Defining and Celebrating Writing Success

Sharon Short

In the world of commercial publishing, writers are frequently told their their worth can be reduced down to contracts, deals, and sales; but writing as both an art and a business contains far more opportunities to find meaning and value in your work. In this tutorial, Sharon Short discusses how writers can reclaim the joy of their craft from the industry culture. 

About the Instructor:

Sharon Short has followed a life-long passion for writing, a journey which began when Sharon was about six years old and wrote a book called “The Fireman,” which was subsequently published; the entire print run sold out immediately! OK, so Sharon’s first book was about eight pages long, bound in a red construction paper cover, self-published (though she precociously wrote “Published by Little Golden Books” on the inside front cover), and had a print run of… one copy, which a kindly aunt generously purchased for a penny.

Since then, Sharon’s journey has led her to publish (so far) fourteen novels, a collection of humor columns, and nearly 1,000 articles and columns in the Dayton Daily News, Writer’s Digest Magazine, and other publications. Sharon is also the three-time recipient of the Ohio Arts Council (OAC) Individual Artist Grants, a Montgomery County (Ohio) Arts & Cultural District Literary Artist Fellowship, and a John E. Nance Thurber House Residency.

Sharon’s most recent novels are the Kinship Historical Mystery series written under the pen name Jess Montgomery (www.jessmontgomeryauthor.com) and published by Minotaur Books, an imprint of St. Martin’s Press. The Widows, the first in the series, was an Ohioana Fiction Finalist in 2020 and won the Ohioana Reader’s Choice Award for Fiction in 2020. The most recent novel in the series, The Echoes, was named an Amazon Editors’ Pick for Best Thriller, Mystery & Suspense in 2022. Titles in the series have received starred reviews from Kirkus Reviews and Library Journal and have been on several “best of” and “most anticipated” lists for mysteries.

Learn more about Sharon at www.sharonshort.com