Meet Sharon Marchisello | author and cat lover

We had the good fortune of connecting with Sharon Marchisello and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Sharon, why did you decide to pursue a creative path?
I’ve always wanted to be a writer, and I was telling stories before I learned my alphabet. I received enough encouragement from family, friends, and teachers that I just assumed I’d one day get published. Writing fiction keeps me sane. It allows me to create a world where I’m in control.. Justice is served, and the bad guys get punished. I can create heroines who are prettier, smarter, and wittier than me. They always say the right thing at the right time—those zingers I wish I’d thought of in the moment.
Writing is more who I am than a career.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
For most people, getting traditionally published is difficult. You have to be persistent and get used to rejection. Someone once asked me how long I’d give it before I threw in the towel. I replied that I would always write, regardless of whether I ever got published. My “first novel,” Going Home, was published in 2014, when I was over sixty. It was actually the fourth novel I’d completed, and I’d started and scrapped many others. It took me ten years and seven drafts, not to mention countless rejections in between, before I got a contract.
When I finally received an offer from Sunbury Press, I panicked. I’d been querying agents as well as small and mid-size publishers that would look at un-agented material. Now I had a contract from a publisher and no agent to act as intermediary. Fortunately, a fellow Sisters in Crime author who had published many books read the contract over and gave me suggestions for negotiation.
Once I signed the contract, I told almost no one. I was afraid something would happen, and my book wouldn’t be published after all. I’d heard horror stories about publishers going out of business or cutting their lists, leaving would-be authors disappointed. If I’d had it to do over, I’d have created a website, put out buzz all over social media, and tried to gather advance reviews. There are so many books published these days, no one will know yours is there unless you tell them.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Where I take visitors usually depends on them and their interests. But if it were up to me… As an animal lover, I’d take them to the zoo and the aquarium. Maybe the World of Coca-Cola and/or CNN since we’d be in the area. If the weather was nice, I’d take them to the Botanical Garden and perhaps Stone Mountain.
I also love the drive down to Warm Springs to visit the Little White House. Before or after our tour, we could browse the shops on the main street and grab some lunch at a local barbeque place. Maybe we could extend the day with a visit to Calloway Gardens and the butterfly house.
Living in Peachtree City, I often take advantage of its network of cart paths, so I’d try to entice my guest to take a walk with me. I enjoy cooking at home, and when the weather is pleasant, my husband and I like to sit out on the patio with a beer or a glass of wine and watch the sunset.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I think critique groups and beta readers have been the most helpful to me. The first one I joined was when I was in graduate school at the University of Southern California, working on my Master’s in Professional Writing. I was the only female regular, and the guys were brutal. But I learned a lot. It’s not helpful to be told how wonderful your manuscript is; you need people to tell you what works and what doesn’t, so you can make it better. Currently, I’m in four different critique groups, workshopping various stories at various stages. The longest-running group is the Peachtree City Writers Circle, which meets at our local library. I’m in another one that meets on Zoom that I found through the Atlanta Writers Club. During the pandemic, I started doing Zoom write-ins during NaNoWriMo with some friends from my Sisters in Crime chapter. We’re still going with the write-ins, and we also morphed into a critique group. And the newest one I’ve joined is part of the Hometown Novel Writers Association, a nonprofit whose goal is to introduce local authors to local audiences, as well as to help develop and promote local authors.

Website: https://smarchisello.wordpress.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/slmarchisello/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sharonmarchisello/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/SLMarchisello

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SLMarchisello

Other: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Sharon-Marchisello/author/B00NH6N4WK https://www.sunburypress.com/collections/sharon-marchisello