Cornerstone Press, Dec. 2018
ISBN 9780984673971
Paperback: $14.95
E-book coming soon
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About the book:
Drawing on the rich complexity of the American Midwest, Kim Suhr peoples her debut book of fiction with characters that we know, carved out of the Wisconsin landscape and caught between expectation and desire. An Iraq war veteran stalks the streets of Madison. Four drunk friends hunt deer outside of Antigo. A mother tries to save her son. A transplanted New Yorker plots revenge against her husband. A man sobers up and opens a paintball range for Jesus. A woman with nothing to lose waits for her first kiss.
Personal and powerful, Kim Suhr’s Nothing to Lose shows us a region filled with real people: less than perfect, plagued with doubts, always reaching.
A brief interview with the author:
Introduce us to your most difficult character.
That’s a tough one because I love all my protagonists—even the unlovable ones—for their complexity and brokenness. Perhaps the most difficult for me to get inside of was Anna, aka Ellen Wilkinson, from the story titled “Brush Strokes.” I wanted to help readers identify with her even as they become increasingly uncomfortable with her. Who is the “good guy” and who is the “bad guy?” I like to keep the reader guessing.
Can you share two things you learned from your research during the writing and publication process?
I learned that there are artists who actually paint with human blood. (I don’t even want to think about what my Google search history looked like on the day I learned that!)
As for a publishing tidbit, I learned the truth of the adage: “I’m a great believer in luck. The harder I work the luckier I get.”
What do you hope readers will tell others when they’ve finished the book?
This book made me see something in a different way; it made me compassionate for someone who is different from me.
What’s next for you?
I am working on the audiobook version of Nothing to Lose, then probably an e-book as well. I have a couple of short stories in process and a few chapters of something that wants to be a novel. (Ssshhhh! Don’t tell anyone.)
What are you reading now?
I just finished Besotted by Melissa Duclos (which I loved) and have cracked the spine on Saving the Scot by Wisconsin author Jennifer (Rupp) Trethewey, the fourth book in her House of Balforss series.
Lisa---I'm a big Rupp fan, too, but shhhh! Don't tell anyone.
Thanks for sharing, Kim.
About the Author:Kim Suhr lives and writes in southeastern Wisconsin. Her work has appeared in Midwest Review, Stonecoast Review, Rosebud and others. She holds an MFA from Pine Manor College, where she was the 2013 Dennis Lehane Fellow in Fiction. She is director of Red Oak Writing and a member of the Wisconsin Writers Association Board of Directors. You can follow her at:
Twitter (@kimsuhr)
