Do No Harm, And Try To Help

The Body, Brain, and Books: Eleven Questions with author and podcast creator Suzanne Clores

Happy New Year, Beyonders! I’m so looking forward to going through 2024 with all of you by my side. There is so much dang suffering in the world right now, it doesn’t seem possible to be alive. But, truly, there is also wisdom and kindness and beauty and laughter and compassion and community and hope. Which is exactly why I started Beyond! To shine as much light as possible into the harrowing.

And I’m delighted to kickstart this New Year with a Beyond Questionnaire from my friend, the talented writer and podcaster, Suzanne Clores! 2024, here we come!

Welcome to another edition of The Body, Brain, & Books. If you enjoy reading these quick, insightful interviews brimming with wisdom and hope, please subscribe to Beyond!

Suzanne Clores is an author and Webby Award- Honored audio creator. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Salon, Elle, The Rumpus, Hypertext Magazine and has aired nationally on public radio and across the podcast sphere. She is the recipient of two Illinois Arts Council Independent Artists Awards and residencies at The Ragdale Foundation, The Millay Center for the Arts, and The Vermont Studio Center.

1. What are you reading now?

I just finished The Guest by Emma Cline which won my “perfect read” award for this summer. Her close third pov is staggering, and the character is both fantastically original and familiar. I just started Fearfully and Wonderfully Made: the New Science of the Senses by Maureen Seaberg, who is a synesthete. As a child synesthete myself (my synesthesia faded over time) it’s incredible to learn the hard science behind human sensory ability. Our range or “sensorium” is much wider than we know! I read a lot of what would be considered “futurist” science on the cutting edge of materialism. Fearfully…was selected by Malcolm Gladwell’s book club as a “next big idea” and it’s very accessible.

2. What are your most beloved books from your youth? Did you ever hide any from your parents?

Great question! First place in my memory for most beloved childhood reads are EB White’s triology, Charlotte’s Webb, Stuart Little, and especially The Trumpet of the Swan. Animal adventure heroes appealed to my need to feel both courageous and safe. So did the adolescent girl heroes in Madeleine L’Engle’s books, A Swiftly Tilting Planet and A Wrinkle in Time. L’Engle’s books pushed my sci-fi/spiritual buttons, too. Once hitting adolescence, I remember my mother gave me her copy of Rebecca when I was in 5th or 6th grade. I guess I wasn't into it, or too young to read gothic literature. To be honest, I was still hooked on Peanuts gang comics which I borrowed from our neighbor's large collection. I hid the Peanuts gang comics under my stuffed animals, and staged Rebecca on the bed. It became sort of an ornament, and made the room into a place where another version of myself lived. Later, I certainly hid Judy Blume's Forever under those same stuffed animals. No one talked about sex in my family, it just wasn’t discussed in our obedient Catholic home. I also had a taste for Lois Duncan’s psychological thrillers, especially Killing Mr. Griffin. In retrospect I loved the out of control feeling of her plots.

3. What’s your favorite book to reread? Any that helped you through a dark time? 

I have reread Pastoralia by

George Saunders

a number of times. He just makes me laugh. I also revisit Jesus’ Son by Denis Johnson. Both books bring back the leisure days of graduate school.

Alexander Chee

’s How to Write an Autobiographical Novel helped me a lot through a writing limbo state. And all of

Melissa Febos

’ work, from Whipsmart to Abandon Me to Girlhood, makes me feel uniquely alive when I forget who I am.

4. What’s an article of clothing that makes you feel most like you?

My red leather Fluevog boots.

5. What’s the best piece of wisdom you've encountered recently?

That I lack the authority to create change in other people’s spaces.

6. Tell me about any special relationship you’ve had with an animal, domestic or wild?

I encountered a bear last summer in upstate NY. We were walking towards each other on the same trail, unaware of the other. I looked up a moment before it noticed me and was so awestruck I snapped a photo. That’s when we met eyes and both stopped walking. I froze, wondering what to do. It was about 500 lbs and clearly had the upper hand.  I said a thousand silent prayers, my heart leapt out of my chest and pounded wildly, like in an old cartoon! After a moment the bear turned around and walked back into the woods. I felt released and chosen at the same time. Released from danger. Chosen to live and tell.

7. What's one thing you are happy worked out differently than you expected?

I am thrilled to have moved to a city where I knew no one (Chicago), and built a family and a life from scratch. It’s hard to move cities and start over! 

8. Singing in the shower or dancing in the kitchen? Or another favorite way your body expresses itself?

I might reverse those to singing in the kitchen (Linda Ronstadt) and dancing not so much in the shower but in the water— via swimming! I love to swim early in the morning in Lake Michigan.

9. What are your hopes for yourself?

I have two professional and two personal. My professional hopes are that I soon find a home for next memoir, and that my most recent true crime podcast series is loved by listeners as much as I love it. It’s available on Apple Podcasts here:

My personal hopes are that I continue to learn to recognize grace when it’s tapping me on the shoulder, and that I can offer some element of grace to those around me. 

10. What’s a kindness that changed your life?

A musician friend taught me how to use audio software to produce audio stories. Out of the goodness of his heart. I wouldn’t have ever produced my narrative podcast, The Extraordinary Project, without him. Now, whenever I get trapped in my own head while writing, I can pivot to an audio project. Listening to or hearing a story I’m working on as it plays back to me cuts through a lot of front-of-mind red tape. I’m not the first person to say that sound taps into a primal narrative place. Something about it frees me.

11. What’s a guiding force in your life?

Do no harm, and try to help. 

Meet me in the comment section

Did you have any childhood books that appealed to your need to feel both courageous and safe? Have you ever encountered animals significantly larger than you out on a trail? Do you have personal and professional hopes for yourself? I’d love to hear them!

Tell me in the comments!