Doing the Write Thing: A Memoir

by Susan Berliner

Susan Berliner has always been a writer. But this book is It's not a supernatural thriller. It's not a collection of weird short stories. It's about Susan.Entertaining long-ago journal entries (Diary of a Young Reporter) partner with oodles of quirky short takes like * attending a Hasidic bar mitzvah (The Goyisher Table) * floundering at the bottom of the alphabet (Growing Up "W") * socializing at a college houseplan party (When Susan Met Harriet) * nearly losing her job--twice (Ready, Aim--Fire?) * book signing escapades (The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly)Got a few minutes? Enjoy an episode from Susan Berliner's life.

127 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 18, 2021

About the author

I have been a nonfiction writer for nearly my entire career. I had originally planned to be an elementary school teacher, but left after a year to become a newspaper reporter for Fairchild Publications. I covered men's retailing for Daily News Record, a men's wear/textile trade newspaper, which was the "brother" paper of Women's Wear Daily.

After my children were born, I switched to freelance writing—mainly in education—publishing book series dealing with editing skills, language arts, and standardized testing and creating teachers' guides, student activity sheets, and test passages. I also freelanced as a local reporter for the North County News, a weekly newspaper in Yorktown Heights, New York.

When I returned to work full-time, I became the promotion manager for the Yorktown PennySaver, a job I held for 20 years. After leaving the Pennysaver, I became a novelist. I'm the author of four supernatural thrillers: "DUST," "Peachwood Lake," "The Disappearance," and "Corsonia," and "THE SEA CRYSTAL and Other Weird Tales," a collection of short stories.

I live with my husband, Larry, in Yorktown Heights, where I am writing "The Touchers," an end-of-the-world series.

Reviews

[Lady Galaxy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the kind of book to keep on your Kindle for times when you don't have time to read a long chapter of a regular book but still need something interesting to keep your mind interested. Most of the memoir type entries can be read in 5 minutes or less. You can put it aside for awhile and not need to go back and review to remind yourself what it's about. It's about the quotidian details of a wife/mom/writer/Jane of all trades. When she mentioned working for The Pennysaver, I thought of the Lucy Stone mystery series! She included several remembrances book signing events. I wish she had included more about the mechanics of being an "indie" author.

[Susan Molloy · Rating 5 out of 5]

🖊 My review: I greatly enjoyed these little snippets of memories by the author. The writing style is intelligent.

🏮 Media form: Kindle Unlimited version.
🔲 Excerpts :

🔸 In the lobby, my parents attempted to greet my father’s cousin and her husband. But the bar mitzvah boy’s father refused to acknowledge my mother. He wouldn’t look at her or even shake her hand. This weird-looking man—with a long black beard and ringlets running past his ears, dressed in black and wearing a tall black hat—turned away from my mother, completely ignoring her. My mother, normally a placid and friendly woman, was furious. Although my father was embarrassed, there was nothing he could do. While he and his immediate family were no longer religious Jews, his cousin had married a Hasidic man.

🔸 The siren turned out to be a tornado warning, instructing us to “Seek shelter indoors immediately!” So after quickly packing up our books and signs, we moved into the building’s lobby. Several residents of Bethel joined us. One woman, who was 100-years-old, asked to see my novels and then purchased DUST, a thriller about an evil dust devil—a miniature tornado. So I sold a book about a whirlwind to a 100-year-old lady during a tornado warning. And that woman’s name? It was Dorothy. Wizard of Oz, anyone?

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