What the Living Do

Sex and death consume much of thirty-seven-year-old Brett Catlin’ s life. Cole, ten years her junior, takes care of the former while her job disposing of roadkill addresses the latter. A cancer diagnosis causes her to question her worth, suspecting the illness is payback for the deaths of her father and sister. Thus begins a challenging journey of alternative healing that she doubts she deserves. Just as Brett surrenders to the prescribed cure, a startling discovery sends her on a more profound exploration of cause and effect. Encounters with animals, both living and dead, help her answer the question: who is worth saving?

Winner of The Writers’ Union of Canada’ s short prose contest, Susan Wadds’ fiction and poetry appear in various literary journals, including The Blood Pudding, Room, and carte blanche magazines. The first two chapters of her debut novel, “ What the Living Do” won Lazuli Literary Group’ s prose contest, and were published in Azure Magazine. A graduate of the Humber School for Writers, Susan is a certified Amherst Writers and Artists (AWA) writing workshop facilitator.