Suzy Vadori is an Operations Executive by day, writer by night. The Fountain is her debut novel for young adults and is the first book in a trilogy being published by Evil Alter Ego Press. The Fountain has been shortlisted for a 2016 Aurora Award for Best Young Adult Novel.
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Suzy is an involved member of the Calgary writers’ community, serving as the Program Manager of Middle Grade and Young Adult Fiction for When Words Collide (WWC) since 2013. WWC is a festival for readers and writers held in Calgary each August. She lives with her husband and three kids in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
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Tell us more about you and what ignited your passion for words.
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I’ve always loved to write. In grade school, I wanted to be an author of middle-grade fiction. Of course, I also wanted to be an orthodontist, a pediatrician, and a cashier at a grocery store. I was actually stressed about which of these choices would be mine. They all seemed fun. Luckily, I had smart parents who explained that I didn’t have to choose just one thing to be in life – I would have the opportunity to try lots of different things and see how they fit. And they were right. I’ve done many things with my career, having held positions in almost every department of software and packaged goods companies, but the passion for becoming an author always stayed with me, and I circled back to being an author later in life.
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Everything else I’ve done in my career has really prepared me for writing books, from business writing to project management to public speaking. All of these skills make the business of being an author a lot easier. I know that I’m a much stronger author now than I would have been had I tried to pursue writing as a career right out of school.
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As a young teen, I wrote when I ran out of books to read. I started many novels that I never finished – both with pencil and paper, then later with one of the first laptop models (it was huge!). One of the partial novels I worked on off and on for a year when I was 11 or 12 was set in a boarding school. I loved boarding school novels as a kid – envying the freedom the kids in them seemed to have. The boarding school setting carries over into my debut series, though nothing else in the story is the same as the one I started back then. I have no idea where that story got to, and I don’t think I ever showed it to anyone.
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What kind of books are you writing? Can you tell us more about it or where we can find it if already published?
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One of the things that kept me from writing a novel earlier than I did was trying to figure out what genre I would write. Everything I could think of that I wanted to write was either too personal (I wasn’t good with the people in my life having me write something that they saw themselves in) – or too edgy (as an executive in my day job and a mom of three, I wanted to write something that I could put my name on and still fit with who I am).
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Growing up, there wasn’t much to read as a teen that was higher reading level, but still written with us in mind. I remember reading VC Andrews, which really wasn’t meant for tweens!
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But then when Young Adult (YA) books started to grow in terms of popularity, as well as the volume of great books on the market, I got inspired. Here was a genre where my voice would fit. Teens are sophisticated. They love books that don’t talk down to them. I can still make the mysteries tricky, the relationships subtle, and I don’t have to write the racy bits that are expected in adult fiction.
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I started writing Young Adult fiction and I haven’t looked back. The Fountain was the first book of The Fountain trilogy, and was shortlisted this year for an Aurora Award for Best Young Adult Novel. Book two is called The West Woods, and will be coming out in 2017. I love having the book in the hands of teens. They go crazy for the characters in the story – especially a sixteen-year-old named Ethan. That surprised me, Ethan isn’t the main character. But most reviewers of YA fiction are actually adults. And the voice in the book is mature enough that the adults are giving it rave reviews as well. That’s exciting.
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The Fountain can be bought or ordered at most bookstores in North America, as well as online on Amazon or any other site. It’s available in print as well as eBook.
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Would you mind sharing a high, a low or something special you experienced writing this book?
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The most rewarding experience about this whole experience has been developing a teen fan base. Teen readers are an amazing bunch – skeptical at first, but once you win them over… well that part is magic.
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It’s amazing to me that all of the ideas and feelings that I pour into the page come back, reflected in the readers’ reactions. They write to me to say that they’re sad, or feeling overwhelmed by the characters’ decisions. Or that they felt so much when the main character makes her romantic choice (no spoilers here!). That’s all I ever really hoped for, and beyond my expectations. I feel blessed.
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The second book in the series is a prequel to The Fountain. The Fountain is about a sixteen-year-old girl named Ava who moves to New England to attend a boarding school that her parents had attended. Her mom had died when she was ten and she wanted to feel connected to her. When she got there, her reputation preceded her and some of the kids aren’t very nice. She gets really upset and runs off into the woods. She finds a mysterious stone fountain in the woods and throws a coin into it, making a wish that the girl who hasn’t been kind to her had never existed – and then she disappears.
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Early readers of The Fountain invariably asked why the girl she’d wished away had been so awful. That’s when I realized Courtney (the girl she wished away) deserved her own story. Because she has a really good reason to be the way she is. She wasn’t always like that, but book two (The West Woods) is her journey.
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I just hope that fans of The Fountain won’t be too disappointed that book two doesn’t continue Ava, Ethan and Lucas’ story. They’ll have to wait for book three for that.
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Are you working on anything new? At which stage are you with this new project?
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I am working on the final stages of book two in The Fountain series and will be sending it for edits shortly. Book three is also in the outline and research stage. I won’t start working on book three too seriously until book two is final. Because the books contain a mystery element, one small change can have a ripple effect through the whole series, so best to wait.
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I also have other projects to work on when everything else is out for edits. The project I’ve been working on the most lately is a women’s fiction thriller that keeps inspiring me. I’m not sure what I’ll end up doing with it. I’ve built a community and following up in the Young Adult space and I really don’t know that I want to start in another genre. I’d have to write it with a different pen name – perhaps just my maiden name – but I wouldn’t want teens that enjoyed The Fountain series to pick it up by accident!
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Right now, because building a presence in the YA community takes so much of my time and energy, that project’s on the back burner. But I love the project, so I have trouble stopping it. That’s when you know a book is good – when you love working on it.
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What advice would you give a new writer?
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One of the biggest surprises to me when I embarked upon this journey was the power of the writing community. When I’d finished my first manuscript and wasn’t really sure what to do with it, I started to reach out to local writer groups to see what advice I could get. How do I know when it’s done? How do I know if it’s good? Who can I send it to? How do I publish? I wasn’t really expecting them to help me. After all, I was merely someone who thought I could write. Not published. Who was I to ask for advice?
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But before I knew it, I was full swing into the local writing community. I’ve never met a more supportive, wonderful group of people. They even get my punny jokes. Or better, when in writers’ company, someone often says something that I was thinking, but thought was too obscure to say out loud. These are my people.
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Writers that I have met are the most interesting people I know. And the most supportive.
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My advice to new writers is to get to know the people and resources in their own communities around writing.
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My involvement in a local writers festival is how I was able to access publishers. In the end, through the community I was able to choose the publisher that was exactly right for my book. I signed with Evil Alter Ego Press and haven’t looked back. They’ve been amazing. And I never would have met the Acquisitions Editor if I hadn’t been involved in the local community.
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So, my advice to new writers: be confident. Meet others in your community. Ask questions. Find writers that are willing to answer. Learn as much as you can. Share your work. Share your passion. Good things will follow.
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One of my favorite things about becoming an author has been to support both those new to the profession as well as those publishing their 30th book. Everything I’ve learned, I’m willing to share. Ours is a calling – one that is getting more rare in today’s digital age. Writing voices in this world need to be heard. The ways to be heard are changing more quickly than we can write. We need a community to navigate the waters.
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Besides writing, what do you enjoy most? Can you tell us something about what you do outside of writing?
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I like to stay busy. Some in my life would say (and have said!) too busy. But I like it that way. I like to have goals – things to work toward. That has led me to pursue many different things in this short life. I hold my level 3 Sommelier’s certificate with WSET through the Art Institute of Vancouver. My husband and I share a passion for wine and enjoy visiting wine regions of the world.
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I’ve always been an active person and I enjoy mastering new sports and skills. I am an avid mogul skier, I hold a blue belt in karate, run half marathons (badly, but I finish!) and do sprint length triathlons annually to keep in shape.
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But mostly, I love being a wife and a mom. We have three kids, aged 10, 8 and 5 and I love hanging out with them and my hubby the most. They are a sporty bunch, in hockey, ringette (for non-Canadians, this is a hockey-like game played with a ring, on ice – with mostly all-girl teams), and competitive rhythmic gymnastics. All three kids are avid readers and inspire me to write amazing stories that will inspire them as they grow. They even help me brainstorm for my novels. Their favorite thing is to make up new kids to come to the school my characters attend, and to dream up elaborate pranks to make their lives at school hard. Not all of their ideas make it into the books, but they certainly are a creative bunch!
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More on her book here:
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Careful what you wish for. It just might come true.
Ava Marshall, driven by a desire to learn more about her mother’s past, moved across the country to attend St. Augustus. But her mom’s secrets will have to wait, because she finds herself instantly hated for her family’s connection to her new school and is forced to fight alone against a classmate who is setting Ava up to be expelled.
Fleeing campus, she takes a shortcut to her Gran’s house through the forbidden West Woods and discovers a mysterious fountain that has the power to grant a wish and change it all. But can she live with the consequences? Or will she end up breaking every school rule and risking the love of her life to make it right…
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