Shelf Talk: Susan Zerunda

After teaching literature, composition, and creative writing to thousands of high school and college students for 33 years, Susan turned her attention to putting a novel in her heart on paper. Her debut novel, Bells for Eli, is a coming-of-age story in which fate takes with one hand and gives with the other in a time and place of social constraints. The novel explores the power of culture, family, friends, bullies, scars, and lovers on two cousins devoted to each other.