Sorry, Wrong Afterlife
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Life is unpredictable, the afterlife even worse.
Thrust too early into death (only thirty-two!), Leo Cooper wrestles with the confusion of how things work on the other side. It’s an impossible undertaking, especially because someone has made a grave mistake. Leo and his lifelong friend Morris have been sorted into the wrong eternal resting place. The Afterlife of the Birds has no silken sheets, no sumptuous banquets, and no avocado toast.
What’s more, Leo’s wife is missing. While the search is on, Longtoe, God of Perfection, is hell-bent on damning this determined duo (and all humans) to eternal suffering.
How can they fight a god who is (by definition) perfect? How can they gain allies in an unfamiliar hereafter with an absurd set of rules? Leo and Morris had better solve that head-scratcher before all of humanity becomes doomed to a rather unpleasant fate.
“I didn’t know there were so many gods until after I died. I wish I’d read this book sooner.”—Jane Austen
“Death is the perfect escape plan, and so is this novel. Highly recommend.”—William Shakespeare
The Time Philosopher
Time no longer flows forward like a river, not for Marella Wells. Randomly propelled into her own past and future, she encounters versions of herself coming and going, and learns that a lethal fog will soon decimate humanity. Her attempts to change the timeline meet with disaster. In desperation, she puts her trust in a humorless man who calls himself a time philosopher. With his advice, surely she can untangle time’s threads, reshape history, and save billions of lives. If not, she will lose everyone she holds dear, and endure an eternity of torture.
This sequel to The Climate Machine will leave you asking whether fate is truly set in stone.
The Climate Machine–A Novel
The Earth’s Water is Disappearing
With water vanishing from every lake and river, America’s Pacific Northwest is careening toward dystopia. Seattle is fraught with chaos, crime, and desperation. Marella Wells thinks she may have discovered what is happening to the water, but as oceans drain around the world, the channels to sound the alarm have collapsed. With her mentor-boss and a displaced college student, Marella embarks on a journey in the depleting Pacific Ocean to stop the out-of-control cause of the world’s demise. They battle for survival amid windstorms, sandstorms, fire, and other life-threatening disasters, with a violent religious cult at their heels. If they aren’t fast enough, all life on Earth will perish.
We Grew Tales
Short Story Collection
We Grew Tales is a collaboration of creative storytelling. Three Northwest authors present speculative fiction, humorous, and literary tales, without apology for the wide ranging styles and subject matter. Indeed, the variety is what makes this collection so enjoyable to read!In “Jesus on a Rocking Horse,” a disabled woman and a homeless man see an image of Jesus in a dirty alleyway. In “The Era of Trolls,” a woman must defeat a holographic Internet troll or be attached to it indefinitely. In “Out of the Flames,” two sisters discover a dark secret from their childhoods that will change their lives forever.
The book is written in two parts, reflecting the authors’ interest in exploring two different creative processes…or two ways to grow a tale. The first half are stories conjured up in the traditional—albeit elusive—manner of storytelling. That is, a seed of an idea is fertilized in the mind, transformed onto the page, and finally shaped for the reader’s consumption. In the second half of the book, the seeds are planted as prompts—nonnegotiable starting points to spur the imagination. While both methods are familiar to experienced writers, it is up to the reader to decide which yields the best harvest.
Short Stories and Articles
6 So-So Retirement Spots for Boneheads who Never Saved a Penny — Little Old Lady Comedy
Susan Whiting Kemp’s 3 Favorite Reads of 2023 — Shepherd.com
Brain Sag — Kaleidoscope Magazine (in link, scroll to download Issue 87 PDF)
Sorry, Wrong Afterlife — Bewildering Stories
The Best Disaster Books Where Society Fails Suddenly — Shepherd.com
The Opposite of Coronavirus — Wilderness House Literary Review
Eat This — Hobart
Evolution, Accelerated — Blue Lake Review
Twelve Writing Secrets of Jennifer Steil — The Writers Workshop Review
The Moisture Festival: Outliers and Oddities — HowlRound
Susan has also published nonfiction articles in Marketer and the Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce.
Nice to meet you, Susan! I, too, graduated from the University of Washington (Seattle and Bothell).
Nice to meet you too! Small world, isn’t it. Thanks for stopping by.