- Title
- Our state
-
-
- Date
- May 1998
-
-
- Place
- ["North Carolina, United States"]
-
Our state
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tar heel profile _
by Cheminne Taylor-Smiih
photography by Mark Wagoner Fotografie
The Mother Who Writes
Attention to detail is the key to Rutherfordton native Susan Kelly’s life
and to her craft as an author. These details weave a wonderful web of life, love, and friendship
in Kellys first published novel, How Close We Come.
According to John
Foster Dulles, a per¬
son's accomplish¬
ments in life are the cumu¬
lative effect of his attention
to detail. That attention to
detail is the key to Susan
Kelly's
ПГе
and to her craft
as an author. The details
weave a wonderful web of
life. love, and friendship in
Kelly's first published novel.
How Close We Gome (see review on page
10). “I think anybody who is a writer
has to
Ы*
an observer," says Kelly. "I am
fascinated by the ordinary. I think you
can tell a lot about a person just by
what they have in their grocei
у
carts. I
just really love the every day and the
mundane. And, honestly, it's just a story
without the richness if you don't have
the details. You write what you know,
and I know the details."
Kelly gathers those details like peb¬
bles on a beach, storing them up for
later. She uses notebooks, a Dicta¬
phone, and her computer to gather up
what she wants to remember. "I have
seven years of this kind of thing. From
how new wallpaper smells like Band-
Aids to how sifting through okra can
make your hands itch. There are things
I'll just see or think of and say ‘I've just
got to write that down.' All of that
detail will later translate into my
writing."
The details about Kelly are these: She
lives in Greensboro with her husband
of 20 years, Sterling, has
three children, is a graduate
of the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill, and
has published several short
stories. A native of Ruther¬
fordton, Kelly grew up in a
world of women. She has
three sisters, her father died
young, and she attended an
all-girls school and an all¬
girls camp. She calls herself
a "girl’s girl." a sort of self-described
steel magnolia.
A premiere novel
Kelly drew on her experiences with
friendship and women for How Close We
Come, a story of two women and their
decade-long friendship. Although the
book is not strictly autobiographical,
Kelly says. “You find me someone who's
not writing from their own experiences
and I'll show you a liar." Kelly says that
some of the stories in the lxx>k are not
May 1998 Our State 53