I’d like to welcome my guest today, fellow Mainly Murder Press author Sharon Love Cook. Sharon is the author of the recently released A Nose for Hanky Panky. The setting, Granite Cove, was inspired by Cape Ann, where she grew up. Sharon got her first newspaper column at age 16 and currently writes a long-term humor column for a local paper. A cartoonist, sometimes standup comic, and mystery writer, she lives in Massachusetts with her husband and herd of cats. Here’s what Sharon was doing 25 years ago.
SHARON: Like many women at midlife, I went back to college, joining the ranks of “nontraditional” students. Each day brought new challenges, such as Algebra and staying awake at 8 a.m. Fitting in was a problem as well. The student lounge was filled with kids half my age, their music blasting from speakers.
Finally, after weeks of sitting in my car between classes, I decided to stretch my boundaries. An English major, I’d submitted a story to the campus newspaper. When it appeared in print, I submitted another. Eventually, after going back and forth to the office, I got to know the newspaper staff. Seeing a need, I offered to help with the typing. Plus the cold weather had arrived and I was tired of sitting in my car with the heater running. This was 25 years ago. Adult Student Services (ASS) and other programs for nontrads had yet to arrive.
Eventually, after several of my stories and cartoons had appeared in print, and having become a regular at the newspaper office, I was appointed Arts editor. My fellow staff members were the ages of my own children. Although we ate together in the cafeteria, I was not, alas, included in their Spring Break plans. Not that I cared. I was an editor, my name engraved on a plastic plaque. No more huddling in my car between classes, feeling like a misfit. Now I had a title, a place to go, and duties to occupy me. I had arrived!
When someone pointed out I was the “oldest editor in the newspaper’s history,” I chuckled–and later plotted how to get even. Thus I wasn’t amused when a student came into the office and thrust a sheaf of hand written pages at me. He’d done a study on ways to improve the campus police. When I informed him I was an editor, not a typist, he looked around the room, impatient. “Where’s the editor in chief?” I took his manuscript, promising it would be routed through the appropriate channels. First stop: the receptacle at my feet.
Ah, the joy of being a decision-maker! I chose who got to appear in my pages–and I never rejected myself. Sometimes, in fact, I’d be so taken with a piece I had written, I’d scribble “Excellent!” across the top. Unfortunately this practice spoiled me when years later the rejections trickled in. Nonetheless, for the two years I was editor, my work always found a home.
For more information, visit Sharon’s web site. Check out A Nose for Hanky Panky on Amazon and at Mainly Murder Press. It’s Midnight in Granite Cove and the sea clams are the only things open. Not only is the village an unlikely spot for murder, the victim–too perfect for mere mortals–is the last person one would expect.
