Tell us about your path to writing or creating artwork.
I started writing fictional stories when I was nine years old, and poetry at eleven. I also had a passion for drawing as long as I remember. I began playing the harmonica at six or seven, and then progressed to the piano about age nine or ten. I had always wanted to play the violin, but being left-handed seemed like a barrier to stringed instruments. I presently play a variety of instruments (by ear) including mandolin, piano, harmonica, but my “baby” is my left-handed small viola tuned as a violin which I found, brand new, in a pawn shop in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada, waiting for me.
If your work had a soundtrack, what songs would be on it? Why?
If my poem, “Beautiful Bill,” had a soundtrack, two songs which would be on it are from the summer of 1973: “Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth)” by George Harrison, and “Feeling Stronger Every Day” by Chicago. Hearing the George Harrison song still brings me back to that moment in time. Bittersweet, since I discovered recently that the subject of my poem passed away.
Give us some background on the piece you contributed to this issue.
My inspiration for my poem, “Beautiful Bill,” came from my memories of a crush I had on a young fellow who worked briefly for the man who trained my father’s horses in the summer of 1973. I was only thirteen at the time, heading to my first year in high school in the fall. Bill was about eighteen and pretty tolerant of a skinny kid like myself hanging around him. I hoped to capture a moment in time which I still recall with my poem. A win picture of one of my father’s horses still hangs in my house with this young man holding the horse’s head.
Susan R. Morritt is a writer, visual artist and musician from Waterford, Ontario, Canada. Her prose, poetry and visual art appear in numerous magazines including 34 Orchard, The Rabbit Hole Writer Co-op Anthology, Third Estate Art’s Decapitate Journal, The Speckled Trout Review, and Does It Have Pockets. She was short-listed for The Staunch Short Fiction Prize, long-listed for The Redbud Writing Project Coppice Prize, as well as others. Susan is a former racehorse trainer who has worked extensively with livestock.
