Suzanne Newnham

Australian author, writer, health advocate (chronic pain management), researcher into chronic pain (Tai Chi, Qigong, meditation), trance medium

Please, introduce yourself. Tell us about your personal life, family, education.

My husband and I have been together for 46 years, and we enjoy living between the mountains to the west, the river to the north, and the beach to the east in a beautiful coastal town in Australia. Our adult children have followed their dreams. And for our four grandchildren life is a game.

About 20 years after I started professionally, I told my father, “Working with energy, psychic guidance, teaching Tai Chi and Qigong is my career. It might be an unconventional career but it is my career.” He recognized the word career, his expression changed, and finally I knew he understood and accepted my unusual work. Since then, however, coping with a temperamental chronic medical condition has altered my pathway. As well as being a writer and contributor to numerous journals, anthologies, and co-authored novella; I’m also a health advocate for chronic pain management; and researcher into chronic pain using Tai Chi, Qigong, and meditation; I’m also the author of Ethics of a Psychic Reading and What Glass Ceiling.

What do you like doing in your spare time?

At the beach with my husband; family and friends visiting. My current writing project is a family-inspired social history – 180 years of pubs on Moruya Waterfront Hotel Motel site with a request to the community for stories, anecdotes, family history, photos, and/or documents to include in this look at a social icon in the community.

The First Book

What inspired you to write your first book?

There was just a collection of notes of decades of experience and observation that I had squirrelled away over the years. Then, in my energy rebalancing practice I was seeing more and more clients affected by inappropriate psychic readings or healings – and my book Ethics of a Psychic Reading was born. Various psychic-themed books at the time were more of an esoteric nature. However, as I was surrounded by scientists in the family, and tread the line between fantasy and reality, my book developed into more of a reference style, complete with energy frequencies and other terminology explained from both psychic and an astro- physicist perspectives.

How much of your books is realistic and experiences based on someone you know, or events in your life?

Other than the four novellas, for National Novel Writing Month (Nanowrimo), which were fantasy and the result of a collaboration of writers in our night group, my writing and books to date are based on experiences, either my own or as in What Glass Ceiling? my mother’s memories from 1930s to her, at 93 years of age, being the guest speaker at a professional women’s association.

When you see new authors struggling, what single piece of advice could you give them on a moment’s notice?

Join one of the many writing groups that abound – whether in-person meetings locally; through to local, national, and international groups who meet online. Whether it is just an opportunity to say your project, write, and then report how you went in the session; or writing and submitting for critique/feedback (sometimes exchange, read, and critique others work too), as well as hearing suggestions about character, plot, research, grammar, punctuation, show/tell. At times there are a multitude of other helpful, and sometimes less helpful, comments although the latter perhaps from an interesting perspective.

How do you want others to see you or remember you? Is it important to you?

Whether through my reference book, Ethics of a Psychic Reading; or my book on leadership, social history, Patricia Evans: a woman before her time inspiring new generations that is evident in What Glass Ceiling, a memoir; or the many articles, information to chronic pain sites, participation in Studies for chronic pain management, and other research to convey; I feel it is the work rather than just me that is important. Long after I am gone, I hope someone somewhere can pick up my book or article and it makes a wonderful difference to their life. And as I go to my Facebook site to get the address for this interview, I am greeted with “Suzanne, we care about you and the memories that you share here. We thought that you’d like to look back on this post from 12 years ago,” with my author photo for my first book!