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[music] -This Tennessee author grew up in what .. in Brownsville.

She realized writing was more than a hobby when her father died, when she used writing to deal with her feelings.

Straight ahead on Tennessee Writes, we're meeting author Susannah B. Lewis.

Although she's known for making us laugh, she's been obsessed with the King of Horror, Stephen King, and even wanted to move to Maine to be closer to him, but her love of family has kept her here in Tennessee where she lives with her husband, three children, dogs, cats, and goats, which you can all see for yourself on her Facebook page.

We'll chat about her journey from self-publishing her first book to becoming a bestselling author, and how her faith finds its way into her stories.

Pour yourself a big old cup of coffee and your favorite comfy chair, Tennessee Writes starts right now -Books about Tennessee.

-Books that come from Tennessee authors.

-Books and stories with a Tennessee twist.

-West Tennessee PBS presents Tennessee Writes.

[music] -Welcome to Tennessee Writes, the show that gets up close and personal with Tennessee authors.

My name is Peter Noll.

This is the show that goes beyond the book to learn about its author from their childhood to where their stories come from.

They even offer advice if you want to write a book yourself.

Plus, we put the authors on a stopwatch as they try and answer questions in the lightning round.

[music] -Tennessee Writes is honored to welcome bestselling author Susannah B. Lewis.

She was born in Brownsville, Tennessee, but now calls Medina her home, where she lives with her husband, children, dogs, cats, and goats.

Her books are bestsellers, telling stories of southern life and faith, earning her millions of fans.

At last count, she had 1.2 million Facebook followers.

Tennessee Writes welcome Susannah B. Lewis.

-Welcome to Tennessee Writes.

-Thank you so much for having me.

-Thank you for coming on in.

-Absolutely.

Thank you.

-The B, what does the B stand for?

-Brown.

-Brown.

-That was my grandmother's maiden name.

We like to do that in the south, incorporate the maiden names into the names, and so my name is Susanna Brown.

My dad's name was Billy Brown.

My son's name is Bennett Brown.

We've kept it going.

-You said your family was like a sitcom growing up?

-Yes, absolutely.

My mother was hilarious; my dad was hilarious.

A lot of one-liners.

Absolutely, it was like a sitcom, lot of laughter.

We used humor to deal with a lot of things, and so I grew up watching The Golden Girls and sitcoms with my mom.

-You have a cat named Bea Arthur?

-I do have a cat named Bea Arthur.

Absolutely, yes.

I learned at an early age, sarcasm became fluid in that, as a kid, and just lived in a house that was a lot of .. It was a lot of fun.

-You also had some horrible events hap.. with your feelings.

Tell us about that.

-Absolutely, I did.

I knew at a very early age I wanted to be an author.

I was about eight years old, and I had read a book called The Trouble With Tuck.

It was about a girl and a dog on the cover.

I remember sitting in my bedroom in Brownsville reading that book, and it was fun and I was laughing, but then the dog got sick and the dog died.

I remember crying and my tears dropping on those pages, and I thought, "Wow, how powerful is that, that a book can make you go from laughing to cryin.. I thought, "I want to do that.

I want to write books that make people feel .. Maybe not books about dead dogs, but books that make people feel something.

It just became ingrained in me.

I wrote my first book on notebook paper and stapled it together, and drew stick figures on the front, and was so excited.

It was about two friends, and one of the friends moves away.

I remember running into the living room, my mother was watching The War of the Roses with Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner.

I remember telling her, "Look at this book I've written."

She was so excited and encouraging about that.

Writing at the beginning was just something fun for me.

Now, when I was 11, my dad passed away of a heart attack.

He was only 43.

It was a shock to our whole community.

He was very well known.

I realized at that time that writing was not just fun.

I wrote through my feelings of that.

It was very cathartic for me.

I've gone back and read some of those things that I wrote at that time, and they're very deep.

You can see how they helped me to cope with things, and throughout high school, and not just my dad's death, but other things I have written through the good times and through the bad times, and it really has been a saving grace writing.

-Do you keep a journal?

-Oh, absolutely, yes.

I've kept journals my entire life.

Now I type them.

I've got carpal tunnel, so I type instead of actually wr.. but I keep writing sometimes.

-That's how much she writes.

She has carpal tunnel syndrome.

-I do.

I just had to fill out some paperwork, and it loo.. because my handwriting is so terrible.

That is such an important part of my life is keeping tabs on my thoughts, my feelings, what's going on.

-You said your first book you self-published, if my research is right, you said I read it 15 times and I put it out there- -I did.

--and then you were horrified.

There were all these spelling errors.

Koi pond got spelled wrong if I remember right.

Correct?

-It did.

Yes.

Koi pond was misspelled.

I'd written it as a shy pond.

That's the kind of pond it was.

Let's say about 10 years ago, I was a stay-at-home mother at the time.

I was spending my time writing.

That's when the blogging was really huge at that time.

I was writing for several little websites to pass the time as a stay-at-home mother.

During that time, I was writing a book, and I tried to go the traditional route of getting it published, pitching it to people, and I got rejection letter after rejection letter, which was okay.

I said, "You know what, I'm just going to self-publish this thi.. I've got to get it out there.

I did, and I had no editor.

A friend of mine who knew Photoshop very well did the cover for me.

It was all very homemade.

-Which book is this?

-This is called Ten Years Taken.

I wrote it 10 years ago, and that book did really, really well for a self-published book.

I'd gotten an online following at that time, social media, so I promoted it there.

A lot of people found out about-- it's kind of a cult classic, I guess you would say.

There's a group of people who really love this book, and if they see me out in the store, they're like, "Are you going to write a sequel to Ten Years Taken?"

I've been asked that quite a bit lately because it's 10 years since it happened.

I warn people, I say, "Listen, there are some grammatical errors, some typos.

That was all me.

I needed a fresh set of eyes.

I really enjoyed writing that book, and I think it's a good book.

I would love to see that book be a movie, actually.

-You know where to get her.

You self-published.

How did you end up then becoming published with publishers and all of the whole industry behind you?

-Right.

I'd self-published maybe three book.. Again, I had a pretty large social media following.

I'd had some videos go viral and that kind of thing.

I was writing for articles online.

A literary agent in Texas actually followed me on Facebook.

She saw one of my self-published books.

She read it and she reached out to me, and she said, "Would you like a traditional publishing deal?"

I was like, "Only since I was eight.

Yes, I would love that.

That'd be great."

She reached out to me about that and she said, "I would love to see you write non-fiction.

Because you write a lot of these blog posts and articles about motherhood and parenting."

I'd been called the Erma Bombeck of this generation and writing about parenting and marriage and stuff.

She said, "I would like to see you write non-fiction."

We pitched around a couple of ideas, and I got a two-book deal with Thomas Nelson, which is the Christian imprint of HarperCollins, to write two non-fiction books: Can't Make This Stuff Up and How May I Offend You Today.

I wrote both of those books.

-You got the deal and you had two books to get done.

-I had two books to get done.

-Did they give you deadlines?

-Yes.

-Is that a weight on your shoulders?

-Absolutely.

I had always been able to, up until this point, just write whenever I felt like it.

I had to learn to be intentional in my writing because you're not always in the mood to write.

I would usually write when I was in the mood, which was usually at night when everyone had gone to bed, and I had my quiet time and my music and my coffee.

Now I had to make it a job.

I have to write in the carpool line, I have to write here, and that I have to get this done.

It was different.

It was hard for me to get into that swing of.. but I did.

I met my deadlines and those books did pretty well.

I got to go out to LA and promote those on some morning shows.

I was on Huckabee show.

Different things like that.

It was a really great experience.

-What was the change like going from fiction, where you make it up as you go to non-fiction?

-Oh, non-fiction is harder, I think, because you just have to be really vulnerable about what you want to share with people and hope that it doesn't offend somebody who can pick it up and read it and be like, "Oh, that's geared towards a situation we had together or things like that."

Lying is easy.

That's what fiction is.

It's just lie.

It's just making up a story.

Making up things as they go along is easy, but being factual and trying to portray the story as it is was a little bit harder.

-What's your fascination with Stephen King?

-Oh my goodness.

I don't know.

I have loved Stephen King since I was-- I mean, I watched It when I was- -This is the second or third book of yours I've read.

I would've never guessed you love Stephen King?

-No, you would never have guessed that.

I watched It probably when I was about 10, and wasn't even scar.. I was fascinated by that.

-I'm still scared by It.

-It is, and I love that.

One of Stephen King's, his non-fiction books called On Writing, I got in high school.

It's about writing for writers.

It really impacted me in tips and tricks on how to write from the horror master himself.

I really grew respect for him in that book, but I've always loved his work.

Yes, I wanted to live in Maine.

I'm actually going to Maine in September, and I can't wait to get to Maine.

-Just for vacation.

You're not leaving us here in Tennessee.

-No, I'm not.

We're going for a little vacation.

My obsession with Maine started with my obsession with Stephen King because everything of his takes place in Maine, just like all of mine takes place in the South.

I don't know anything else.

You write what you know.

I can't wait to get up there and see what that's about.

[music] -Susannah, let's delve into the book, Bless Your Heart, Rae Sutton.

-Sure.

-Is it based on anything in real life?

-Absolutely, yes.

-Give our viewers just a little elevator pitch about what the story's about.

-The book is about Rae Sutton, whose mother has just passed away, and she comes back to her hometown for her mother's funeral.

-In Alabama?

-In Alabama, yes.

A made-up town of Whitten, Alabama.

She's recently divorced.

She's got a 14-year-old girl.

She comes back to her hometown.

She moves into her childhood home.

There she finds letters that her mother has left for her.

Her mother had been sick.

She knew that her time was coming.

-Did that really happen to someone that you know?

Because the way you wrote about that, it brought me to tears.

-Well, this is the first fiction book I had written since my mother passed away.

Again, going back to that cathartic experience, this book was very cathartic for me.

I wrote a lot of things that my mother had actually said to me in life.

I wrote a lot of things that I wish I could have found in a note from my mama, a disclosure for a couple of things.

Yes, my mother's voice is all in this book.

-I felt that her mother was a character in the book.

-Yes.

-Through the letters .. -Absolutely.

There were several things, scenes in the book that were true.

Things about where she's cleaning out her mother's closet, where she's finding things.

Those are the things that happened to me.

Those came right for my diary.

I inserted that.

She goes back to town.

She moves into her old home.

She joins a third Thursday club.

That was her mother, and her mother's friends had a book club ministry where they sat around and ate and drank coffee and gossiped and talked about who's in the hospital, and this and that.

They invite Rae, who's in her 30s, to come to the club meeting .. her mother's spot.

Those ladies pour into her at tha.. as she's missing her mom.

It's a sweet story.

I think it was a good closure for me after my mother died.

Some things that I would love to have heard her say to me through those letters.

Absolutely, there's a lot of truth in that b.. -I think a lot of young people should read your book because it makes you want to move to a small town.

Is she in Huntsville, Birmingham?

-Yes, she's in Huntsville.

-Had gotten divorced and was scared about moving to her small town, her hometown.

She wasn't really sure about it.

The town grew on her, and she found her footing.

It's really a beautiful story.

-Thank you.

-I wanted to find my little Thur.. -Oh, wouldn't that be nice?

I would love it.

Now, that was actually inspired after my mother passed away.

My great aunt invited me to one of her book clubs to talk about a book I had self-published.

I came, and I went, and it was my great aunt, it was my English teacher from third grade, and it was several old ladies I'd known my whole life.

They sat around.

They were gossiping, and they were.. then they'd pray for this.

I thought, what a great book this would be.

This would be a great book.

That was inspired by that many, ma.. -Is there going to be a follow-up?

It left you hanging at the end.

-It does.

-I always thought, oh, it'd be a conclusion.

I knew where I wanted her to go.

There can be a couple of guys.

Then you don't, no, really.

-You draw your own conclusions from that.

I like to leave people hanging at the end just a little bit.

Just to-- how do you think it plays out?

What do you want to happen with it there at the end?

I think that's fun.

[music] -Susannah, this is the segment we call Lightning Round.

Some people love it.

Some people, not so much.

We put two minutes on the clock and ask our authors a series of quick literary book questions, and you see how many you can get in two minutes.

If you can't think of an answer, just say pass, and we'll move on.

The clock will start after I ask my first que.. How many pages would the book about your life be?

-Oh, good gracious.

1.7 million.

-What animal best represents one of your books?

-Dogs.

-Last, when is the last time you checked a book o.. -Oh my goodness, 1997.

-What is your favorite movie based on a book?

-The Hunger Games series.

-How many pages is your latest book?

-325.

-What is your favorite book of all time?

-Fiction, Agatha Christie, And Then There Were None.

Non-fiction, the Bible.

-What's your least favorite book of all time?

-The Twilight series.

-How often do you check your Amazon book reviews and ratings?

-I don't.

-What is the name of the font used in your book?

-Oh my gosh, I have no idea.

-What celebrity do you want to narrate your book?

-To narrate my book?

Reese Witherspoon.

-Name a food item or drink that helps you write.

-Dr.

Pepper.

-If you could have a book signing in any city in the world, where would it be?

-New York, of course.

New York, yes.

-What author, living or dead, would you most like to have dinner with?

-Agatha Christie.

-Where would you go for dinner?

-Cracker Barrel.

-Did you write your books on a computer or by hand?

-Computer.

-What book have you read multiple times?

-Agatha Christie, And Then There Were None.

-How many times?

-Maybe five.

Five.

-What actor would you want to star in the movie based on your book?

-Reese Witherspoon.

-First book you can remember reading as a child?

-The Trouble with Tuck.

-Where is your favorite place to read books?

-In my bed.

-On average, how many books do you read in one year?

-Oh, gosh, I'm embarrassed.

Not enough.

Just not enough.

-Do you prefer to write with pen or pencils?

-Pencils, actually.

-What book has influenced your life the most?

-The Bible.

[buzzer buzzes] [thunder crashes] [music] -Susannah, we always love to hear the authors speak the words that they wrote.

Would you mind reading a little bit from your b.. -Absolutely.

I'd be glad to.

Thank you.

Chapter Seven.

"Mama was an incredibly talented musician.

She played both violin and piano.

She never took a lesson in her life, and mostly played by ear, but she taught herself how to read music and was qualified to teach the subject at Whitton Middle School, which she did for nearly 30 years.

She favored calling her violin a fiddle.

She called it a fiddle when she played Blue Moon of Kentucky, and she called it a fiddle when she played Partita in D Minor by Johann Sebastian Bach.

Her daddy, a Birmingham coal miner until 1937, and later a hay grower who supplied all the horse farmers and cow operations with 100 miles of his small homestead, was a country boy who didn't dare play a violin.

He played the fiddle, so that’s what his mother called it, what Mama called it, too.

She kept her favorite, most reliable fiddle, a satin antique Mendini, propped against the wall in the corner of the living room for easy access.

She had a collection of 10 or so.

They lived in her music room and were displayed on hooks along the walls.

The music room was a small add-on that Daddy built off the laundry when Jamie and I were small.

Mama painted it her favorite shade of pink and hung framed sheet music on the walls between the fiddles.

She bought a small spinet piano from Mrs.

DeBerry, the local piano teacher, and placed it on the long wall of the room next to a pink and green floral chaise lounge.

A white bookcase filled with music books and gifts she'd received from music students over the years, like miniature porcelain fiddles and knick-knacks, sat in another corner.

I had decorated the rest of the house as my own, but I didn't dare touch my mother's music room, and I never planned to do so.

The day after the meeting at Mrs.

Fanny's house, I walked into the music room with Patsy following and pulled a spruce viola from the pink wall.

I sat on the floral lounge and ran the bow across the dull strings.

Patsy seemed to grimace.

I could only play a few chords correctly.

Mama always wanted me to play a musical instrument, but I never had the patience or the rhythm.

I took piano lessons from Mrs.

DeBerry for a year or so, but retired with only one song, Ode to Joy, in my portfolio.

I placed the viola back on the wall and paced the small room, admiring the violin collection.

On top of the spinet piano, I saw the familiar pink envelope with my name written in Mama's cursive on the front.

I didn't know how I'd missed it in the handful of time.. in the room over the last month, but a smile covered my face as I sprawled across the lounge and peeled it open.

Rae-- this is the letter, "Rae, you're in my favorite room in this house.

How many times did I escape to this room and play the fiddle while you and your brother bickered or your father watched the Crimson Tide?

I came here when the bills were overdue and stress sank in.

I came here when I was grief stricken at the loss of my parents.

I cried in this room, I prayed in this room, I healed in this room.

Music has always been such a comfort to me.

It's been a gift.

I can't begin to describe what a glorious and exhilarating fee.. to hear your own hands make beautiful melodies.

I would sit in this room for hours on end and play and cry and smile.

I would always exit this room better than when I had entered.

I wish you'd learned to play an instrument, but you hated every lesson with Mrs.

DeBerry.

You refused to practice the piano and vomited the morning of your only piano recital.

Each time you played Ode to Joy for me, my burdens were a little lighter.

I think yours were too.

Do you remember when your brother Jamie took drum lessons?

Oh me.

I was thrilled when he showed an interest in.. even when my head pounded as he banged the tom-tom for hours on end.

I nearly died of liver failure from all the Tylenol I took during that stint with the drums, but it was worth it, because I know the power in turning to music during hard times.

The afternoon your grandmother, Mrs.

Bonnie Reeves, died, your father was at her bedside.

He phoned me to tell me she'd passed away, and 30 minutes later he walked through the front door of our little house on King Street.

I was standing at the kitchen counter rolling out biscuits, and he silently wrapped his arms around my waist and rested his head on my shoulder.

I'd known your father for a long time and had never seen.. until that moment.

I held him there in the kitchen for a good long while, and he walked to the record player in the living room and put on his favorite Otis Redding song, These Arms of Mine.

There on that cold linoleum floor at my bare feet, your father and I danced.

His mother had only been dead an hour, but we danced in that kitchen.

I don't know why your father picked that song.

I don't know why his first instinct after his mother died was to dance, but that's what we did.

I think the music helped him.

Actually, I know it did.

When that boy broke up with you, oh, what was his name?

Kevin Howell.

When Kevin Howell broke up with you in high school, you came home and ran straight to your bedroom.

The door shut, and sang the song from that prostitute movie with Julia Roberts was blaring from the other side.

It Must Have Been Love, you played it on repeat.

You finally exited with puffy eyes and joined your father and me at the dinner table.

My heart hurt so terribly for you in that moment because it was your first heartbreak.

You were better than when you ran into your room that afternoon.

I can still see you and your father dancing to Etta James at your wedding.

I can still see you and Carter swaying to Percy Sledge at the country club.

I can see you and your brother dancing in front of the television.

I can feel your father's arms around my waist.

He always liked to dance while I was trying to cook.

I burned more fried green tomatoes because your daddy partied on an Otis Redding album.

If you decide to stay in this house, I hope you'll dance in it.

I hope you'll take your daughter's hand and spin around the living room.

I hope you'll dance while putting away the laundry and drying the dishes.

I hope the next love of your life will make you burn the fried green tomatoes.

Music Rae, it's a beautiful thing.

I love you with my heart until we meet again and dance on streets of gold.

Mama."

[music] -Susannah, you're a writer, podcaster, blogger, articles, humorist.

What advice do you have for someone watching out there on how they can get started?

-How you get started?

Okay.

The main thing today is social media.

That's where it is.

Back in the days of Steinbeck, you'd write a .. you'd send it in, and you'd get published.

Now I have learned one of the main things is you have to have a presence on social media.

You have to.

I don't care if it's 20, 30 followers.

You got to start getting your name out there.

You've got to have snippets of your work in places to get seen.

You just have a better chance of getting seen.

You don't write a manuscript, send it in, and just pray for the best anymore.

I wish you did.

Even if you did get published that way, did get some interest that way, literary agents are going to look at what online presence do you have.

Do people like to listen to you?

Do you respond to these people?

Do they want to hear more of what you have to say?

That would be the first step.

-You were discovered through your social media?

-Yes, through social media.

Through entering every short story contest I could online, asking, not getting paid a dime, but writing articles for Huffington Post or these things.

Just submitting, submitting, submitting my work.

Just to get my name out there, and it paid off.

If I would win a short story contest, there was my name.

They'd tag me on social media.

People would go there.

People come here.

That's one of the main things is to get your name out there on social media.

-Where can people follow you?

You've got a great website.

Is that where they should start?

-I do.

You can start at my website, which is whoasusannah.com.

That's what my first blog was called, was whoasusannah.com, but I'm mostly found on Facebook.

My kids are really trying to get me into the TikTok world.

I'm struggling, but I'm trying to get on BookTok and that kind of thing, so I have a smaller platform there.

Facebook definitely is where I post most of my things.

-It's Susannah B. Lewis.

-Susanna B. Lewis, yes.

I post short stories on there on Saturdays, just things for my life, a lot of things about my faith.

I do a lot of writing there.

-Did I see about your mom, that she went to her grade, thinking LOL meant?

-[laughs] She did.

She went to her grade, thinking LOL meant lot.. That was something I posted yesterday.

-I just thought it was so sweet.

-Yes.

-You wrote an article I found, I think from last year about mothers.

-Yes, absolutely.

-Don't take your mom for granted.

-Absolutely.

-Give them a call, go visit them.

-Oh yes, absolutely.

I write a lot of things like that, serious things, faithful things, funny things.

Sometimes it's just nonsense.

I just write just nonsense.

I've given all my animals at my house, my dogs, cats, goats, they all have a voice and a personality of their own.

Sometimes they post something on Facebook.

-Some have a golden girl's name.

-Yes, some have a golden girl's name.

It's just silly.

Going back to what I said, I want to make people laugh on one page, cry on the next.

I think that's what I do on social media, in books, and on social media.

-Susannah, a half hour goes by so fast.

We are honored and just so thankful that you were able to stop by and share with us a little bit about your journey and as it goes on and about your book, Bless Your Heart, Rae Sutton.

-Yes.

-Thank-you gift is a writing kit that we put together with a briefcase, a latte mug- -Great.

--book and pen to help write your future thoughts, ramblings, and maybe stories.

-Yes.

-Before you leave, would you sign your book for us?

-Absolutely, I would be honored to.

-Thank you.

-Yes.

[music] -Thank you so much for your support.

Susanna B Lewis.

-Thank you.

-Thank you so much.

-For comments about today's show or to suggest a Tennessee author for a future program, email us at tennesseewrites@westtnpbs.org.

Tennessee Writes, on air and streaming now.

[music] -The program you've been watching was made possible through the generous financial support of West Tennessee PBS viewers like you.

Please visit westtnpbs.org, and make a donation today so that we can continue to make local programs like this possible.

Thank you.

[music]