Mary Marino-Strong asked Susan Wittig Albert:

I'm so sorry to learn there won't be a 2020 China Bayles. Is there anything we, China's readers, can do to persuade a 2020 book? I've loved this series since I found it in the 80s, and read each one as well as each of your other series. I'm glad you're continuing the Darling Dahlias. It has a great ensemble of characters with charming detail that places us right in the 1930s.

Susan Wittig Albert There will be a Pecan Springs novella trilogy this spring, Mary, focusing on the town newspaper. There's a bit about it here: https://susanalbert.com/writing-linke... Trying new ideas keeps me lively and growing: writers, like dancers and artists, get stale when they keep producing the same thing over and over again.

To produce a hardcover book takes 1 full year: the writing plus the editorial plus the printing/distribution. So if I start a China in the summer, when I finish the Dahlias, it'll be summer 2021 before it's on your TBR stack. That's just the reality of the business. Producing digital books takes far less time, of course (on the production end)--but there are lots of readers who insist on paper books.

Thanks so much for the question, and for your interest. Knowing that we have impatient readers--that what keeps us writing!

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