This past weekend I had a(nother) blast. A long-time client on whose second book we are now working came to the US from Australia to visit. It was our four-year anniversary! Susannah Glenn found me through a podcast I did ages ago. When she heard what I said on it about how writing comes through us, she put down the iron she was wielding and, luckily for me, listened to the rest of the interview and got my contact info. This week she and her husband were touring NY and DC. We got tickets to the White House (tickets are not easy to get but the House is way fun to tour!), worked on the second book, spent a day at Marjorie Meriweather Post’s house/garden/museum Hillwood, and narrowly avoided a big, noisy protest in Lafayette Park (my son came to pick me up, or, as he put it, performed a “tactical extraction”).

It was an amazing weekend together. You know what it’s like when you meet someone in real life that you’ve only known online? And it just seems like you saw them yesterday, that you’ve always been friends? Maybe even family? That is what it was like to spend the weekend with Susannah & Stuart. What a fun, smart, funny, thoughtful, creative, energetic couple they are. And what a privilege to know them and spend time with them.

Working deeply with a writer on a book is an amazing experience. Susannah has always known she was a writer and has written many other things besides novels. But when she wanted to write her first novel, she knew she had a great idea but didn’t really know how to apply the craft. Like many of us who read voraciously, this can seem frustrating because we think we should know how. But riding in a car for many years doesn’t a driver make, right? Or maybe not a good driver… So she brought me on board to teach her the craft of writing.

That might sound like hard work–and it is. But it has also been dazzlingly funny and fun. I could tell from reading her draft that she had a great book idea. And, as it turns out, she was more than willing to do the hard work and take every challenge I threw at her. It was worth it. Now her book has been published by an excellent publisher in Australia and supported by a country-wide book tour to standing-room-only audiences.

What’s not to love about domestic noir? When a family has secrets and they have to work hard to hide them from the outside, it’s hard enough. But when they are hiding secrets from themselves–ah, then we have domestic noir. That is Between Husbands and Wives.

Here is the back of the book summary:

“A couple moves to Far North Queensland looking for a fresh start, but can they escape their past? A page-turning domestic thriller for fans of Sally Hepworth and Liane Moriarity. On a dark, cold night, two cars collide… Inside the vehicle at fault, Jennifer Ashby survives with barely a scratch. In the wreckage of the second, the occupants are not so lucky. Jennifer’s good character helps her avoid jail. but she is traumatised by the event. Desperate for a change, and with her marriage buckling under the stress, she convinces her husband, Jon, to move to the beautiful but wild Daintree region, far away from family and friends. As Jon spends long hours at work and Jennifer makes plans to absolve her lingering guilt, cracks begin to form in their idyllic new life. Will the shadow of their past continue to haunt them? Will their dark secret be exposed?”

I AM prejudiced, but this is a really good book. I love the place, the characters are three-dimensional, and the plot moves along at a good clip. Best of all, there is a problem at the heart of the story that we, as readers, can identify with: how much do we owe the people we live with?

It took many complete drafts to get there. This is where habits and discipline and not ever getting discouraged come into play. Now Susannah is living the life she wanted: writing, talking to people about writing, giving talks about writing (including one at the Sydney Crime Writers Festival about “Women in Peril and the Women Who Write About Them”).

And here is the part that means so very much to me. In her acknowledgements, Susannah writes:

“Dr. Virginia Moran, my writing mentor and creativity coach. I was so fortunate to discover you by chance. Despite the global miles that separate us, your voice is always on play inside my head, holding me to account, pushing me to take creative risks, urging me to rough my characters up just a little more. And making me laugh! Above all, your deep understanding of what makes us human beings so fragile and beautiful is always a revelation. I love and value our regular Zoom comversations.”

I genuinely could not be prouder of this work–of the book itself and the work Susannah and I have done together. It is hard work. It is worth it.