After wearing many hats over the years, Susanne Dobbin has settled in nicely as an award-winning author.
Dobbin, who is a retired child protection worker, explained that she has been writing for many years, and in 2024 won the New Canadian Manuscript Contest, awarded by The Word Guild, for her novel, “Raising the Dead.”
“I’ve been writing for a long time. My dad was in the armed forces, and we moved around a lot. My mom was a writer, and published a base paper and did all the writing and interviewing for that for years. She also got short stories published in several different papers, mostly in Christian or Catholic publications. I still have my poems from when I was a teenager. I never really got my writing publications side from doing an article for a women’s journal, but that was back when I was going to university…since then, I have mostly been writing fiction. I have written at least six books at various stages of editing. And then after I retired from Children’s Aid, I was off for a while, buying, renovating houses, and selling them,” the author said. “I decided, during the Pandemic, to take the free PSW course, and did that for two and a half years. After getting long Covid, I had some time, so I ended up writing the Nano Trilogy, which deals with positive uses and the potential misuses of nanotechnology and AI. After I finished that, I thought that it wasn’t enough just to write privately, so I decided to start sending some of my short stories out to contests. I then sent out my novel, and ended up winning.”
When Dobbin received the call informing her of the prize, which included a publishing deal with Castle Quay Books, she was taking care of multiple family members.
“I have a sister with Multiple Sclerosis (MS), as well as my mother, whose health hasn’t been good…my other sister, who was looking after them, was diagnosed with cancer. So, I stepped in to help them as a full-time caregiver. It was when I was looking after them that I got a phone call telling me I had won and a publishing deal with Castle Quay Books. I was in shock as I entered the contest because I liked the fact that they were offering feedback. I just did it because I want to invest in myself, to improve on my writing,” she said.
However, Dobbin, who moved from Guelph to Brantford in 2020, described the process after she had won for her novel, which touched on topics including the use of nanotechnology, AI ethics, morality, and biblical prophecy, such as End Times.
“I received a standard contract, and had a lawyer review it, and it seemed reasonable; I did spend 22 years doing court documents, so some of the language was not lost on me. After that, the publisher helped me come up with a tagline, a note to the reader, and a forward; it was then sent off to the editors. They also provided options for the novel cover. But the feedback that the editor gave me was good. Overall, the whole process was very positive and encouraging,” the Brantford-based author remarked.
Recently, Dobbin was part of the Caledonia Christmas Bookmarket, which brought her into contact with other writers.
“There were ten authors there, and it was good to touch base with them, because they’ve been doing it for a long time, including a friend of mine whom I reconnected with at the market, whom I haven’t seen for close to six years…I got a lot of feedback and information on what they do to promote their books. That experience was quite valuable for me as a new author…I’m excited to learn whatever I can from them,” she elaborated. “I think I will go to more of these types of events when I have more books out. Aside from that, I sold around 20 books, and that’s amazing, especially when it’s a very small book fair.”
Dobbin then discussed her process of developing the story.
“I had a general idea of where it was going to go [and] then it became more intricate and developed from there. By the time I was near the end, I thought that I had a story that could become another book. So, that’s how it ended up being three books…on the whole, I usually know where I’m going when it comes to the story. I know some people have storyboards, but I don’t do that. The process is just writing, and then I can go back and tweak the beginning to match up with what’s happened later on in the book. I also have a thing about themes and sticking with them,” she stated.
Nevertheless, to Dobbin’s surprise, she would get another call, telling her she had won the New Canadian Manuscripts Content, this time in 2025, for her novel The God Factor, the first book of the Trilogy.
“The other call came just before this one was released… There were quite a few really strong contenders, and they said they had a lot more entries this year. They actually had to push the awards back another couple of weeks, because they had to read them all and then go back and forth between them. It was really a close race. The thought of winning back-to-back didn’t even dawn on me. I remember reading the 2023 entry, which was a phenomenal book, and I really enjoyed that one…[however], especially with all the talent and competition, I was surprised I had won it again,” Dobbie reflected.
However, the next book will be out very soon, along with the third installment set for publication in late 2026.
“When I won for the second time, Castle Quay decided that they wanted to publish all three. I’m frantically working on that one right now, tweaking it and getting it ready for publication. It’s actually the first one in the series, but…each of them could stand alone [and] you could read them individually. There’s enough information in each one where you know what’s going on without reading the other books. We’re tweaking this one to be a look back at the beginning, where everything started, and then the other one will come out in the fall, and by then I’ll have all three published,” she stated.
Along with the Nano trilogy, Dobbin has been busy with other projects.
“I wrote another novel in the past year, too. It’s totally different from what I have been doing. It’s a rom-com [as I] just wanted to try something different. I also have some books that I initially shelved and will be getting edited. Those are about angels…some good and some bad…[but] the thing I am finding with the writing about angels is the way I was writing them, they ended up being very human because I didn’t really know anything else about them. I found it difficult, as for evil, it’s easy to write about that because we all know it when we see it, but how do you write about something holy and pure? That was the hardest part, but it was fun to write, so I’m going to go back and edit them and maybe publish those books in the future.”
Dobbin has received strong support from those closest to her.
“I’ve always been writing. So that wasn’t a surprise to them that I was going to be published, but they were very excited that I had won. That was a very happy moment for me, and my family and friends were very supportive. Several of my family members are writers in their own way. As I mentioned, my mother, who wrote, and my sister were more in the science field. She has written on ecology and water qualities and things like that with the Ministry of Natural Resources,” the award-winning novelist stated. “My grandkids are very excited for me, too. One of them is a 14-year-old, he’s been writing for a couple of years now…he gives me his writing, and I enjoy reading what he’s been coming up with. They have been so supportive of what I have been doing, and were thrilled when my book came out. It’s nice to support any of their creative endeavours too.”
The novelist has been looking forward to hearing a little bit about some of your short-term goals and your longer-term goals.
“The goal right now is to get the trilogy out, while making sure it’s the best product that the reader is getting. I want it accessible to people and easy to read. I don’t think that people want to read something that they have to sit down with at another source beside them to help them get through concepts, but, in my experience, that is sometimes fun. [However,] I want to write books where anyone from a teenager all the way up to older people can read them and get into them. And for my longer-term goals…it’s to keep writing and getting my work out there for readers to enjoy,” she stated.
