[Susan Merrell, practical matters]: Working when you’re not technically “working” + vomit draft Ep 1170

Finding the Throughline with Kate Hanley

This week my guest is Susan Scarf Merrell, author of Shirley: A Novel, which became a major motion picture. She’s also the author of A Member of the Family, and The Accidental Bond: How Sibling Connections Influence Adult Relationships.

Susan teaches in the MFA in Creative Writing & Literature at the Lichtenstein Center of Stony Brook Southampton, and she is the co-creator, with the novelist Meg Wolitzer, of the BookEnds Fellowship novel revision program.

Susan’s essays, book reviews and short fiction have appeared in The New York Times, Newsday, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and The Washington Post. Fun fact: she brushed her hair and changed out of her sweatshirt for this interview, which inspired me to do the same!

We covered:

• How she first became a published author as a child

• Her mother (Maggie Scarf), a psychology journalist who worked on books about Antarctica and Jane Goodall

• Her alternative fantasies to writing, like being a swimmer or opening a bakery

• How she was a copy editor in the right place at the right time and talked her way into a job as a research professor which eventually earned her a tenured position

• The value of a what she calls a vomit draft

• How a lot of the times she’s working on her writing, she’s not actually sitting at a desk and writing—she’s baking, or walking, or swimming

Connect with Susan at susanscarfmerrell.com.

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thank you for listening!

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