StarkLight Press has found in Sharon Flood an excellent author and editor, whose timely work allows SLP to share even more thrilling, exciting fiction with our fans. Ms. Flood has penned a story called Forever in our Valentine’s Anthology, Hearts Asunder. In her own words, Sharon tells us a bit about herself:
I was born and raised in the St. Lawrence River Valley in the 1,000 Islands region. I graduated from grade 13 in Thousand Islands Secondary School in Brockville. I wrote some in high school, but after that, my talent lay dormant until I discovered http://www.protagonize.com/author/moonwalker in 2008. It’s a collaborative writers’ site that honed my skills. Through this site I met my publisher, The Masquerade Crew for my first anthology story – http://www.amazon.com/Forevermore-Travel-Anthology-Sharon-Flood-ebook/dp/B00XSBH4UW. I was chosen as a Mob Boss here: http://www.masqueradecrew.com/p/the-masquerade-mob.html Where I do book reviews for The Masquerade Crew, and on Amazon.com I am very proud to announce that I am involved with all four projects here – http://www.collaborativewritingchallenge.com you will find me in the Meet the authors option under the Projects button. It’s really worth checking out. Multiple authors write publishable books together. It’s amazing what Laura Callender has done with the place! I’m retired after working 40 years in retail. I now have more free time to do what I love best – reading and writing.
Here are Sharon’s answers to our interview questions:
Interview Questions
1. Do you have a real life horror story of love gone wrong in your life?
No, not really. I was married for the first time at 19, and it didn’t work out, but it wasn’t a horror story – just two very young people not ready for the commitment of marriage. I married again at 25, and that one worked out – I’m still married almost 39 years later. There are horror stories within the marriage about ill health, etc. but our love has stayed strong throughout.
2. What do you find makes the combination of love and horror such a potent combination?
I think maybe because they’re polar opposites. Love is supposed to be a positive emotion, where horror is definitely negative. It’s like opening a door expecting a party, and all you find is a dead body on the floor. The emotion of being horrified identifies all the bad stuff that’s going on in your mind at one time – like fear, nausea at the blood, the need to run away, disgust. Love in its best sense is giving, caring, and sharing. Horror pretty much kills those emotions.
3. What was the source of your inspiration for your Valentines Day horror story?
In the Valentine Horror comments, someone suggested a title – bloody valentine, which was considered to be done to death, I guess, so it was abandoned. It gave me the idea of a bloody heart, and that morphed into a bloody heart locket. I’d decided to go with a vampire theme, and so was I thinking ‘forever young, forever beautiful, forever evil’. That became my title. Then as the story progressed, I realized that the vampire was not evil in the usual sense, just sucking blood to survive. He didn’t murder indiscriminately and create mayhem. He was just single minded. He wanted his relationship with his lady love to last forever, so that’s what I named it – forever.
Thanks for taking the time to talk to us, Sharon! You can find Sharon Flood’s story Feb. 1 2016 in Hearts Asunder, from StarkLight Press.
– Tony Stark,
Publisher and CEO,
StarkLight Press.
