[00:00:00] Dori Durbin: Have you ever tried to get your kids to enjoy history... only to here? It's too boring. History books tend to lose readers fast. But what if history was fun and engaging? Today's guest is an expert at weaving facts into fiction. She creates realistic and relatable characters, does her own personal research into her family's past, and uses witty and comical dialogue to converse with her readers. 

When I asked Susan how she did this, how it was that she could engage readers with their characters. Here's what she said.

[00:00:37] Susan Koehler: I have to get to know the characters very well. So then I can hear them in my head and I know how they talk. So then I have to try to get it in writing, but you don't want to. Represent that in a way that sounds hokey or like you're making fun of them or to overdo it. 

[00:01:00] Dori Durbin:This Guest, can take the hiss out of history and we've a pleasing entertaining, and yet historically accurate book. that leaves teen readers, and adults longing for more. 

And I doubt she's done doing that just yet.  And as a veteran teacher, a book enthusiast, and the author of Dalio in bloom, nobody kills uncle Buster and gets away with it. And now Charlie song, she has returned and is speaking with us once more.

[00:01:22] Dori Durbin: Welcome to the show, Susan Kohler. 

[00:01:26] Susan Koehler: Thank you, Dori. It's so good to 

[00:01:28] Dori Durbin: be back. Thank you for being here. I always love talking to you and you have a special surprise to take us right away at the very 

[00:01:35] Susan Koehler: beginning. That's right. I'm just going to jump right in and read a piece of Charlie's song.

[00:01:41] Susan Koehler: Poppy let the screen door slam behind him and didn't even bother to knock the mud off his feet. He stopped at the base of the stairs and hollered, Charlie Harrell. Most Saturday mornings, Poppy had Charlie out in the fields with him before breakfast was even prepared. Mommy rushed to where he stood in his own mound of dirt and said, What's gotten [00:02:00] into you, John?

[00:02:01] Susan Koehler: She kept wiping her hands on the apron she always wore, even though there wasn't anything to wipe off. Hollerin on? Dirk made mommy nervous and so did hollering. Since school started back I can't count on that boy for steady work. Poppy's voice was softer now and suddenly weary. He pulled off his old brown hat and wiped sweat from his forehead with a yellowed handkerchief.

[00:02:25] Susan Koehler: He's 15 years old, near grown. What's gonna become of him if he can't be counted on to work for an honest living? Just then, Charlie appeared at the top of the stairs, down two stories from his attic room. He held the railing with both hands and leaned his head against the wall. Yes, sir. His muffled voice crawled out from way back in his throat, and his eyes blinked several times when they met the light coming in from the screen door.

[00:02:52] Susan Koehler: You've been a sleeping in the daylight? Poppy asked. He looked at mommy and threw his hands up in the air. What's gonna become of him? Mommy pushed [00:03:00] past Poppy, climbed the stairs two at a time, and put a hand to Charlie's forehead. John, he's a burning up with a fever. And then she told Charlie, you get back to bed.

[00:03:10] Susan Koehler: Poppy sighed loudly. And in that sigh, I could hear what he was thinking as clear as if he'd spoken the words. Fever meant sickness, and sickness meant that Charlie wouldn't be working his share in the fields, and it might even mean that Doc Blanchard had to be called, and that cost money. Poppy followed the trail of his own dirt back outside and closed the screen door quietly behind him.

[00:03:34] Susan Koehler: Oh, 

[00:03:34] Dori Durbin: so good. So good. So tell us about the history elements in this. 

[00:03:40] Susan Koehler: All right. The book is set in the early thirties or early to mid thirties in North Carolina, and it's a sequel to the first middle grade historical fiction book that I wrote, Dahlia and Bloom. And Dahlia and Bloom was based loosely on my mother's childhood experience when she was born in 1924 [00:04:00] and her family lived in a one room cabin tucked into the mountains in a very isolated area.

[00:04:05] Susan Koehler: And during the early part of the Depression, they moved to a community called the actual community is Rural Hall, North Carolina, but where they became tenant farmers. And so Lothan Mill is my fictional community that sort of mimics Rural Hall. And, and my mom's fondest childhood memories were probably in that place because I think they lived in a community and they went to school and they went to church and they had friends and just that sense of community I think was warm and great.

[00:04:35] Susan Koehler: They eventually went back to their isolated home in the mountains, but she had so many fond memories from that time. And so I, heard so many stories growing up that all of this setting became real to me and we'd go visit every summer. And so when I wrote Dahlia in Bloom like I said, it was loosely based on her childhood experience, but I did a lot of research into the history as well because I got more and more curious as I was writing.

[00:04:59] Susan Koehler: And so [00:05:00] Charlie's song came about later just because I had a couple of artifacts really that I had seen when I was up visiting my uncle and one was a homemade banjo. And I don't think it had ever been played. It didn't have strings on it, but one of my uncles who had passed away at that point had made the banjo and another uncle whose house I was at had it and showed it to me.

[00:05:22] Susan Koehler: And I was just so curious about it because I never knew. Uncle to be a musician. I know he was a carpenter. He built things, but I never knew him to be a musician or have a mus interest in music. And I thought, why did he build, who did he build it for? And the fact that it didn't have strings and had probably never been played.

[00:05:38] Susan Koehler: It just made me so curious. And then another artifact was a coin. that my grandmother carried. And I never knew my grandmother. She passed away when I was six weeks old. So I've always had a lot of curiosity about her. And so my mother found this coin in an old purse of her mother's. And she said, Oh, mommy always carried this with her.

[00:05:58] Susan Koehler: And it it had a [00:06:00] penny in the middle of it. And it was a 1918 penny and around, and the penny was inset in a horseshoe and around the edges of it, it said, keep me and you'll never go broke. And so I, I had those two artifacts and I kept thinking, you know what, I am so curious about these and they make me excited to think about, and I want to do something with them.

[00:06:22] Susan Koehler: And I just wasn't sure what I was going to do with them until this character named Ennis Kane. Popped into my head, who carries his banjo from town to town. And once that character popped into my head, the whole story started coming together and I just couldn't not write it. Oh, 

[00:06:41] Dori Durbin: That's so cool.

[00:06:42] Dori Durbin: I love that you had actual artifacts that just inspired it. Ennis is quite a character. When you laughed about that's he is, he's that, that uncle that sort of cool, but also mysterious in a way and just the fact that he plays the banjo.

[00:06:56] Dori Durbin: And the town, I thought it was interesting, and I have to [00:07:00] admit, I didn't get to read the previous book, but the town itself is the same as the 

[00:07:04] Susan Koehler: previous books then? Yes, they're both set in Lothian Mill. And so some of the characters are the same too, but you wouldn't have to have read. The first one to understand to this one, but yeah, that's some of the same characters.

[00:07:17] Dori Durbin: I just love how, when I'm still reading it, I'll be honest with our listeners, I'm still reading, but as I was reading, I just got sucked into this community. This, it was like this atmosphere of, hard work and just everyone was. Knowing each other's business and not in a bad way necessarily, but they were supportive.

[00:07:40] Dori Durbin: They're encouraging, but maybe curious also beyond the point of what our normal everyday life, at least in this day and age is now. Dalia was responding to some of those things as well. 

[00:07:52] Susan Koehler: Yes, and so in that in the early part that I read where Charlie is obviously sick, he does get diagnosed with scarlet fever, [00:08:00] which was very prevalent during the time and a concern for a lot of people and very dangerous at the time.

[00:08:05] Susan Koehler: And Charlie is at an emotional impasse too. He doesn't know what he wants to do. He is 15 years old. He's thinking he wants to be done with school, but he's not sure what he wants to do. And this illness kind of catches him at this time and it takes him a long time to get over it. And so it parallels to that, we all go through healing of all types of either illness or emotional scarring or indecision or hurt and so Dahlia is also going through her own healing throughout the novel, and it's taking time.

[00:08:40] Susan Koehler: But one of the ways that she deals with her feelings is that she has this journal and she starts writing the things that she can't actually say. 

[00:08:49] Dori Durbin: Hilarious. I love her journal entries. 

[00:08:51] Susan Koehler: They're hilarious. And she has one particular nemesis, and probably most of it is because she's jealous of this girl who, seems to [00:09:00] have everything and get everything she wants.

[00:09:02] Susan Koehler: And so she just builds it up in her head as this is her nemesis, and so she writes about Rosie Blevins all the time, too. So she has, healing and relationships to do. She has healing within herself with her own jealousy and envy and just like Charlie has the physical healing. And when we meet in his cane, he has his own kind of healing that needs to take place, too.

[00:09:25] Dori Durbin: I to go back to those journals, the first one I read, I just, I literally laughed out loud because Rosie embodies everything that is negative and Dahlia's life in some way or form, like one of them was, she described her as being a math itself. 

[00:09:42] Susan Koehler: Yeah, it's because Dahlia is struggling with it.

[00:09:44] Susan Koehler: Yeah, that. That Rosie Blevins is arithmetic. Oh, and Rosie Blevins is scarlet fever and Rosie Blevins is a thief and wanted. Yes, 

[00:09:57] Dori Durbin: that was so great. And I think that probably [00:10:00] what really resonated with me is I've had those feelings, and I think. Teenagers go through that so much, unfortunately, in those teenage years, because there is this competition.

[00:10:12] Dori Durbin: There is this social expectation. There are all of these pieces that they sometimes put upon themselves more than anything. And there she is. Writing it down, and I thought that was 

[00:10:23] Susan Koehler: just great and Dahlia in this book is 10 years old and so Really my readership that's it's intended for middle grade readers Which means like 8 to 12 8 to 13 in that age range But I have readers of all ages and that's been one of the nice really surprising things about it because I have had You know, I've done author visits at schools.

[00:10:48] Susan Koehler: I continue to do author visits at schools, both virtually and in person. But also I have been invited to book clubs that were adults. And I've talked, I had recently, somebody was saying, would you be able to [00:11:00] come and speak to our book club? I was like, yes, I'd love to, but it's funny because I think that since the book is so generational, even though the central character is 10 years old the book is so generational that it can be shared.

[00:11:13] Susan Koehler: By generations, and I love seeing that. And so I don't only have middle grade readers or 8 to 12 or 8 to 13, but I have readers of all ages who are finding things to identify within it. And there's even one lady who. was born in 1924, just like Dahlia. She's 99 years old. And she has been so affirming to me in letting me know that, Oh, she remembers this or she remembers that, just different things about historical details, because I did strive for a lot of accuracy, both from what I remember of my mother's stories and from doing my own research.

[00:11:48] Susan Koehler: And so it was really affirming to have a 99 year old woman telling me that this is so authentic. And, So that's really great too. 

[00:11:56] Dori Durbin: Stay right there. I have more questions for you. I have to think about my next [00:12:00] book.

He there. Pardon the interruption, but we've been talking about great books and I know that you're probably thinking maybe I should try. Maybe I should write my own book. What would you say? What would your book be about? I would love to chat about it and you can do that by clicking the link in the podcast notes and booking a call. All right back to the podcast

[00:12:28] Dori Durbin: History has never been something that really resonated with me, unfortunately. But when I read it the way that you've written it. I'm picking up those details. I'm picking up, the flavor of the time and the morals and the beliefs of the time and all of those pieces that it was fascinating to me.

[00:12:46] Dori Durbin: If they're all history was written like that. I'd be golden. 

[00:12:49] Susan Koehler: Wow. Thank you. And like I said, it was important to me to be authentic, but my, the beginning of my interest in this was, Yes. That my parents were storytellers. They told [00:13:00] stories about growing up and they were older parents when I was born.

[00:13:04] Susan Koehler: And the fact that they could tell me firsthand information about the Great Depression and about World War Two. I knew so many things when we start to study in school that I got this covered just because I got all this, firsthand information from primary sources.

[00:13:20] Susan Koehler: But the fact that they were storytellers and they just all of these details were wrapped up in stories that I found interesting. And so I love being able to put all of those details. Into story form. And and I like taking them in that way, too. 

[00:13:36] Dori Durbin: Yeah. Yeah. Now your characters are so deep.

[00:13:40] Dori Durbin: How do you develop them? How do you figure out what their persons are going to be like? 

[00:13:46] Susan Koehler: Yeah, that one is both difficult and fun. fun. So since some of the characters had been well developed in the previous book and Dahlia and Bloom, I had their personality set, but Dahlia had grown and changed some.

[00:13:59] Susan Koehler: So now this [00:14:00] is, her on this new plateau and Charlie's growing, but like Rosie Blevins was not developed in the last one. So she gets developed a lot more in this one. So there were characters who I had to think through, what are they like? And. Of course they have to be multidimensional like we all are and yeah, Dahlia sees her as her nemesis, but what are the other sides to Rosie?

[00:14:22] Susan Koehler: What are her fears? What are her worries? What makes her insecure? What does she want? And and what does she dream about or wish she had or who does she envy? Just it. Making those characters multidimensional is is part of that and then a character who is an adult already like Ennis Cain who came into this and was a brand new character, I knew he had the banjo, I knew he was coming in, but I had to develop that character.

[00:14:45] Susan Koehler: And so it was what would make him just appealing and make you just fall in love with him and want to be around him and get him to help with some of this healing that needed to go on. But then also, what is it that. Is [00:15:00] broken in him and what is the healing that he needs and how does he seek it? And, so making those well rounded characters is just really seeing them from multiple sides and trying to make them authentic to, but then I feel like I get to know them.

[00:15:16] Susan Koehler: And so then they're so real to me. 

[00:15:19] Dori Durbin: It's not as hard to write about them if they're. 

[00:15:23] Susan Koehler: It's hard to leave them behind too when it's over, because, I just, I, fall in love with them. And then it's hard to leave the place and the people. Yeah. 

[00:15:32] Dori Durbin: So what is your process? If, and I actually have this set up for you.

[00:15:36] Dori Durbin: So if you were thinking of the Peanuts cartoon process wise are you like Linus, Lucy or Charlie Brown? 

[00:15:43] Susan Koehler: Yeah. Oh, my goodness. I love it. That's a great question. I'm going to go with Charlie Brown, because I would strive to be like Lucy, right? Just be in total control, have everything planned out, but then as soon as I thought I had it together, I would realize, [00:16:00] oh, here I am again, in the middle of a mess.

[00:16:03] Susan Koehler: So I think I'd have to go with Charlie Brown on that. Yeah. Yeah. I want to be Lucy. 

[00:16:07] Dori Durbin: Want to be Lucy. Not Linus. So not at the far end. No. 

[00:16:13] Susan Koehler: No, I got to pull it together better than Linus. 

[00:16:16] Dori Durbin: Yeah. I think writers they really do fall into one of those three categories. And yeah, I think Charlie Brown is probably the safest one to me, 

[00:16:24] Susan Koehler: but Lucy gets stuff done.

[00:16:27] Dori Durbin: And then I was curious to how much of Charlie's song is based off of. Questions or suggestions from your readers, because I know a lot of times as authors, we get all kinds of questions beyond the book. And then what's going to happen next? And you should have done this. And did you ever think about so how much of your readers contribute to the contribution of the next book?

[00:16:52] Susan Koehler: Oh, I think a lot because when they have questions, like especially if I do an author visit or I read to them and then they have questions, that [00:17:00] gets my mind going on what still could be answered, and so one of the things that inspired this was a boy, a fourth grade boy who said, Dahlia is the main character in Dahlia and Bloom and I had read that and he asked, If I was ever going to write something with male characters, where male characters had a bigger role, and I thought, oh funny, that maybe Dahlia and Bloom was more female oriented.

[00:17:26] Susan Koehler: It had some of the same poppies in it, Charlie's in it, but some of the same male characters, but they aren't as big a part of it. The relationship between Dahlia and Charlie is developed, but, you hear more of it from her side. She's describing it and it's more about her.

[00:17:43] Susan Koehler: And I think that question about male characters, I thought, I need to dive into that and try that. And so Charlie's song, while it's still narrated by Dahlia is really a journey for Charlie. And then this character, Ennis Kane, who comes into it is, very, Strong male character.[00:18:00] 

[00:18:00] Susan Koehler: And a lot of that came from a question from a child. So sometimes those questions that they ask about, what Have you thought about doing this or why didn't you do this? I think, wow, okay, good question. I, maybe I should try that. You see all those 

[00:18:13] Dori Durbin: little holes or opportunities that you, because you do, you get so immersed in what you create.

[00:18:19] Dori Durbin: That you are focused on just that and not seeing the little extensions that they're seeing. 

[00:18:24] Susan Koehler: So I love that. Yeah, 

[00:18:26] Dori Durbin: that's fabulous. Another thing about writers is I feel like, especially when you've written another book, there's this balance between what you risk and what you refine. And so risk meaning you're trying something brand new, refining mean you're tweaking what maybe worked okay last time.

[00:18:45] Dori Durbin: Do you feel like there was a risk that you took in this book and do you feel like you refined another area? 

[00:18:50] Susan Koehler: Oh, wow. That's a lot to think about. Yeah, when Diane Bloom came out, it got a starred review from Kirkus Reviews and they put it on their best books of that year [00:19:00] 2019 in the MD division.

[00:19:01] Susan Koehler: Thank you. That's awesome. That was very exciting. So then to write a sequel to it, you're like, Oh, I hope you like it. So that's part of the risk is when something has gotten, some accolades, then you're like, wow, I hope this, but but. But beyond that, I did some different things with it.

[00:19:19] Susan Koehler: And so I tried some different things in the narration of it or in the, narrative style of it. So like these journal entries of Dahlia's, that was part of it. And that the teacher in the last book she's reading in Dahlia and Bloom, she reads the secret garden to the class. And so there are some parallels between what they're reading in the secret garden and what's going on in Dahlia's life.

[00:19:43] Susan Koehler: In this one, the teacher's reading poetry to them. And I love poetry, but yeah, the poetry kind of feeds into some of, Daya's growth and thinking. And sometimes the teacher's clued into things and is maybe selecting poems on purpose, and and I did have another male character come into it, Henry.[00:20:00] 

[00:20:00] Susan Koehler: It's a little Henry Guilfoyle. And yeah, back to the male characters suggested by a fourth grader. But but yeah so developing some new characters, trying out some new techniques, like the journal entries and weaving the poetry into it. And then the big one is the song, because in the end of the book, there is a song that Charlie and Dahlia put together and, and so I wrote the lyrics. I play the piano a little bit, but I am no musician. But fortunately I have a son in law who is a wonderful musician. His name is W. Heath Fowler, and he put it to music and and recorded it. And so that was an exciting new thing. But again, the new narrative techniques and the new characters and just coming out with.

[00:20:45] Susan Koehler: Something that followed something else that, you know, and then the song, that's all the risk type stuff, but. 

[00:20:53] Dori Durbin: That's amazing. That's you're putting yourself out there. 

[00:20:55] Susan Koehler: You think about it. Yeah, did a whole bunch of new things with it. So [00:21:00] 

[00:21:00] Dori Durbin: fabulous though. And was there anything that you didn't do in this book that you were like the last one I really like, but I'm going to not do X, Y, Z.

[00:21:09] Susan Koehler: I don't think so. I think I just tried to make sure that the characters had grown and changed and so whatever happened in the last one, there was a lot between the relationship between Dahlia and her sister Celia. There were things about Celia's ability or struggle with reading and this time, I had to show what, how far they had come and so I had to keep thinking back and you wouldn't have to have read Die and Bloom to know those things.

[00:21:38] Susan Koehler: But if you had read it, then you're looking at Celia and you're going, I'm so proud of you, but yeah, so I think that the biggest thing was making sure that I was. Staying true to those characters and helping them continue to grow. And so it wasn't like suddenly, Hey, how could they be doing that now when, this happened before.

[00:21:57] Susan Koehler: So that was one thing I had to be sure of. Anything I did in the [00:22:00] last one. Yeah, I don't know. It the last one kind of centered on the idea of treasure and what's treasure. And thematically to do something different with this one, but I still tried to, have broader themes that carried it as well as just the narrative itself.

[00:22:16] Susan Koehler: I love 

[00:22:16] Dori Durbin: that you're speaking of narrative, the dialogue is incredible. And I'm just curious. Do you have a system? Do you have some way that helps you to come up with these conversations, including their accents, their twangs? 

[00:22:33] Susan Koehler: Yeah, I, yeah that's a tough one because I have to get to know the characters very well.

[00:22:40] Susan Koehler: So then I can hear them in my head and I know how they talk. So then I have to try to get it in writing, but you don't want to. Represent that in a way that sounds hokey or like you're making fun of them or to overdo it. So I try to be very subtle with it, but still make it true to those voices that are in my head.

[00:22:59] Susan Koehler: And Dahlia [00:23:00] has grown a lot and matured. And so her, even her vocabulary has expanded. Things like that from the other book. And so I have to make sure that she sounds like she's 10, but also that she's grown from where she was before in the way she speaks. But, yeah, I can hear them all in my head, but one thing I try to do with dialogue is put it in the action.

[00:23:22] Susan Koehler: And a lot of times I don't use a dialogue tag, said Poppy, there are plenty of them in there. But a lot of times I try to put the action, Poppy pulled the hat from his head and wiped his brow with the handkerchief, and then there's the dialogue. And so I really try to create the moment.

[00:23:40] Susan Koehler: Where the dialogue comes in rather than just this person said this thing 

[00:23:45] Dori Durbin: because you can only say said proclaimed announced so many times. 

[00:23:50] Susan Koehler: Yeah and yeah, it gets old, but also I want the reader to picture that this dialogue is not just words that are written on the page, but they're part of a moment in this [00:24:00] scene.

[00:24:00] Susan Koehler: And this person is also, doing a certain thing, or they're shuffling their feet, or they're doing something that kind of shows you what the intention is behind these words. And so really I go back and that's in editing time. I try to do it when I write, but then I go back in editing and I really try to fill that in so that the dialogue is part of a scene that you can visualize.

[00:24:20] Susan Koehler: And that's, 

[00:24:21] Dori Durbin: that must be how you visualize your book as you work, then you see. Each opportunity is like a going from one big scene to another big scene. Yeah. Oh, yeah. 

[00:24:30] Susan Koehler: Yeah. Yeah, 

[00:24:31] Dori Durbin: absolutely. Yeah. That's really fascinating because I think a lot of people think I've got to have an idea.

[00:24:36] Dori Durbin: Then I've got to follow the idea. Then something's going to happen. But if you think of it in scenes, there's a lot different kind of 

[00:24:41] Susan Koehler: focus. And I do have the overall, and it's going to change. So that's where, Lucy versus Charlie Brown there, I can design it, but it's going to change, and I'm going to get in the middle of a mess pretty soon and have to work my way out of it.

[00:24:54] Susan Koehler: But and yeah, I had to stop for a while and come back to it because I hit a point where I was like, [00:25:00] not working. I got to figure it out, But I have that overall idea of I know where it's going but then that scene by scene thing I have to construct as I go along to move from this point to this point, we need this scene and to move from this point to this point, we need this scene and make sure that they're all necessary and they're all moving the narrative forward.

[00:25:20] Dori Durbin: That's, I love that vision because I think people can really relate to movies and, I think of movies that way too, but that's really cool. All right. Let me ask you, do you have a, did you have a favorite teen author growing up? 

[00:25:35] Susan Koehler: That's funny. When I was a kid, I read all the Nancy Drew books.

[00:25:40] Susan Koehler: And so it's funny that now I. Like when I would recommend books to kids, most of the time I would tell, because I taught for 36 years, and so part of my favorite thing in teaching was, sharing books with kids and getting them excited about reading, but I was always quick to recommend historical fiction and mystery [00:26:00] because they're just my favorite.

[00:26:01] Susan Koehler: two favorite genres. The book we talked about last time, Nobody Kills Uncle Buster and Gets Away With It, was my first mystery. I wrote a couple of paranormal books since then for Lerner that were mysteries too, that one's called Cursed and the other's called Innocent Blood.

[00:26:17] Susan Koehler: And they're just part of a A series that's supposed to be very compelling and exciting, a little bit of, a little bit of horror, but mostly, paranormal mystery, but I love that, and and then I love historical fiction, and so I think those are my two favorite genres that I'm drawn to, and so those are the two that I read more of growing up, and And yeah I think my absolute favorites though were Nancy Drew and I still have all my Nancy Drew books and I just, that's important to me because it was an emotional connection. I had that emotional connection and I think we do that with books. And so that's probably my biggest emotional connection. But I did work in the library after lunch each day. We could get up from lunch and go out to recess and I chose instead to [00:27:00] be a library assistant.

[00:27:02] Susan Koehler: Really dorky but I got discarded books for free. I could read a lot of things, but but yeah, it worked out. Yeah, it worked out. Yes. Yes. Didn't become an athlete, but life with books. 

[00:27:18] Dori Durbin: So what is next for you as an author? 

[00:27:21] Susan Koehler: When I. I first started publishing books back in 2007 was my first published book.

[00:27:26] Susan Koehler: I was still teaching and I had a lot of experience teaching and I fell into writing a book called Crafting Expository Papers about teaching writing. And and then I did a few more in that educational world of professional resources for teachers and went around and did consulting and training with them and things.

[00:27:44] Susan Koehler: And I was realizing, yes, I always wanted to write. I always wanted to write And then I did a little writing for hire of some nonfiction books, but then I was like, you know what I really want to write is fiction. And so I had to turn my attention in writing after several years [00:28:00] of, working with either nonfiction or professional resources.

[00:28:03] Susan Koehler: And really learn how to develop a story. And it took me a long time to do the first one. Kids will say, how long did it take? And when I tell them eight years and some of them, they're eight to 12 years old, then they're like, ah, my whole life. But but that did take that long for the first one because I didn't know how to do it yet.

[00:28:18] Susan Koehler: And even though I've written my entire life really I have yeah, the fiction thing. Just getting a whole book and a whole story done was a lot. But once I did it, I got hooked. And so I have written a few books and published these with a smaller independent publisher. So I am looking to get an agent right now.

[00:28:41] Susan Koehler: I've started querying agents. I want to get a literary agent. I have a manuscript that I've finished. I'm working on an idea for a chapter book series. And So I have things going on, but I thought, you know what, instead of small independent publisher, I want to take the step and try to get an agent move forward with this writing [00:29:00] career with the fiction.

[00:29:02] Susan Koehler: That's 

[00:29:02] Dori Durbin: exciting. That is so exciting. 

[00:29:04] Susan Koehler: I am excited about it. Yes. 

[00:29:07] Dori Durbin: I'm sure it won't take long for someone to find you and snatch you up so I can only hope they'll be smart about 

[00:29:13] Susan Koehler: doing it. Thanks. I like your thinking. 

[00:29:17] Dori Durbin: Thank you. Thank you. If you're going to give let's say kids who really want to write their own books advice, what kind of advice would you give them?

[00:29:28] Susan Koehler: Since I've done, I have taught kids. And I still do workshops and things with kids sometimes. With with a fictional narrative, I do try to get them to one thing, start with the character. And really get to know the character. And one of the very rudimentary things you can do is say, What is it that is important to this character?

[00:29:52] Susan Koehler: And why is it so important to them? And then try to get to the point where you say, What does this character want? What's standing in their [00:30:00] way of getting it? And what are they going to do about it? And so then we can get the character wants. But so and fill in the blanks and so that's the basis of a good story.

[00:30:14] Susan Koehler: And so even when you start with the artifacts, like I had the coin and the banjo who do they belong to? Why are they important? And I had to come up with that. So that I could write the story. So you've got to get to know the characters, what's important to them, what they want, what stands in their way, and what they're going to do about it.

[00:30:34] Susan Koehler: And then I also talk to them about the importance of beginning with the end in mind, and you don't have to have the whole thing planned out, and maybe you're going to reroute it and it's going to change, but I tell them if I'm using a GPS because I have no sense of direction, which is absolutely the truth.

[00:30:50] Susan Koehler: There's a lot of words in my head and I keep saying they must have taken up the part of my brain that's supposed to have a sense of direction. But I can't, I have to know my destination if I'm going to be able to [00:31:00] move from point A to point B. And he won't have any direction. You won't know where you're going.

[00:31:04] Susan Koehler: If you don't have in mind where it's ultimately going to lead. So what is at the end for you? And no matter how fully you plan out from beginning to end or how sketchy it is, as long as you know where it's going, you have that destination in mind. So you're always headed in that direction.

[00:31:21] Dori Durbin: That's super advice. I think far too often. We just hope the story develops, right? Yeah. 

[00:31:27] Susan Koehler: And yes, when I first started, the one that took me eight years to write was I'm going to let it guide me, but,

[00:31:34] Dori Durbin: You must have reined it back in at some 

[00:31:36] Susan Koehler: point. You had to make decisions. Yeah. 

[00:31:39] Dori Durbin: That's great advice. Okay, if somebody wants to find your book and find out more about you, where are the best places to find you? 

[00:31:47] Susan Koehler: To find me, if you just remember Susan Kohler writes Susan Kohler, K O E H L E R, and then writes W R I T E S.

[00:31:56] Susan Koehler: That's pretty much how you can find me because I'm at Susan Kohler writes on [00:32:00] Instagram, Susan Kohler writes on Facebook, Susan Kohler writes on. Threads and my website is SusanKohlerWrites. com. So if you remember Susan Kohler Writes, you can find me. Perfect. 

[00:32:12] Dori Durbin: Perfect. And 

[00:32:12] Susan Koehler: your books? Oh, and the books. Yes.

[00:32:14] Susan Koehler: And online places where you buy books, if there are select independent bookstores that carry it on the shelf, but Amazon, bookshop. And even Target, Barnes and Noble books, all of their online, you might not find it in the store, you could order it, but and then if it's a library, somebody wants to put a resource in a library, it's a funny, one of my books, the mystery one we talked about last time with Uncle Buster a middle school librarian somewhere in Georgia was saying that it, She's had, she had to buy a second copy because boys were checking it out so much in this first copy was getting torn up.

[00:32:47] Susan Koehler: But if you're at a school or something and you're ordering copies, that's also through our bookstore, Ingram book distributors. And so you can find it through Ingram. 

[00:32:56] Dori Durbin: Fabulous. Okay, we're going to end our show a little bit differently.[00:33:00] 

[00:33:00] Dori Durbin: Thanks for being with us and giving us this really great information and getting excited about your book. You're also going to tell us about how we're going to end this

[00:33:09] Susan Koehler: episode. Yes. Thank you, Dori. Because Charlie's song ends with a song, I think we need to end the episode with a piece of the song.

[00:33:17] Susan Koehler: And, we'll just listen to a little of it. And Charlie's song can be found on multiple streaming outlets. It was recorded and in a recording studio by my son in law. And it's on Spotify, Amazon music, YouTube, Apple music, whatever. So you can find it on multiple platforms. And I have a link on my website too, where you can see what all those platforms are.

[00:33:38] Susan Koehler: But let's play a little bit of the song. So they get a taste for Charlie's song. Sounds 

[00:33:43] Dori Durbin: great. Thank you, Susan.

Charlie's Song by W. Heath Fowler --- complete song can be found at:
https://youtu.be/NDcGFlWDPd4?si=blSvi5BgkxsMcLxh

"Corn is hot, the apples ripe, Color tints the trees. The leaves, they all started dancing To the rhythm of the [00:34:00] breeze. Seasons change and life moves on. The heart is left to mourn. But just this one thing's dying.

Something else is being born."