I’d like to welcome S.E. Tschritter to the blog for #WriterWednesday!

Hardest thing about being a writer:
Putting yourself out there. The image of placing my heart on a platter has always stuck with me. With public writing, you serve your soul to the reader and inadvertently invite them to dissect what they see.

Easiest thing about being a writer:

LOL. Writing. Nothing is wasted. Even words that are deleted, the characters typed that no one ever sees, are practice and creative process. Novels that are rejected by a publisher are still self-publishable. And writing for the simple sake of writing? Nothing brings me more joy.

Things you need for your writing sessions:

A hair tie and a drink. My hair must be off the back of my neck. I must have a drink nearby that I can sip while I reread my brilliance, and also my “brilliance.”

Things that hamper your writing:

Patter meowing. There is a photo of my cat sitting on my arms while I type. I can work with that. But sometimes Patter will just sit in my office doorway and meow at me. That? Mmm. “What do you want?”

Words that describe you:

Driven. Introspective. Dynamic.

Words that describe you, but you wish they didn’t:

Aggressive, Pushy, Impatient

Something you’re really good at:

Keeping plants alive. Transplanting and propagating flowers.

Something you’re really bad at:

Cooking and baking. Following a recipe always feels so tedious.

Things you’d walk a mile for:

Cheesecake and company.

Things that make you want to run screaming from the room:

Narcissists. Toxic or negative people. My dreams are too vast to share space with your chains.

Things you always put in your books:

Truth. Even in fiction there are details that I borrow from my own life. In a book I’m working on now, the heroine sheds her hair, and it gets stuck to the headrest of the hero’s car. He pinches the hair and throws it out the window. My real life best friend in high school used to say, when I’d get in his car, “Man! I just got all the Sam hair out of my car.”

Things you never put in your books:

I’d say profanity, but The Prodigal’s Son: Crackhead to Jesus Freak has some. I felt strongly that to earn readers’ trust and respect, the memoir needed to be authentic. Beyond that though, I describe what I write as “prose you can rest your eyes in.”

Things to say to an author:

Tell me more about your story!

Things to say to an author if you want to be fictionally killed off in their next book:

A group of girls bullied my oldest daughter in junior high and high school. When I need a character who will play an incredibly short role who will be killed off quickly, I pull from that list of names.

Favorite books (or genre):

There’s not a lot of fiction I won’t read as long as it’s well-written. If I start editing as I read, I won’t make it to chapter two.

Books you wouldn’t buy:

Some books use sensationalism to sell a book with sloppy writing, rather than dedicating effort to improving craftsmanship. I can tell which is which within the first three pages. I won’t waste my time with lazily written prose.

Favorite things to do:

Creative writing? LOL. Helping people with my words. Reading. Creating a garden. Horseback riding. Waterskiing.

Things you’d run through a fire or eat bugs to get out of doing:

Writing a synopsis or technical writing.

Most daring thing you’ve ever done:

Skydived.

Something you chickened out from doing:

Jumping off a high dive.

…I know, I see it too. The thing is, when I skydived, I jumped tandem. So my partner leapt out of the plane, and I was clipped to him in four places, so suddenly I was free-falling from 13,000 feet. Coolest experience ever…after that first step.

The nicest thing a reader said to you:

“When I was reading The Prodigal’s Son, I was battling suicidal thoughts. You saved my life 4th of July weekend.”

The craziest thing a reader said to you:

“Oh, you miscarried? You should read Love Letters to Miscarriage Moms.” I’m the author.

Some real-life story that made it to one of your books:

My dog’s personality.

Also, in The Lakeshore’s Secret, which comes out October 6, 2026, the heroine flees to Pequot Lakes, Minnesota to heal. I did that in my real life once.

Something in your story that readers think is about you, but it’s not:

I once wrote another woman’s sexual assault story for her in first person to help her on her healing journey and thought I’d made it clear in the beginning that I’d written the story for someone else. Someone apologized to me about the trauma I’d faced and I didn’t know what she was talking about. Deleted that blog very fast.

About S.E.:

Multi-award-winning author S. E. Tschritter (Shridder) specializes in articulating grief and loss, leading grievers toward hope and healing. Tschritter writes content that sticks with readers long after they close the cover, evidenced by The Prodigal's Son: Crackhead to Jesus Freak, which quickly became a best-seller. Her next book, a romantic suspense entitled The Lakeshore's Secret, releases October 6, 2026.

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