Five Minutes with Sue Parritt #LoveAusAuthors

Sue Parritt always writes with a cause in mind and weaves real issues with her fictional characters and their lives. Her first Speculative Fiction trilogy – Sannah and the Pilgrim, Pia and the Skyman and The Skylines Alliance, (Odyssey Books, 2014-16) – was a response to the Australian government’s harsh treatment of refugees and inaction on climate change.

Chrysalis, (Morning Star Press, 2017); Re-navigation, (Creativia, 2019) and A Question of Country, (Next Chapter (formerly Creativia), 2020) – all address the issues arising for three very different women, who are all searching for a meaningful identity in a rapidly changing world.

Feed Thy Enemy, (Creativia, 2019) is an historical fiction based on Sue’s father’s WWII experiences and subsequent PTSD. Written as a loving tribute to her father, after the discovery of important documents following her mother’s death in 2009, she wanted to include his memories within the story.

Sue’s second speculative fiction trilogy is now in progress. It deals with her concerns about the treatment of the elderly and the unemployed.

‘I feel compelled to write novels that address social justice issues, especially those affecting women,’ she says.

Five Things About Sue’s Life:

1. I was born and brought up in southern England, 1950-1970. I became a Quaker in 1967.
2. In 1970 I emigrated to Australia with my husband and our son was born in 1974.
3. I was a mature-age university student betwen 1978-1982.
4. From 1982-2008 I worked in university libraries in cataloguing and acquisitions.
5. My retirement career is where I began fiction writing, in 2008.

Five Things About Sue’s Work In Progress – The Reluctant Doorkeeper Trilogy:

1. The original idea came to me in a disturbing dream.
2. Book 1, 28 Days, sees Emma, 70, emerge from a life of compliance to one of civil disobedience when the Employment Positions Portal is disabled during the final 28 days of her Government Allocated Unemployment Period.
3. Book 2 – Next Step – 4th draft completed – follows Emma’s first year as a Trainee Doorkeeper, her role to assign “appropriate” positions to unemployed citizens, and her unofficial work for political change.
4. Book 3 will deal with a citizens’ revolution, as the population learn the truth about the role of Fully-Trained Doorkeepers.
5. I chose an older female protagonist because women tend to become “invisible” as they age, at least as far as mainstream society is concerned.

Five Things That Help Sue Keep on Writing:

1. Knowledge that I’m fulfilling a long-held dream to become a professional writer.
2. Concern over the direction Australian society is heading. E.g. Once welcoming, now xenophobic.
3. Publishing success, however small. Writers need readers.
4. A supportive husband (same one). He built me “a room of my own” in the garden.
5. Sense of fulfillment when I’ve completed a novel.

In the future, Sue hopes she can maintain the stamina to continue writing about issues that concern her. She would love to secure a mainstream publisher or an agent. She wants to take the time to develop her scriptwriting skills, after her novel, Feed Thy Enemy, first written as a screenplay, was unable to attract a producer. If able to do so, she dreams of adapting Sannah and the Pilgrim for television. And finally, she hopes to see her son fulfil his own writing potential.

You can find Sue’s published books here: www.sueparritt.com,  https://www.amazon.com/Sue-Parritt