them with in order to propagate and keep the human species going after a rival settlement stole their genetic regeneration whatevers. Ugh. It oozes toxic relationship stuff when I thought it was going to ooze pissed off alien goop stuff.

There's a strong part of me that wants to continue pushing through just in case the focus shifts and crazy alien stuff starts happening because you know, DNFing is such a hard thing for me. But I'm going to try to fight the urge to keep picking it up...

... ... ... ... ... ... ...

... Ok, I am a weak DNFer. I picked it back up and finished it. It got better. Not immensely so, but right after the place I was going to DNF, the book did what I thought it was going to do and shifted focus.

Was it worth not DNFing? Eh. Am I glad I went back to it? Eh. But at least it's finished and I don't have to worry about whether I DNFd too soon and didn't give it a fair shot, right?!

My Heart Belongs in an Empty Big Mac Container Buried Beneath the Ocean Floor by Homeless

"oooh. ooh. ooooh."

That is the song of the sad-looking blue whales that have followed Daniel around for the better part of his life.

Depressed and freshly grieving the end of a serious relationship, Daniel has an epiphany at his local McDonald's. He and the saddest of the sad-looking blue whales steal his ex's orange boat and head out to the middle of ocean, where he plans to bury his heart in an empty Big Mac container deep beneath the waves.

Though, once out on the water, things refuse to go as planned. Fighting the unrelenting heat and hallucinations, Daniel and his fanny pack wearing whale companion kill the time by reminiscing about his relationship with Laura and the mental trauma he sustained as a child due to "that look, that goddamned look", while resisting the soul crushing lyrics of the Celine Dion megahit from the Titanic film that's being played on repeat on their boombox, waiting for the big mac container to give him his final instructions...

Darkly comic and unexpectedly emotional, My Heart Belongs in an Empty Big Mac Container Buried Beneath the Ocean Floor shines a light on the battle one wages between mental illness and depression and that part of us that refuses to stop seeking out instances of hope and beauty, no matter how bleak or suffocating the moment may feel.

I was surprised by how much fun I had reading it. Homeless managed to keep the story light, despite the heavy content. Grief fiction is definitely having a moment and this guy deserves his fifteen minutes in it. And this is also a great gateway book into the world of bizarro fiction. It's weird in a super subtle, easily digestible, infectious way.

We Used to Live Here by Marcus Kliewer

I listened to this on #audio and I think it's important to point out that if I was rating it solely on the narration, which I thought was really well done, it would have gotten 5 stars. I'm only giving the overall story 3 stars though, because I felt it started out really strong but began to deteriorate the deeper into the book we got. So... splitting the difference lands us at 4 stars.

I've seen sooo many reviews throwing 5 stars at it, claiming it was a really scary book, one of the most terrifying they've ever read. I've seen others downrate it because of all the questions it left unanswered.

So I know I'm going to be the odd man out when I say:

(1) I didn't find it terribly scary or terrifying at all. Intriguing, yes. Eerie and atmospheric, of course. Scary though? Naaah, it must be all the Stephen King I read and all the R rated horror movies I watched when I was a pre-teen. It definitely wasn't made of the kind of stuff that freaked me out or gave me nightmares.

(2)I really didn't mind the loose ends hanging all over the place. I was 100% prepared to be pissed off when it ended based on those reviews, but honestly, a little WTF WAS THAT?!? is actually a great way to leave things sometimes. Maybe Kliewer is (a) trusting the audience to make decisions for itself or (b) wants an opportunity to turn this into a sequel and take the haunted house/evil entity/madness thing even further.

Regardless ... it was a super fun traveling companion. I actually looked forward to my rides to and from work each day so I could continue to listen in and get to the bottom of the strange things that were afoot at 3709 whatever the name of the street was. (ugh, one of the downfalls of listening on audio rather than reading is not being able to flip through the pages when you can't remember something!)

Speaking of audio downfalls, this one hid a cool secret - one I would not have known if I didn't see @spooky_booknerd_4ever posting about it! Apparently, the morse code beeps we hear between chapters when the found footage comes up is meant to be deciphered and contains an interesting hidden message! This is why I love #bookstagram!

Jamestown by Matthew Sharpe

Eh. I wanted to like it, but it was doing a intermediate job of keeping my attention. I got to roughly the 135ish page mark and just kept finding myself thinking of every other book in my tbr pile while I was reading this one, so I finally pulled the bookmark out of it, closed the cover, and DNFd it.

Set in an alternate future, and written in journal form from a variety of character's POVs, Jamestown captures the story of a group of Manhattanites who flee a crumbling NYC in the hopes of resettling down in Virginia, living off the land and replenishing their resources. But they end up heading straight into Indian territory and find themselves in bloody battle fighting for their lives as well as the land.

It sounded like something I would enjoy. I wanted to enjoy it. But it was just meh at best. The good parts were good enough but not enough in and of themselves to make the slower stuff worth it.

Ah well. Onwards, my friends. Because life is too short to waste on meh books...

(I'm starting to really get the hang of DNFing now, if you haven't noticed).

Hope and Wild Panic by Sean Ennis

The cover and title are *chef's kiss*. The vignettes themselves? A bit of a hot mess.

The publisher, who I love and adore, gives us this description - "With no real plot to speak of, Hope and Wild Panic defies categorization and concise, catchy jacket copy. It's a collection of microfiction, or it's a novel-in-stories, or it's something else. Neither. Both. Doesn't matter."

But it kind of does matter. It's like flash but not. It's kind of all tied together but not. While the overarching focus is on the narrator's wife and son, there's really nothing connecting one sentence to the next or one story to another. It's one of the most scattered and strange things I've read in a while. The only 'story' I loved was the title story. It was the longest by far in the book, and it read and flowed incredibly smoothly.

I keep saying that I typically like experimental fiction but I don't think I like it as much as I think I do. Because even though I keep saying I like it, when I run across it, more times than not, I don't.

A Luminous Republic by Andres Barba

This book hit my radar after seeing a few readers post about it on #bookstagram. It's set in San Cristóbal, Argentina and is narrated by the social worker who was in charge of hunting down a group of thirty two children who mysteriously arrived and began wreaking havoc in the small town.

It's described as Lord of the Flies but told from the other side, the adult perspective, and that's a fairly accurate assessment of the story. Our protag is twenty years removed from the horrors that befell San Cristóbal, but feels compelled to share the impact the children had not only on the town, but on him as well. He references news articles and coverage from the time of the "altercations", as he calls it, and fills in the blanks with his own memories and experiences of those harrowing months.

While slow paced, Barba does a nice job of throwing out little nuggets of info here and there that foreshadow what's coming which cleverly keeps us engaged and hungry to understand how everything ultimately unfolds. In this book, children might be cast as the villains, but the adults are culpable as well. No one is innocent here.

I quite enjoyed this one, reading it over the course of two afternoons in the gorgeous late summer sun.

Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor

I first tried to read this book back during the Covid shutdown but was having a hard time concentrating on it and everything I read was slipping out of my head. I got 16% of the way in and stopped, blaming it on the timing - holed up in the house, getting a little stir crazy - but now that I've picked it back up... nope. It definitely wasn't the timing. It was 100% the book.

This was a weird one for me. I know it's a #bookstagram darling, but I found it lacking and unable to live up to the hype. It felt longer than it needed to be and side tracked too frequently from what I was hoping would have been the main focus of the novel - the death of the witch and the investigation into who killed her and why.

I appreciated the different perspectives that each new character brought, shedding more and more light on what actually went down at the witch's house that night... but why is no one talking about all of the perverse sex in this book? I'm far from prude, but did no one else feel that it completely overshadowed the actual violence of the situation.

I let myself down with this one. Eh... can't love 'em all, I guess.