This year local writer Susan May Warren, author of about 30 novels, added two American Christian Fiction Writers awards to a lengthy list of professional accolades: a Carol Award for the best Christian contemporary novella of 2009 for The Great Christmas Bowl and Mentor of the Year for her work teaching and mentoring other writers.
With about 30 published novels under her belt, Susan May Warren of Colvill could afford to rest on her laurels – except that they keep stacking up all around her, and she can’t seem to sit still long enough to rest on them.
This year Warren, who writes Christian fiction, won two major awards from the American Christian Fiction Writers, her contemporaries in the industry: She won a Carol Award for the best Christian fiction of 2009 in the contemporary novella category for The
Great Christmas Bowl
(published by Tyndale House), and she was honored as Mentor of the Year for her work teaching and mentoring other writers.
Christmas novella
The idea for The Great
Christmas Bowl
– about a football mom who agrees to become the school mascot (a trout) – came when Warren was in Nashville for a wedding, watching football in her hotel room with her friend, novelist Rachel Hauck, instead of enjoying the sights. “We looked at each other and said, ‘Something is really wrong with us!’” Theythen cooked up the beginnings of the story.
She and Hauck agreed that the first person to write the story would be the one to publish it. When Warren got home, she wrote the story and read it to her family as they were suffering from the flu. “It’s a fun story about a mom whose children are leaving the nest,” she said. “The story’s really about what mothers do to support their children.” The mother in the story, Mary Ann Wallace, worries about whether her children have picked up on the values she believes are important.
” The book is also about sacrifice. The main character gives up her dignity to put on a smelly fish costume and root for the home team. Sacrifice changes people, Warren said in an interview over coffee at the Java Moose. “It inspires us to be better people.”
Thebook pokes fun at traditions, “and of course it has lots of football in it,” Warren said. She wrote the book before her son Peter became part of the Cook County Vikings football team.
How much do Warren’s characters resemble her? “I think every author has a piece of himself in his stories,” she said, “otherwise the stories would not be authentic.” Mary Ann Wallace has a lot of Susan May Warren in her. She worries about her children leaving the nest, she misses them when they’re gone, she wants her relationship with her husband to be lasting and good, she tries to have a positive impact on her community, and she makes lots of mistakes along the way.
Numerous threads in the story mirror Warren’s family life. The Great Christmas Bowl
was begun when Warren’s oldest child David played Daddy Warbucks in the Grand Marais Playhouse production of Annie.
When he came out onto the stage with his head shaved and started to sing, Warren said, “I knew he’d grown up.”
Keeping busy
Warren’s novels range from romances and “chic lit” to suspense and historical fiction. She recently started a series with Minnesota publisher Summerside Press, a saga about an American family similar to the Vanderbilts. It starts in the “gilded age” – about 1890 to 1910 – continues into the Roaring Twenties, and goes on to the Great Depression and World War II. Thefirst of four books, Heiress,
will be out next July.
What is Warren’s favorite genre to write? “That’s like asking me who my favorite child is,” she said. “I love them all.”
As if writing book after book weren’t enough, Warren keeps busy blogging, speaking at conferences, teaching workshops, and mentoring other writers. Her Mentor of the Year Award means a lot to her. “It brings me great joy when I’m working with someone and their eyes light up and they get it,” she said. “It’s so fun.”
Warren offers both encouragement and advice to aspiring writers through a series of retreats that address different levels of readiness to write and publish: The Story Crafters Retreat in Minneapolis, The Deep Thinkers Retreat at a beachside mansion in Florida (this one fills up the day she opens registration), and The Summit in May, somewhere in the Midwest. Twelve people attended all three retreats last year. All of them have had agents request that they send proposals or full manuscripts. One of her mentoring clients hit the Christian Booksellers Association’s bestseller list last year.
Making her mark
Warren’s other awards include a Rita Award from the Romance Writers of America for best inspirational novel of 2009. That one, Warren said, “is like winning the Oscar of books.” Her Carol Award for The Great Christmas Bowl
was her third Carol Award. She has won the American Christian Fiction Writers Inspirational Reader’s Choice Award twice and has been up for a Christie four times. TheChristie Award is given by a conglomeration of publishing industry professionals. She has also been nominated
for an INSPY Award—
a
bloggers’ award for excellence in faith-driven literature—for one of her new books, Sons of
Thunder.
Warren is planning to have another Christmas novel come out in time for Christmas 2011. Called Baby It’s Cold Outside
and set in the 1940s, it’s about a woman who hasn’t celebrated Christmas since her son died in World War II. Her cold heart is warmed by the love of strangers who end up seeking shelter with her at Christmastime.
Warren’s website address is www.susanmaywarren.com, and she and a couple of other authors offer fiction editing services at www.mybooktherapy. com. Her books can be found at www.amazon.com, www.christianbook.com, www. booksamillion.com, Walmart, Sam’s Club, Barnes & Noble, Borders, and in Grand Marais, at SuperAmerica, Birchbark Gallery, East Bay Suites, and the Blue Moose.
“I love it when people write to me and tell me my books have touched them in some way,” Warren said. “The difference between a general market book and an inspirational book is that an inspirational book points them to the source of truth. …As a Christian, I believe that we are all on a journey for truth. My job as an author is to bring my character on a journey that is authentic and compelling and one that I hope readers can identify with.”
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