Pure Slush published Susan Tepper's dear Petrov in March 2016. I've only recently picked up a copy (thanks!) and dipped into it. Susan was kind enough to write a guest essay for National Short Story Month--sometimes the right nudges help out.
It was never my intention to become a writer. At seventeen I left Long Island and moved into a tiny studio apartment on East 77th Street in New York City, for the sole purpose of attending drama school. The apartment was in a dingy walk-up. The ‘lobby’, about the size of a small closet, had been painted red. The brass mailboxes in the red wall often revealed a few roaches scrambling across the mail. I dealt. Because my fervent wish was to become a stage actress. And where better to study than NYC? I’d received a partial scholarship from high school, which helped a little, but NYC was expensive even back 
then. After six months in drama school I was awarded a full scholarship which helped hugely. My dad, who wanted me in a traditional college, refused to lay out a dime. We were both stubborn people… hence… Anyway. That time of life marked the beginning of an intense reading period for me, in the form of plays. And plays, being 99 percent dialogue, were training my unconscious mind to write dialogue. Though of course I had no idea. My acting life was a start/stop affair depending upon my income (low unless I snagged a commercial), my starvation level (usually high from my low income), and the less-than-thrilling aspect of open casting calls. All this became the seed time for the writing which started 20 years later. Each time I quit acting (for good!), I would start something entirely new. At one point I flew as a Stewardess for TWA. An incredible way to learn about character, setting, nuance, foreign cultures, war. I had money in my pocket and food in my belly. Flying with the troops to Viet Nam was a mind-blowing experience. I’m just beginning to deal with that experience in my writing, some 40 years later. After each foray out of acting, I subsequently returned to acting, moving around to various cities for roles. My mom, who is a poet and humor writer, gave me a copy of Raymond Carver’s story collection “Call If You Need Me.” That book hit a nerve. I needed things. Carver needed things. We bonded through the pages, though of course he never knew. I read all of Carver. The stories, essays, interviews, poems. I left acting and moved to England. My mom sent me a copy of Hemingway’s “Finca Vigia” collection. It bowled me over. I got divorced and left England. Back in The States I started singing with the bands. Again, it was a money issue. But singing is words and poetry (Bob Dylan!). After many more forays in and out of the acting world I quit for good. One day entirely out of the blue I wrote a (long) short story. Took it to The New School. The instructor, Alexander Neubauer, gave me tremendous encouragement. It was as if a bell went off. (Hemingway’s ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’)? I have no MFA, though I did finally scratch together enough credits for a liberal arts degree. I guess my dad died happily (he finally won). Who would’ve guessed I’d become a writer? I think my mom did. But, not I.
Susan Tepper is a twenty year writer and the author of six published books of fiction and poetry. Her seventh book, a novella, will be released late this year by Rain Mountain Press, NYC. Tepper was 7th Place Winner in the Zoetrope Contest for the Novel (2006), and 2nd Place Winner in The Million Writers Award (2014). Other honors include 10 Pushcart Prize Nominations, NPR's Selected Shorts, long-listed on Wigleaf 2014, and a Pulitzer Nomination for her novel 'What May Have Been' (Cervena Barva Press, 2010).
She has been an editor at two literary magazines, and has taught fiction writing in private workshops and on the college level. FIZZ her reading series at KGB Bar, NYC, is sporadically ongoing these past ten years. www.susantepper.com
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