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photo by Curtis Brown |
My love of fiction first appeared in
childhood, when I created what I now recognize as character sketches
for each of my Barbie dolls. As a ten-year-old, I wrote and directed
theatrical works featuring neighborhood children. The curtain
(otherwise known as our garage door) would go up to the applause of
mothers seated in lawn chairs on the driveway. My fourth grade
teacher captured my imagination with Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little
House series and my teen years were populated by people like Peter
Jenkins in A Walk Across America and Corrie ten Boom in The Hiding
Place. Even though I was too young to experience romance firsthand,
I was entranced with books such as Love Story by Erich Segal and
Colleen McCullough’s The Thorn Birds.
I grew up in southwest Missouri, where the Ozark Mountains whetted
my appetite for the beauty of nature. After graduation from Missouri
State University, I fell in love with a Florida boy and moved south,
expecting to find the entire state clad in the pastel, linen suits
I’d seen on Miami Vice. Instead, I found the genteel Southern charm
and moss-draped trees more often associated with cities such as
Charleston or Savannah.
After 20 years of marriage, I still live with that same Florida boy
among the beautiful marshlands and barrier islands near the
Florida/Georgia border. We have two school-aged sons who have little
patience for my hour-a-day reading requirement or my penchant for
hiking in the national park near our home.
I worked in convention sales at two high-end golf resorts before
trading in my suitcase and travel clothes for a job that would allow
me to stay closer to home with my growing family. Always eager to
learn, I returned to school for a Master’s Degree in human resources
management and
I
continue to work part-time in Corporate America, overseeing an
employee relations team and company-wide diversity initiatives.
Since returning to writing in 2003, I’ve had wins in the Florida
Times-Union Holiday Short Story contest, the St. Augustine Nature
and Birding Short Story contest, and the Mt. Dora (Florida) Music
and Literary Festival. The successes I've had with my novel-length
manuscripts are shown on the Bookshelf page. I’m a member of the
Bard Society, Romance Writers of America and the First Coast Romance
Writers.
Please see the
bookshelf page for information
on my full-length
works of romantic fiction.
Contact me at: Sheila@SheilaAthens.com
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