Wednesday, July 10, 2024

Hanging up my fountain pen

 I feel the time has come. My next book, a collection of 3 novellas, will be out next year, 2025, in print. Those three novellas are already published individually by Unsolicited Press as e-books.

I feel the time has come. Time to let go of the pressures of deadlines and publishing schedules. Of lovely alpha and beta readers. Of disputing an hotel over a hotel! Of spending time away from the people I love, family, and friends who are family.

I feel the time has come. To stop wondering. Wondering if the remaining mountain of manuscripts could ever see the light of day, or if a bonfire of the vanities would be a better demise for them. Because, as a publisher once said at a forum called 'pitch the publisher', 'Who cares?'

Some of the titles, many written during 17 years of Nano, include, Hens' Teeth, Gececondu, Stones, The Carpet, The Button Tin, a couple of memoirs (in flash), the list goes on. Some made it to publication: Fishermen's Fingers, Passport to Perdita, and Eva Matson. These are the three that will be in the novella collection 2025.

I feel the time has come to leave it all there. To hang up my fountain pen, so to speak. And be content with these achievements. 








I thank you, all my readers, all those who have cheered me on. All those who have understood that the commitments often kept me away. My love for you all never wavers. Thank you.

I feel the time has come. Sue.



Sunday, February 26, 2023

The Sequence Dance





The Sequence Dance. Was released April 18th 2023
40 short Fictions. Print. ISBN: 978-1-956692-13-6


The Sequence Dance is a collection that brings together forty award-winning works in one volume. Written over fifteen years, the stories take the reader on a tango around the globe to settings and eras they can smell, they can taste. These are stories filled with human behaviour, intrigue, familiar and yet strange relationships, life’s conflicts and joys, and situations with which a reader may question or connect. 


The book takes its title from a short work of auto-fiction, a story that, as with much of Borgersen’s work, relies on the author’s memory of a time, a place, a conversation, and those unexpected residual emotions.




Wednesday, February 9, 2022

Cover reveal - Eva Matson

Eva Matson, the novella, was released on May 26th 2022 in digital format. It will be available in print in 2025 as a triple bill with my earlier e-novella, Fishermen's Fingers, and Passport to Perdita (releasing in e-format in 2025).




Monday, January 31, 2022

When Writing is Akin to Knitting



When Writing is Akin to Knitting

Writing for me is like knitting a pair of socks: one-word-at-a-time, one-stitch-at a-time. One-sentence-at-a-time, one-row-at-a-time. Turning points and turning heels. Weaving threads. Overcoming challenges. Running out of yarn/momentum. Shaping. Adding colour. Changing up the intricacies. Keeping it simple. Unravelling the tangles. And yes, pulling all the stitches from the needle, winding the yarn and starting over. Rewriting. And having confidence and commitment to keep going.


Until I write: ‘The End'. Or I cast off.


I’m a knitter. I have been since nursery school where I was taught to knit dishcloth squares before I turned four. That was when I was taught to read and write. These three skills have equipped me through life.


Susan on the lap of her nursery school teacher circa 1947



My approach to writing is so much on a par with knitting I find selecting skeins in luscious colours and textures, winding with the help of another pair of arms, is no different for me to observing human behaviour, being inspired, researching, discussing ideas, and drafting the first elements of a story.


Casting on those first stitches fill me with anticipation of the creation to come. In writing, I build on that, linking ideas, openings, plots, characters, resolutions, settings.


When it comes to knitting socks there are stages—so similar to my approach to writing that I find it hard to separate the two. Once I get started I flow with little to stop me. Like telling a story, I just rattle along. The needles click-clacking to a rhythm. Like the keys of my computer, or pen to paper, just tip-tapping along at speed. In both cases, very often without conscious thought.


Then things come to that, all too often, halt. The story isn’t following the plot, the characters are doing their thing and not mine and it is time to take stock, not unlike like spotting a dropped stitch, knowing it has to be corrected, knowing how to fix it. Recounting stitches. Getting out the tape measure. Asking, what’s the word count again? 


Turning the heel for me is a three-part process. Each stage I tackle in one sitting in order not to lose the thread (pardon the pun). These stages hold up the overall process but are so important.


Like my writing—the stage I always refer to as, ‘the mess in the middle’.


And then it’s bashing onward through the foot to the toe. Bringing the story to a conclusion. Closing the toe. Finishing. Writing: ‘The End’.


There are no other activities I can so closely compare, as I have the two. I am so thankful for my nursery school teaching


Which of your early skills do you still find invaluable? Is there anything you do that you can compare with the writing process?








Wednesday, September 22, 2021

Books by S.B. Borgersen

The following are my 2021 book releases. They are available from all your favourite outlets:

Fishermen's Fingers an e-novella, released on January 1st 2021






Fishermen's Fingers, an e-novella for Kobo




While the Kettle Boils. 150 micro fictions released on March 9th 2021. The print edition has the novella Fishermen's Fingers included as a bonus.







While the Kettle Boils for Kindle


While the Kettle Boils, print issue



While the Kettle Boils available from Unsolicited Press


.

Of Daisies and Dead Violins will release on December 8th 2021 

Available now on preorder






Of Daisies and Dead Violins 


and from amazon  Of Daisies and Dead Violins



More books will be released in 2022 and 2023 









Wednesday, May 5, 2021

An Interview with the Arts and Literary Journal, ArtAscent

It is May 2021.  With the launch of Fishermen's Fingers (my e-novella) in January. And While the Kettle Boils (micro fiction) releasing in March, it slipped my mind that I did an interview with the fabulous arts and literary journal, ArtAscent, a couple of months ago. You can watch it here:

Link to my interview with ArtAscent.

Monday, March 8, 2021

Publication release for While the Kettle Boils

While the Kettle Boils released March 9th 2021


My long awaited collection of micro fictions is here.

150 stories each of approximately 150 words. These stories were written one-a-week for three years with breaks for Christmas from 2016 to 2019. They were originally drafted, yes, while my kettle boiled (then went through a fair bit of editing in the months that followed). They are humorous, sad, thought-provoking and all points between. They are brief enough to be read while your own kettle boils. Short enough to read from your phone even.

There's a bonus novella at the back. It's supposed to be a surprise!

Availability is noted at the end of this post. A launch will be announced in the early summer. 



978-1-950730-74-2




Here's the Press release:

 While the Kettle Boils
Remarkable Nova Scotian Author Pens Flash Fiction Collection


PORTLAND, OR; March 9, 2021—Unsolicited Press announces the release of WHILE THE KETTLE BOILS by S.B. Borgersen, a short fiction collection that reaches into the hearts of every reader. 


WHILE THE KETTLE BOILS by S.B. Borgersen is a fervent and economical collection featuring 150 perfectly manicured micro-fictions. Jude Higgins, the event organizer at Bath Flash Fiction, called the collection, “Witty and insightful... Borgersen’s tiny stories have inspired other writers from all over the world.”



About S.B. Borgersen

S.B. Borgersen is a British/Canadian author, of middle England and Hebridean ancestry, whose favoured genres are flash and micro fiction, and poetry. She had a diverse career path, an analyst in a shoe factory, the same thing for a children’s book publisher, teaching art, and filing for the civil service, but mostly she climbed a precarious ladder in the IT industry culminating in strategy and project management, which, by necessity in those days, included writing writing writing mountains of non-fiction — always allowing herself to be slightly creative with proposals, reports, technical and training documentation.

 

Sue turned her back on industry and commerce in the early nineties, escaping the stressful rat-race and finding the simple life and peaceful place she’d always sought to allow for creativity. That place was Nova Scotia where she returned to her skills from art school and made an uncomplicated living as a visual artist and potter. That is, until she got the creative writing bug. Since 2000 her writing has won prizes, been mentioned in Hansard and published internationally in literary journals and anthologies (print and online). The list of publications is extensive and can be found at www.sueborgersen.com. She is a member of both The Society of Authors UK, and The Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia. 


Sue lives in a crumbling old house on the shores of Nova Scotia with her patient husband and a clutch of lovable rowdy dogs. 


About Unsolicited Press

Unsolicited Press was founded in 2012 and is based in Portland, OR. The press strives to produce exceptional works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from award-winning authors. Learn more at  www.unsolicitedpress.com. Follow the press on Instagram and Twitter @unsolicitedp.

While the Kettle Boils is available on March 9, 2021 as a paperback (248 p.; 978-1-950730-74-2)  and e-book (all major retailers). The title is distributed to the trade by Ingram.

###

Press only, Unsolicited Press

Eric Rancino

619.354.8005 

marketing@unsolicitedpress.com 


For artist interviews, readings, and podcasts:

S.B. Borgersen

sueborgersen@hotmail.com



Available from your regular book shop or library, just quote 978-1-950730-74-2. and check the Borgersen spelling!


Some of the places you can find it too:



Unsolicited Press


Barnes and Noble


https://www.booktopia.com.au/while-the-kettle-boils-s-b-borgersen/book/9781950730742.html


Waterstones


https://bookshop.org/books/while-the-kettle-boils/9781950730742


https://www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/books/while-the-kettle-boils/9781005388249-item.html