Sharon Flood – Bio
I was born and raised in the St. Lawrence River Valley in the 1,000 Islands region. I graduated from 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 first 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 five collaborative novel projects here – http://www.collaborativewritingchallenge.com. They operate out of New York city. I also have stories published in their Halloween, Christmas and Easter horror anthologies.
I was very lucky to get involved with an independent publishing company out of Dawson Creek, B.C. http://starklightpress.com/ this past year. I’m so thrilled to be part of their staff as line editor. I have stories in Steam punk Christmas, and hearts Asunder, A Valentine’s day horror anthology. Starklight Press has published a lot of my most recent work, such as three ongoing collaborative Science fiction novels involving the Galactic Armed Forces universe.
Sharon’s prompts for Shamrocks, Saints and Standing Stones were Standing Stones, Ireland and the 1970s. Here’s an excerpt from the story she crafted from these three ideas:
St. Patrick’s day Ireland, 1972
Creevykeel Court Cairn, County Slive – the crack of dawn
A penny whistle, Uilleann pipes Bodhrán and guitar
Four young men in their early twenties.
Felix pulled his 1967 sedan off of the Donegal road to Cilffony onto the soft gravel shoulder. It was still fairly dark. The sun had not yet peeked over the horizon. The other three men – Adrian, Cecil and Declan got out and looked around, not that there was much to look at, yet. They could see the ancient layout of the enormous standing stones that formed the Creevykeel Court from the road. Felix went around to the boot of the auto and dragged out a butterfly net, a camera, a flashlight and a metal ice chest cooler full of stout.
“Best get yer stuff lads. It could be a good wait. Adrian, got yer penny whistle?” Felix asked.
“Always. Not that it’ll help. Sun’s not even up yet. Why are we?” Adrian grumbled.
“Ye know why. It’s St. Patrick’s day. Fairies will be out an’ about, celebratin’. Me da’ said this was one of the better places to find ’em.”
“Do ye have any idea how daft that sounds?” Cecil said.
“No one’s twistin’ yer arm, Cecil. Ye can back out now if ye want. Stay here and wait fer us. Ye’ll be sorry when we’re rich ‘n famous, and ye’re … not,” Felix finished with a lame sigh.
Sharon also answered our interview questions for this St. Patrick’s Day anthology:
1. What’s your most prominent memory of St. Patrick’s Day?
I don’t really have one. We made green construction paper shamrocks in grade school to tape on the school windows on March 17th. Later on at work, we were encouraged to wear something green on March 17th. I may have watched one or two St. Patrick’s Day parades on March 17th, but it wasn’t a big deal in our house, although my paternal grandparents were from Ireland. It wasn’t a holiday we ever celebrated.
2. Name the part of Irish culture you are most happy to lay claim to and why- is it Guinness? Irish music? The Book of Kells? The Fighting Irish?
Irish Music. I love it. During the 1970’s and 1980’s we went to a few Makum and Clancy concerts, and Irish Rovers concerts. We have several of their LPs. Carlton Show band was another favourite. More recently, I have a few Rankin Family CD’s. They’re Canadian of Irish descent. They sing mostly Irish folk. I like Celtic music because it’s mostly folk rock, which I like very much.
3. What are your thoughts on working with this sort of writing exercise, fueled by prompts? How did seeing the prompts of your fellow authors and chatting online together with them about the work affect your process?
It’s been fun coming up with ideas to work with for the prompts. It’s like having a road map for your story, without having to pick your ideas out of the ozone. It made research a lot easier, because I had specific key words to look up. When I see some of the other prompts I realize how lucky I was to get mine – Standing Stones, Ireland, 1970’s. These are all easy subjects to find. Some of the other prompts – not so much. The prompts were picked out of the hat. This time the hat liked me.
You can read Sharon’s story in Shamrocks, Saints and Standing Stones, available March 10 from StarkLight Press!