Sharon J Wishnow On The 5 Things You Need to Know to Become a Great Author

A great author is one who makes writing a habit and a priority.

As part of my interview series on the five things you need to know to become a great author, I had the pleasure of interviewing Sharon J. Wishnow.

Sharon J. Wishnow is a transplanted New Englander who now makes her home in Northern Virginia. She has an MFA from George Mason University and is represented by Ann Leslie Tuttle at Dystel, Goderich, and Bourette. Her debut novel, The Pelican Tide arrives June 11, 2024 from Lake Union Publishing. You can find her and her published work online at www.sharonwishnow.com.

Thank you so much for joining us! Can you share a story about what brought you to this particular career path?

Like many writers I had a sense that I would write for a living one day. However, I didn’t major in English as an undergrad, and I didn’t write fiction. I found reading and discussing the work of dead (mostly) white men to be tedious. I began writing professionally in my 20s when I was living in the Netherlands. This was in the early 1990s before the Internet. As an expat American, I was having a hard time finding work and thought I’d try freelance writing. I paged through the entire Writer’s Digest Guide to magazine and…