Award-winning Canadian author Susan Wadds is set to release a new novel this month.
Wadds, the winner of The Writers' Union of Canada's 2016 short prose contest for developing writers, has inked her latest book, What the Living Do. It's a story about a determined 37-year-old woman, Brett Catlin, who wants to be independent.
"She has a 27-year-old boyfriend, she's a road worker and likes to be tough and feisty," Wadds explains the main character. "She finds out she has cancer and determines it's possibly payback for the early deaths of her father and baby sister who died in a fire when she was quite young."
The story is essentially Catlin's "journey of finding self-worth" and believing she deserves to live and love. The inspiration for the story partly comes from Wadds' own experiences.
"It gets pulled together from a lot of different ideas," Wadds said. "What sparked the character is that somebody once said to me that they thought that women who worked on road crews were all hot blondes. That made me think OK, what if they weren't just a sign holder but a worker? Who would that character be?"
Like Catlin, Wadds also battled cervical cancer; she was diagnosed in 1991.
"I didn't want to have the surgery or anything they wanted me to do," she explained. "I wanted to fight it on my own and prove that I could heal myself."
Wadds, a native of Winnipeg, moved to India where she found alternative treatments to win her battle with the disease.
"I suppose that has something to do with how Catlin deals with things in the story," she said.
One of the themes of the story is the pervasive belief that illness or disease is one’s fault and happens as punishment.
"People think what did I do wrong to be so sick," Wadds explained. "Maybe that's not true and disease or illness isn't payback for anything. It just happens and people get sick for a number of reasons."
In What the Living Do, Catlin eventually comes to the conclusion she doesn't deserve her misfortunes. Also in the story, Catlin has many encounters with animals as she is tasked with cleaning up roadkill.
"Her driving partner from work is Indigenous and from Rama," Wadds explained. "He is based on people I know and an Ojibwe man I was married to for 10 years."
The Indigenous culture is very close to Wadds' heart, which is why she included it in her story.
"Seeing it as I was writing, it’s made me respect the animal world a whole lot more," she said.
On Sunday, March 24 from 1 to 3 p.m. at Creative Nomad Studios, Wadds, a resident of Sebright, will be on hand to launch the new book. All are welcome.
What the Living Do will be released on March 19, and will be available at Manticore Books in downtown Orillia for $26.95. An audiobook will also soon be available on Amazon.ca.
