My third and most recent collection of short stories continues my interest in the psychology of characters: their complex motives, their different levels of self-awareness, their often unspoken desires and fears. I've also created a range of tones, variously poignant, bleak and (my younger son declared) laugh-out-loud funny. 

The same son also told me that I had to stop writing about sex. My mother told me to stop using bad language in my stories. My husband told me to stop killing off husbands in my stories. My book has thus (inadvertently) adhered to the warnings that precede a TV show: 'It contains sexual references, coarse language and adult themes.'

ABOUT FEET TO THE STARS

Susan Midalia’s third collection of short stories offers keenly observed details about everyday life expressed with pathos, tenderness and bracing wit. Subtly rendered and emotionally engaging, these stories speak of the transformative capacities of the heart and mind, and of the ways we affect one another, sometimes unwittingly and often profoundly. They offer us the pleasure of listening to different voices, and the satisfaction of careful crafting and evocative prose. 

PRAISE FOR THE BOOK
'Corporeality and the emotional resonance of the body permeate the collection in vivid descriptions that pay attention to all the senses.' Westerly Magazine

'Each character is unique and closely observed. They have their own way of speaking, their own perspectives. This is a writer who goes deeply into their inner lives and uses language as well as sentiment to convey this.' Australian Book Review

She is at her best in the kind of semi-domestic realism associated with Katherine Mansfield, where fleeting moments of realisation or transcendence take place among the teacups and gardens of people's ordinary lives... While far from either sentimentality or naivety, this collection is nevertheless lit up by optimism about the possibility of fearless ageing, and of happy love. Sydney Morning Herald.