When We Lost Touch was the winner in the BEST BOOK COVER/Fiction category of the 2023 IndieReader Discovery Awards, where undiscovered talent meets people with the power to make a difference.
Following find an interview with author Susan Kraus.
What is the name of the book and when was it published?
When We Lost Touch published Nov.’22
What’s the book’s first line?
“And then what happened?”
What’s the book about?
When We Lost Touch is a COVID novel, told from multiple POVs during the first 18 months of the pandemic. You may react to that with, “Oh, no, downer. I’m sick of COVID.” Sure, we all are. But do we even remember how it started? What we felt then? Were we hopeful? Did we trust our government to lead? To do whatever it took to protect us? This novel has been described as contemporary historical fiction (i.e. historical fiction in the future– what we all experienced, but are already forgetting, now.) Readers discover empathy when least expected. At times, it packs a gut-punch, but also moments of joy and connection.
What inspired you to write the book? A particular person? An event?
I was compelled more than inspired. It felt to me that our entire country was being gaslit— being told that we were not seeing what was in front of us –and, as a therapist, it felt that the reactions were like one big polarized, dysfunctional family. I wanted stories and characters that spoke clearly about what they were living through. I wanted distinct voices in the fog.
What’s the most distinctive thing about the main character?
Grace McDonald was more a protagonist in my other novels, but here she is the hub of a wheel of stories, of experiences. Grace is their mom, grandma, therapist, friend, lover, grief group facilitator and more. But the reader knows more about all of the characters than Grace does. The reader will choose, based on their own experiences, what characters mean the most to them.
What’s the main reason someone should really read this book?
Readers will find characters to care about, gripping stories, intimacy, tension even though we lived it. When We Lost Touch is about the ‘we.’ It’s fiction that mirrors what many of us felt and have already buried.
Did you design the cover yourself? If not, then who did and how did you find them?
I was strolling at the first sidewalk sale post-COVID in my hometown of Lawrence, Kansas, in the fall of ’21. I saw a poster and was gob-smacked. It was a visual depiction of my words. I asked the store what they knew about the artist. I tracked him down in Boston, emailed him, asked if he ever sold ‘rights’ to his art for a specific purpose, like a book cover. How I wanted rights for the book, for marketing and anything else that would involve the book — but he’d keep his rights to sell the art as his art. He said “Sure.” We emailed what we agreed on, and I paid by PayPal. No contract, no fuss. Then my university student assistant, who is destined to be brilliant in whatever she chooses to do, said, “I’ll do the graphic design.” She is Ashley Honey, and the artist is Dan McCarthy. The name of the art is “The Days We Are Living In.”
What, if any, elements of the book did you want to convey in the cover design?
Our collective separation? The abyss? How isolated we felt? The two people in silhouette are holding up cell phones. It is what we all experienced: we all lost touch.
What’s the most distinctive thing about the main character? Who-real or fictional-would you say the character reminds you of?
The main character is Grace McDonald, a 60-ish therapist and mediator who is the hub of the wheel: helping her single-mom daughter raise her grandson (on the spectrum); navigating her own unexpected relationship with a man (both of them with dead spouses); balancing the needs of her clients with ethical constraints. She is not a heroine, not bigger than life, but relatable, flawed, angry, caring. Her life is messy as are our own.
When did you first decide to become an author?
I’ve written my whole life, but still cannot self-describe as an “author.” It was not an option for me when I was in university, or not an option I allowed outside of my dreams. I feel a deep sadness when I think of what I might have written had I started decades ago. But then I wouldn’t have experienced the professional work, and life, that fuels and informs my writing.
Is this the first book you’ve written?
When We Lost Touch is my 4th novel. All of them deal with polarizing social or political issues –although the first is more psych thriller — but from the POVs of those intimately involved in the issue. I believe in the power of fiction to change beliefs or attitudes where non-fiction fails, to elicit empathy as a reader comes to care for a character. But I also want to tell gripping, page-turning stories, to grab a reader, shake them up a bit, and leave them thinking and feeling a tad differently than when they started.
What do you do for work when you’re not writing?
I’m a social worker/therapist (marriage and family) and mediator (high-conflict divorce and custody issues.) I write what I know. I aspire to be for social work/mediation what Scott Turow and John Grisham are for law— we share flawed, ethically challenged protagonists who grapple with just causes in screwed-up systems. Hey, a girl can dream, no?
How much time do you generally spend on your writing?
When in the ‘throes’ of a book, it can be 10-12 hours a day. Then nothing. But my mind is always chewing on something about the book.
What’s the best and the hardest part of being an indie?
I loathe marketing and dream of having a ‘team’ that would do that for me. But I like going rogue in my writing and a traditional publisher might want me to stick with a genre. None of my novels are ‘straight’ genre. They blend different genres – women’s issues, relationships, thriller, socially conscious. In this case, being Indie means I have more control— I got to pick the title, the cover art, to work with the designer personally.
What’s a great piece of advice that you can share with fellow indie authors?
Do NOT do what I’ve done with marketing (like ignore it.) If you believe in your work, and want readers, then recognize that a new phase of hard work starts when the writing ends. I have to tell this to myself every day because I’ve written really solid books but then I abandoned them. Do not abandon your children.
Would you go traditional if a publisher came calling? If so, why?
Maybe. What are they calling to offer?
Is there something in particular that motivates you (fame? fortune?)
Validation. I’m actually terrifically insecure. I want to hug anyone who has read my work. I can be pathetically grateful. But…. I write because I have to write. Words flood my brain. They need an escape.