Sue Miller has been busy of late. The paperback edition of The Senator’s Wife went on sale last Tuesday. She’s doing a workshop at Ohio State University and did a reading at the Wexner Center for the Arts last night as part of the OSU Department of English’s Visiting Writer program. Tonight she’ll be at the Thurber House for their Evenings With Authors. (I hope the snow doesn’t keep people away!)
Last night Miller was introduced by Lee K. Abbott.  Miller began with how the idea for The Senator’s Wife started. She keeps writing notebooks and is a planner in order to minimize the number of rewrites and know the tone of the book. It began with two thoughts – love begins with the body and instances where friends of friends took in an ex-spouse during a terminal illness. From there it transformed into an older woman taking care of someone nearing the end of life and a younger woman taking of someone at the beginning of life.Â
I had bought The Senator’s Wife before the reading even though some of the reviews did not like the characters or content of the book. Hearing Miller talk about it not only gave me some framework but convinced me I will enjoy reading it.
Miller read several sections about the older wife, Delia.  She gave good information to let the different passages flow from one to another. Many authors pick the first chapter or a chapter that can be read in twenty to thirty minutes.
Afterwards Miller took questions from the audience about any of her books. It was a decent crowd and it wasn’t just MFA students. Questions ranged from “How did you pick the timeline for The Senator’s Wife?” to “What kind of research did you do for the time period?” One person asked what genre classification she’d give her novels which caused a moment of perplexity. Like most writers, she writes a story without aiming for a specific genre. She replied that she’s been classified as a domestic realist like Richard Ford and Raymond Carver.
When she signed my copy of The Senator’s Wife I asked what she did with her notebooks after the book was sent off to the publisher. Some writers put them away or get ready to send them to an archive somewhere. Miller will look at them and see if there are more ideas there. Sounds like Sue Miller has more in store for her readers.