Susan Renouf, Executive Editor at Large

What I’m looking for . . .

When considering a project, I’m looking to be startled, to be caught by the unexpected, to be seduced by really good writing. I look for creative non-fiction that pushes the envelope in subject or in form, for biography, and memoir, particularly that which looks at women's lives and experience. I am dedicated to non-fiction that addresses social issues, current affairs, and nature and the environment, especially about climate change and the human impact on the world around us. I feel that’s how I can contribute best to adding to the debate about how we live, and how we should be living.

With fiction, I am hopelessly old-fashioned. I love plot and well-made characters. The fiction can be literary or mainstream but it has to be a story.

Recently published books include A Good War by Seth Klein, Moments of Glad Grace by Alison Wearing, Misconduct of the Heart by Cordelia Strube and Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice.

What I read (and loved) recently . . . 

Station Eleven hit all my buttons — great writing and a great story set in a cautionary world.  I also loved All the Light We Cannot See and Helen Oyeyemi’s Boy Snow Bird. I finally read Candace Savage’s A Geography of Blood. And I have been on a modest campaign to tackle those BIG books I ought to have read years ago, most recently The Iliad.

What I do outside of work . . . 

I love the outdoors and I spend as much time as I can on Georgian Bay in summer and in the Beaver Valley in winter. I love canoeing, sailing, swimming, and snowshoeing. And travel. I will go anywhere anytime I can.

 susan@ecwpress.com