Susan Beckhorn
As a child, Susan spent her days running around outdoors in Winchester, Massachusetts with a dog, pony, and even a raccoon! Summers were spent at a lake in New Hampshire. When she wasn’t exploring the world outside, she was reading—which led to her love of words and future career as an author. Now Susan lives in western New York with her husband, dogs, cats, horses, and chickens, so it is no surprise that she writes about animals. Read on for more about this local author and illustrator.
Q. Thank you, Susan, for chatting with our readers! You have written novels, picture books, short stories, and illustrated some of your books as well. What is your favorite type of project to work on?
I love them all, but there is something about the middle grade novel that is dear to my heart. The years between eight and twelve are often called the “Golden Age” of reading. For me they certainly were. School hadn’t yet evolved into the intense prep for college with compulsory assigned books. I’d mastered the skill, my imagination was boundless, and I had time to read whatever I chose. I am particularly fascinated with coming-of-age stories. Growing up is hard. When I’m spinning a tale of those moments of choice, realization, and metamorphosis the story becomes as real to me as my life. In my upcoming book, the boy Kai and the wolf Uff are like dear friends.
Q. Given your love of animals, did you ever consider pursuing a career that involved working with them?
I have thought of being a wildlife rehabber, but it takes a very special person. I don’t think I could master the detachment to raise them without bonding.
Q. Your picture books Moose Power and Moose Eggs obviously feature moose! Have you encountered these animals in the wild? What sparked your interest in them?
I’ve seen moose along roadsides in northern New England and have always been intrigued with the ungainly, yet majestic aura of them. The moose encounter in Sarey by Lantern Light was inspired by conversation with a potato farmer in Maine. Moose Eggs and Moose Power came about as a result of my daughter Fern’s fear of a blue water tank. Our house is built into the side of a hill. When she was small, the tank was in our living room. She’d scoot past it on the way to bed, calling it “the Blue Moose,” so I began telling her moose stories. Hmmm. THE BLUE MOOSE . . . another idea?
Q. As an illustrator, did you have any input on the artwork in your picture books?
I was not consulted for The Kingfisher’s Gift, Wind Rider, or Moose Eggs. The endpapers showing farming and logging tools for Moose Power were my idea. Sometimes unfortunate things happen when the author has no input. I was thrilled that Disney*Hyperion did consult me on the cover of The Wolf’s Boy. That artwork is in progress.
Q. Tell us about your upcoming novel, The Wolf’s Boy, Disney*Hyperion, June 2016.
For a long time after writing Wind Rider, a novel about how the first horse might have been tamed and ridden, I contemplated doing a “first dog” story. I hesitated because the coming together of dog and man was such an old and important tale I thought it must have already been done many times. Still, I wanted so much to do it that at last I decided it hadn’t been done by me and maybe that was reason enough to give it a try.
For a year in 2011, I read every dog, wolf, and prehistory book I could find. Much to my surprise, I didn’t run across a lot fiction on the subject beyond a lovely picture book, The First Dog by Jan Brett; a good little novel for younger kids, Malu’s Wolf by Ruth Craig; and of course, the adult book, Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean Auel. Suddenly, I felt that my story had waited many thousands of years to be told.
My next problem was setting. After reading Mark Derr’s wonderful How the Dog Became the Dog, I contacted the author and he suggested that dog domestication might have taken place in many locales at different times in history. Then he happened to mention an amazing find in Chauvet Cave—discovered in 1994, but never opened to the public so as not to repeat the disaster of Lascaux. Walking side by side, surrounded by the spectacular paintings, were the fossilized footprints of a boy and a canine. Chills ran up my spine. I had found my story.
As a relatively unknown children’s writer, I knew I would not be allowed inside Chauvet. Instead, I got a copy of the breathtaking book, The Dawn of Art, which was put together by the discoverers of the cave and documents what are thought to be the oldest paintings in the world. Then in April of 2013, my husband and I travelled to Europe. We visited the Neanderthal Museum in Germany where I gleaned ideas for my character, Oooni. We went to the Dordogne valley where we were able to enter several caves still open to the public, view Cro-Magnon art, and know the mysterious aura of these sacred places. And we climbed to the opening of Chauvet, gazed at the beautiful Ardèche River Gorge with its awe-inspiring stone arch, and felt what it must have been like in Kai’s time.
Q. Do you have another illustration project in the works? What books are you working on next?
I’d like to illustrate a picture book text I’ve written called Island Dog, about a Caribbean Pothound. We adopted our little dog, Curry, from the island of Carriacou last winter. There will be an article about him in the November issue of Jack and Jill Magazine.
I’m also working on a modern day shipwreck story and a tale about a Shetland pony, both middle grade novels.
Q. Do you have plans to write non-fiction for any age, on animals or another topic?
Every now and then I write a nature themed essay for adults. My brother, Ted Williams (not the baseball player!) has been a long-time contributor to Audubon and Fly Rod and Reel. I guess it’s in my blood, but I’m primarily a children’s fiction writer.
Q. You do a lot of school and library visits with your successful hands-on presentations. What is the most rewarding part of speaking with young readers?
The best is when I look at their beautiful artwork and see that they totally “got” my story—and when they come to me with stories of their own!
Visit Susan online (http://www.suebeckhorn.com), on Twitter (@suebeckhorn), on FaceBook (https://www.facebook.com/suswb) and at the Rochester Children’s Book Festival (www.rochesterchildrensbookfestival.com) on November 7, 2015 at Monroe Community College.
Deena Viviani is a Rochester-based Young Adult Services Librarian. Read her book reviews at www.deenaml.livejournal.com or send her a note at De**********@*****il.com – she loves to hear from readers!
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