(Talk of the Town photo provided) Columbia City native and published author Susie Duncan Sexton will release her newest collection of essays in October.

Article provided

In Susie Duncan Sexton's follow-up to Secrets of an Old Typewriter, she offers her second essay collection of provocative, funny, heartwarming and heartbreaking observations.

Entitled "Misunderstood Gargoyles & Overrated Angels," this volume celebrates the underdogs and the unappreciated among us... and sets its sights on the hypocritical and the hyped among us as well. Through the context of a life fully lived — with an affinity for pop culture, an aversion to small town small-mindedness, and a passion for animal rights — Sexton weaves a rich tapestry of punditry and advocacy.

Her son, Roy Sexton, a marketing executive as well as semi-professional actor/singer in Southeast Michigan, observes, “My mom loves art, Doris Day, theatre, literature, William Faulkner, musicals, pop culture, Annie Lennox, classic television, movie stars, Kurt Vonnegut, thoughtfulness, kindness, love, wit, words, canasta, conversation, smoking, martinis, Mad Men and mad men, and most of all animals of all shapes and sizes, souls and temperaments. This grab bag of biographical influences (and more!) can be found here — look for the clues, play with the text and enjoy the images and thoughts offered.”

Anyone who has ever lived in a small town certainly knows that secrets are sometimes not so secret. Sexton has tickled the keys of her trusty old typewriter for nearly five decades, and that venerable machine (now actually a Dell desktop computer) continues to reveal its secrets. Sexton’s writings may be about small-town life, but the ideas contained within are expansive.

She currently writes monthly columns "Old Type Writer" for a popular local blog Talk of the Town and "Homeward Angle" for a local newspaper. She has been a frequent contributor to the literary journal "Moronic Ox," and her poetry was selected by poet Charles Michael Madig and by Wayne State professor M.L. Liebler to be featured in "Poetic Resonance Imaging: Behind the Door." She also has been featured in Our USA, Writing Raw, Where Writers Write, and InD'tale magazines. Her first book Secrets of an Old Typewriter is currently available as a paperback (as well as download formats) at www.open-bks.com, www.amazon.com, and www.susieduncansexton.com. The follow-up Misunderstood Gargoyles & Overrated Angels will be released October 31. More information about the book including an excerpt and pre-orders is available at www.open-bks.com and www.susieduncansexton.com.

“I am so overjoyed by where all of this has gone in such a short period of time. And I really want to thank everyone who has supported me along the way,” notes Sexton. “My first love will always be animal rights and I weave those themes somewhere into just about everything I write. However, both books – the first one and this second one – serve as a Valentine of sorts to my loving parents and to my husband and to my son. My mom and dad taught me the transformational power and joy of language and of art and of generosity, and I hope that these books, taken together, leave some small mark on this world consistent with those teachings. Readers will find many references to my parents and to the special lives they led and to the way my husband and I have tried to replicate that with each other and with our son.”

Editor and fellow Open Books author Kelly Huddleston observed, “Susie Duncan Sexton is one of a kind! That much was obvious in her debut title with us. Now her old red Royal, from North Carolina’s Pilot Life Insurance where her mother worked during the Great Depression, is ready to tell all again in Misunderstood Gargoyles and Overrated Angels. She is in rare form! At a recent author event as part of Ann Arbor, Michigan’s Arts and Culture Series, Susie even roasted actress Shirley Jones in a reading from the new book. That's the way you do it, Susie!”

Sexton will be appearing in Fort Wayne on November 9 as part of the Allen County Public Library’s 2013 Author Fair from noon to 4 p.m. More info can be found at http://www.acpl.lib.in.us/. She will also present at an author event on November 17 at 2 p.m. at the Whitley County Historical Museum in Columbia City http://www.whitleymuseum.com/.