The Secrets of St Jude's #author Susan Simon

The Secrets of St Jude's: When finding the truth can be dangerous 
Once regarded as one of the nation’s leading schools, grand old St Jude’s School for Girls finds itself on the brink of collapse after a number of public scandals damage its reputation.

Rosie Gladshaw ... a dynamic and successful educator in her 40s  is appointed principal to lead the school into a bright new future. However, when Rosie comes face to face with the nuns and old girls who rigorously guard the school’s traditions, she soon discovers that her new role is much more than she signed up for.

Rosie uncovers a web of secrets, abuse and illicit affairs – and a murder which must be solved. But will Rosie be the whistle-blower, even if it puts her and family in danger?

To connect with Susan .....
https://susan-simon.com/ 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

It's good morning, Susan Simon. Welcome to Yellow Shelf, Susan.

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Thank you, Jo. It's a great pleasure to be here with you.

SPEAKER_01 0:10

It's my pleasure to have you. You've got a book that's out now. So I know it's busy, exciting times for you. Tell us all about your book, The Secrets of St. Jude's.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

I know it sounds mysterious, doesn't it? So, well, it is what's called in the genre of academic noir, which I hadn't actually really heard of before. But when the publisher, Jane Curry from Ventura, read it, she said, Oh, this is either dark academia or academic noir. So it's to set the scene, it is set in a girls' boarding school, and it's not contrary to what a couple of my friends have said. Oh, is it a teenage fiction? No, it's not, it's an adult book. I'll just show you the cover. Yeah. Because I purposely didn't put a student on the front. Um, it does have a fleeting image on the back there of a student, you know, because it is about a school and it is about um how people can do very good things for students, in spite of other things happening. So um I've conjured up this uh fictional world. Um, it is based on my own experiences, and I'll tell you a little bit about my own experiences in a minute, but um, it is it is about a girls' boarding school where Machiavellian characters are at work. So, yes, it's about a normal school with lovely students and some lovely staff, but there are some powers that be that really want to exert their power on and their influence on how the school is operated. So it reflects all that sort of complexity of an organization. So I guess you know, to tell your readers, you know, why they might read it, I think we've we've all been to school. So I think the school setting is something people can relate to. Not everybody's been to a girls' boarding school, of course, um, but you know, there's an interest there, I think. But more than that, it is about complexities that happen between people in organizations, not just schools, um, and how you deal with the power that's exerted. So I guess the main character who is the principal at the school, Rosie Gladshaw, um, she is faced with these quite daunting scenarios of power plays and um how does she stay true to her values and doing the best thing she can for her students? So um that's in a nutshell, really.

SPEAKER_01 2:32

It's a good that's a great nutshell because I think um what I liked uh was this uh aspect of the book that it's your debut, you know, published fiction work. But this grounded, it's definitely grounded in reality and and all those themes in the book around hidden truths, power and leadership, as well as well as silence within schools.

SPEAKER_00 2:59

What you can't talk about exactly. Yes, yes, you tow the line because of the image of the school, and that that happens in all schools, not just you know, a private girls' boarding school. Yeah, yeah. Because, you know, you want to give a good image to the outside public, you want to keep enrollment numbers up, you know, there's many good reasons why you do that.

SPEAKER_01 3:16

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 3:17

Um, but when you ignore the things that perhaps aren't so healthy in a in a culture and it becomes toxic, then I think that is a real problem. Yeah. And I I've written a couple of articles, one of which appeared in the Herald Sun and the Courier Mail in the last few days, and I relate it to current figures about principals' jobs. So there's there's this survey that's been going on for 15 years that the Australian National University have done, and the figures still show that there's a I think it was a third of the principals say they are bullied, and over 60% say that they are victims of scandals, gossip-mongering, those sorts of things. So, you know, there's lots of things that need to be sorted out in the schools. So what I've written about isn't totally fictitious, it is embellished. There is an extreme behavior there because, you know, I wanted to make it readable and something that has a storyline to it.

SPEAKER_01 4:10

So yeah, that's it. And Susan, do you want to tell us a bit about? I mean, you've mentioned, you know, your your background, but do you want to talk to us a bit about you, anything we need to know, and even the writing process for the book?

SPEAKER_00 4:26

Well, I've I've had quite a varied career. When I first left university, I worked for British Airways in London. So I worked in marketing um for about five years, um, which when I then went into schools when I came to Australia, um, the sort of the promotional side, you know, I've just mentioned how important it is for schools to give a good image. So that was very much my background in my first career, right? Uh while I was in management and marketing. So those two things really helped me. So when I was working for the airline, I actually met my first husband at a ticket queue in Singapore, um, Singapore's Changy Airport. Yeah. Stuck there for various reasons. We kept bumping into each other, and I eventually ended up coming to visit him in Australia. Um, he was a potter. I'd done some pottery back home in um the UK when I was working, and so we ran a pottery business, arts and crafts business. He got quite sick, unfortunately, and I decided to do my postgrad in teacher education. So it started my career in um education. So I started as a teacher. Um, after a few years, I became a principal. Um, so I was a principal of three schools, um, and the best job in the world, honestly, with that, even though people might read the book and put think, you know, I hated it. Um, it was the best job, the best job in the world, but with the worst days in the world. You know, it is a combination, and I know a lot of principals say that too. So I did that for 12 years. I then had a bit of a break, partly because I was actually quite burnt out, but also my mother was not well in the UK, so I travelled back to see her. I trained to be a yoga teacher in the middle of it all. Anyway, just a quick touchdown on those. And then I came back, and because I'd done my doctorate while I was in education, one of the um people at a lecturer at the local university knew I was um hanging around, didn't have anything to do, so he offered me a job. So I started working in academia and I ended up there 10 years at the University of Sunshine Coast, um, where I became deputy head of school. So it's sort of that was where I ended up. So while I was there, this is answering your question about how I wrote it, um, I met uh three wonderful education colleagues, one of whom was a published author, Shelley. She's written many books, children's books and adult books most recently, The Girl with the Violin. So she was our muse, I suppose. The other two, like me, had dabbled in creative writing over the years. I'd always written poems for people's birthdays and written in journals, you know, that sort of thing, but never had time to do anything with it. So um uh so we got together sort of once a month, something like that. And we would, and this was my discipline. I started thinking, oh, well, if I've got to show up to the creative writing, I've got to start writing. So I started writing reflections about my school experiences, and that was what they honed in on because we give each other feedback on whatever we were working on, and um they said, Oh, they're really interesting, you should turn that into a novel. Well, many years later, there it is. Um, you know, it's it's it's taken a lot of work to to craft it, and for me to feel um, yeah, it is partly autobiographical because a lot of the little scenes, you know, I could picture because something similar had happened. It's not based on any one school people dying to know which school it's on, based on it's a combination, but it's also reflects some of my colleagues' stories in their schools too. So, and then a lot of my imagination in terms of making these crazy characters. Um, so so you know, I started doing that. I retired a couple of years ago. I've been traveling a lot with my husband, and so I had a bit more time to sort of pull it together. And um, eventually, you know, after trying to get it published, you know, it's not easy for a debut fiction writer. No, no, no. Everybody says that, and I certainly that was my my experience. Yeah. Um, eventually Jane Curry phoned me last year and was really enthusiastic to publish it. So gloved. It's very lovely.

SPEAKER_01 8:34

And here you are now sharing your book. Your book's out now. Susan, if we are watching anywhere in the world and we're curious about the book, we're curious about you. I know you've got a website, Facebook, Instagram. Can you point us in the direction? I'll put it in the show notes to make it easy for people to connect with to you and the book.

SPEAKER_00 8:52

Yes. So really, the um the best way is to look on on the website. So you've got my contacts there. Um, in terms of where who the distributor is Simon and Schuster. Um, so if people go on to Simon Schuster, it shows all the the booksellers that have uh copies. It only has Australia and New Zealand rights at the moment, however, people overseas can buy the ebook. And we are doing an audible book. Well, it's through Wave Sound that's in process at the moment, and that will be available overseas. So if if the sales go well here, I'm hoping because I have a lot of friends in the UK at the moment. I'm having to post them copies.

SPEAKER_01 9:33

Yeah. Well, let's let's get people curious about the book. Uh, congratulations, Susan, published author. Uh, thank you so much for joining us. And if you do write in the future, please come back.

SPEAKER_00 9:45

I will. Oh, there's things on the go. Um, people are talking about a sequel. I'm not quite sure if I'll do a sequel to this, but I do have some other ideas.

SPEAKER_01 9:53

So plenty more writing.

SPEAKER_00 9:54

Hopefully, something else will come up. But thank you so much for having me today. Oh, and um, you're doing doing a great thing because I think as you explained before we came on air, you know, it it your endeavour is to make it easy for people to hear about books and to have a glimpse of the person who wrote it. And I think that's great.

SPEAKER_01 10:12

Nice and short and sweet.

SPEAKER_00 10:13

We give we give it to our audience. Susan, all the best. Thank you, Joe. Lovely to meet you. And um yeah, good luck with it all. Okay, bye.