Episode 81
Where Fiction Meets Reality with Author Sharon J. Wishnow
On today’s episode we’re traveling south to Virginia to speak with Sharon Wishnow, a women’s fiction author who is more than a little obsessed with pelicans and writing about what is outside her back yard. Sharon’s writing career spans thirty years, starting as a freelance writer in the Netherlands where she established a beat in the supermarket and food industries. When she returned to the US, she garnered her experience along with a few professional degrees into a communications career before turning to fiction. She’s currently the executive editor for WriteON! the magazine of the Women’s Fiction Writers Association (WFWA). She’s the former Vice President of Communications for WFWA and the founder of Women’s Fiction Day celebrated yearly on June 8th.
Sharon’s novel, The Pelican Tide is about a Cajun chef, Josie Babineaux and her family living in Grand Isle, Louisiana during the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill that devastated the entire Gulf Coast of the United States. While the book is fiction, it closely follows the actual 87-day timeline of events from the oil well explosion to when it was capped. The story features Gumbo, a quirky brown pelican who has adopted the family as his people. Gumbo is modeled after a real pelican, Big Bird, a great white pelican that was rescued in Tanzania. His humans taught him how to fish and survive.
Sharon’s story is one of a family on the brink of financial and social collapse while their home is facing an environmental collapse. Her stories often highlight how changes in the environment change people. She’s quick to say she doesn’t write about dystopian stories but rather stories of strong women who fight for what is most important to them. Along with the lighthearted antics of Gumbo the pelican is a hot sauce competition. The book also includes recipes from Chef Josie that Sharon hopes will be shared along with her story.
As a seasoned nonfiction writer, her writing is always informed by actual events. In 2021, eleven years after the Deepwater Horizon spill, Grand Isle was destroyed by Hurricane Ida. The barrier island took a direct hit and 100% property damage. Sharon is now working with the nonprofit Restore Grand Isle to help raise funds and talk about the important work that still needs to be done to rebuild the island and preserve its unique ecosystem. The island is an important rest stop for migrating birds around the world. The people are extraordinary too.
You can learn more about Sharon, her book, Grand Isle, and subscribe to her newsletter Research for Writers and Other Curious People on her website www.sharonwishnow.com. You can also connect with her on Instagram @sjwishnow.
Sharon also encourages readers to visit Restore Grand Isle to learn how they can help https://restoregrandisle.com
Transcript
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Kristi Leonard [:Welcome to Author Express. Thanks for checking us out. This is the podcast where you give us 15 minutes of your time, and we give you a chance to hear the voice behind the pages and get to know some of your favorite writers in a new light. I'm one of your hosts, Kristi Leonard, owner and host of Writers in the Wild Retreats, nonfiction voice over artist, and president of WFWA. I'm excited to share with you a little about today's guest. Sharon j Wishnow is a transplanted New Englander who makes her home in Northern Virginia. She writes upmarket fiction about flawed, strong women with plots that have environmental themes. Sharon is drawn to stories that show how changes in the environment change people.
Kristi Leonard [:The Pelican Tide is Sharon's first novel, and she is actively working with the nonprofit, Restore Grand Isle, to help the island rebuild after hurricane Ida. When she's not writing or researching, you can find her in the garden watching the birds in her backyard or feeding peanuts to her local squirrels. Welcome, Sharon.
Sharon Wishnow [:Thank you for having me.
Kristi Leonard [:Oh, my gosh. I am so incredibly lucky to have one of my favorite writing friends on with me today. Sharon and I served on the Women's Fiction Writers Association board together, and she is the editor of the fantastic ezine the organization publishes quarterly called Write On. So if you're a member, you know about it. If you're not a member, you could become a member and then you can read it. Pretty fantastic.
Sharon Wishnow [:Absolutely. You should.
Kristi Leonard [:Yes. So we always start with the same question. We really like to try to get to know our authors a little bit before we get into the book. So tell me the most interesting thing about where you are from.
Sharon Wishnow [:Oh, gosh. So where I'm really from is Massachusetts. Okay. So the most interesting thing about Massachusetts and me is my obsession with seashells that started when I was a little girl. And the fact that I have been a member of the Boston Malachological Club since I was about 11. Wow. Which is a it's a professional hobby organization that meets at Harvard University every month. Mhmm.
Sharon Wishnow [:And when I was a little girl, God bless my father, he took me to shell club meetings every month until I graduated college.
Kristi Leonard [:That is amazing. So what kind of shells are there in Massachusetts that you got to know about?
Sharon Wishnow [:So Massachusetts shells are kind of boring because they're cold water.
Kristi Leonard [:Okay. All right.
Sharon Wishnow [:But I think what was so interesting about shelling with professional like marine biologists is what you learned about the ocean.
Kristi Leonard [:Oh,
Sharon Wishnow [:yeah. And these amazing world renowned scientists treated me like one of their own. And it actually kind of fueled, like it fuels all my manuscripts and including the book that I've just written because it's about the ocean.
Kristi Leonard [:Yeah. That's awesome. So diving a little bit more into you as a person and maybe what you just told us might have been your answer if I'd asked you this question first. But what is something about you that other people find hard to believe?
Sharon Wishnow [:I think they don't see all of the travel and all the places that I've been. I I lived overseas for 3 years in my twenties. Okay. Wow. And lived in Lynn for a little while. People don't often believe that I'm from New England anymore because I don't park the car as much as I used to. And so when you meet people and they say, what do you do and where are you from? And I'm like, oh, I'm a writer. I'm from Boston.
Sharon Wishnow [:I kinda get that dog reading the newspaper look.
Kristi Leonard [:Funny. Too too funny. So what is something you wish you could have understood more deeply when you were 20 years old? You're not 20 anymore. Right?
Sharon Wishnow [:Sure.
Kristi Leonard [:I am. Just like you. Exactly.
Sharon Wishnow [:If I go back and talk to, like, younger Sharon, I wish I told her to open more doors and walk through them And to knock on more I knocked on a lot of doors, but I was a little afraid to see what's on the other side. And I think I didn't trust that time and experience were really gonna be my friend.
Kristi Leonard [:Interesting. Tell me a little more.
Sharon Wishnow [:You know, I have some opportunities. One of the biggest opportunities I I took was to quit my job and follow my my boyfriend at the time and move to a foreign country. And that's when I really started writing. But when I I came back and became a little bit more settled in things like money and where we're gonna live, I wasn't as open to opportunities, to taking the time to un school something. I was so concerned about the meeting the bills and the here and now and what people thought and where we were. I said no to a few things that had I been a little bit more patient, probably would have been a lot more interesting.
Kristi Leonard [:More fodder for your writing, I guess.
Sharon Wishnow [:Probably. Yeah. Yeah. Always. Always. You know that.
Kristi Leonard [:Absolutely. So now we get to the part that I really love. I get to talk about your book. So I just finished your book, and I have to tell you that I read it in a day and a half because it was so engaging. There were so many threads. I applaud you. I mean, that's one of the things I love about women's fiction is all the threads and the layers and the depth of those types of books. And yours has it times a 1,000.
Kristi Leonard [:I don't know how you kept track of all of those pieces. Like, when I write, I have a a notebook with all the threads that I have left open so that when I get deeper, I can pull a thread through. And you just mastered it. So in order to catch everybody up, let's have you give us your summary of your book in one sentence.
Sharon Wishnow [:A brokenhearted Cajun chef living in a Louisiana Grand Isle, barrier island is struggling to survive a tight tourist season right before the onslaught of financial ruin hits her when there's a huge oil spill disaster that upends everything in her life.
Kristi Leonard [:Well, that touches the top layer. There's so many other layers. It's so good. I really enjoyed your book a lot. So just back up a little bit. You grew up in Massachusetts, and you live in Virginia and you wrote a book about Louisiana. Tell me, is there a connection? Are you just have you been there? Do you just love it? Like, tell me how it all came to be.
Sharon Wishnow [:So this is the hard part to explain. So it was 2019, right before everything closed down for the pandemic and things were kinda like, yeah. And Woods Hole, which is the premier ocean research science center in one of them in the world, Woods Hole, Massachusetts was doing a, like, a 1 hour podcast on Deepwater Horizon 10 years later. And I'm a member of Woodhills Woods Hole because it's Massachusetts. And I was like, it's been 10 years since that explosion. I remembered it, and I remember the blockbuster film and and all that stuff. So I watched it, and it was really interesting to hear about the environment and what was happening. But they didn't talk about the people.
Sharon Wishnow [:And I was like, well, what happened to the people? Right. And in that sort of classic writerly magic, I said, well, what if what would it be like to live through an oil spill? You know, we don't have that type of economy in Massachusetts, so it's not something that would have happened Yeah. Luckily. And I started to really get interested in the people. And and the horrifying train wrecking you can't look away thing about the Deepwater Horizon is you can Google it, and you can see YouTube videos. Yeah. And it's in your face. Like, as I was writing this story, it was actually, like, counting boats that were around the spill as it was on fire.
Sharon Wishnow [:And it's why it's so accurate in the book. And the entire spill, it takes place over 87 days, is online. And there's timelines that like The Guardian newspaper would follow. And so I started thinking about writing a story about the people. And then it just was off to the races. Once I found Grand Isle as my location, there I was.
Kristi Leonard [:Wow. That is so cool. I love how writers can get inspiration anywhere. And I know for me at least, once an idea gets in my head, it's impossible to get it out. You just have to find a way to get it on the paper, and you did it. It was really awesome. So do you think your book would be exactly the same if you had written it 10 years ago? Well, obviously, this is a an actual event that was the inspiration. But for yourself, like, just you as a writer or even 10 years from now, like, how different would it be?
Sharon Wishnow [:I think 10 years from now well, I'd hope it'd be a better book because it'd be a better writer. But I think a book written in the future would be very similar. I think a book written Sharon 10 years younger would not have been as rich. I have 2 kids now. I was able to draw on what it felt like to have a family. Yeah. There's some problems that have happened in that book that I've experienced in my life and I've seen other people experience. One of the the benefits of being an older writer is that I I now have things to talk about that I didn't have to talk about in my twenties thirties.
Kristi Leonard [:So true.
Sharon Wishnow [:Especially for women's fiction.
Kristi Leonard [:Yeah. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Do you remember when you first decided you were gonna write a novel? Have you always wanted to write a novel?
Sharon Wishnow [:My writing trajectory isn't like everyone else. I wasn't the shy, bookish kid who sat in my bedroom. In fact, I I didn't even read a lot of fiction growing up. I'm not actually well read. I became a nonfiction writer in my twenties and I that was my jam, like magazines and communications. And I dabbled a little bit in short stories, but I didn't love it. And I think I didn't love short stories because they weren't big enough for me. Oh.
Sharon Wishnow [:And I always thought that someday I would write a novel. And I I have an MFA in creative nonfiction. And I would I had to take a few fiction classes. And they were so overwhelming because the people in the classes, they were much younger, and they were intimidating as all get out. I can imagine. Writing these, like, literary masterpieces that I was just I was like, yeah. I'll never write a novel. And then, I don't know, I guess about 10 years ago, 8 years ago, I was like, you know, I'm gonna write a novel.
Sharon Wishnow [:I really need to start thinking about doing that. Sort of like when you decide to have children, if you're lucky to have children
Kristi Leonard [:Oh yeah.
Sharon Wishnow [:you know, you have to do it.
Sharon Wishnow [:And it took me, I don't know, I guess, most of my life to come up with, do I actually have something to say? And so I actually do remember it. And so I wrote my first trunk novel as we all call it, and she'll never come out of my hard drive. And then I wrote my second novel, which I got my agent on and went on submission, and she died on submission. And the Pelican Tide is actually my 4th novel.
Kristi Leonard [:Wow. I didn't know that.
Sharon Wishnow [:Though it's my debut, I'm hoping novel number 2 comes out of the trunk. So, yeah, I do remember it, but it was not something as a little kid. I was like, I'm gonna grow up and write a novel one day.
Kristi Leonard [:That was me. I was not a bookish kid. My mother actually challenged me to read all of the books in her bookshelf. And I was like, nope.
Sharon Wishnow [:Yep. Not interested.
Kristi Leonard [:And she would be very surprised to see me writing a book now. Actually, she wouldn't. I've always been a writer. I just never was a reader. I love reading now though.
Sharon Wishnow [:Okay. So that's something we share. I always wrote, but I never wasn't really well read.
Kristi Leonard [:Yeah. Now I can't read enough because I know so many writers. It's so fun reading books that you know the author. I feel like you learn so much about the author because you know there's so much of their heart in what they're writing. And I don't know. You just get a different glimpse of somebody after you've read their book. It's pretty awesome. 100%.
Kristi Leonard [:And then I get to talk to my friends about their books on this podcast, which is pretty awesome. So what surprised you most about your writing career?
Sharon Wishnow [:Did I have one? I think the nonfiction is just sort of my DNA. So the nonfiction and the business that I built at the time that I built it before, you know, everybody was like typing it into chat, you know, GBT.
Kristi Leonard [:Right. Yes.
Sharon Wishnow [:And being able to build that business, that communications business, it's been really gratifying. I think what's been so surprising with me with the fiction is how quickly it's come together. That's good. But I've written millions of nonfiction words, and I've run magazines. I mean, I have this years years years years of writing experience. It just wasn't in fiction. Yeah. And so the fact that I was able to sort of teach myself how to do it wasn't overnight.
Sharon Wishnow [:That's been really surprising.
Kristi Leonard [:And you got a little help from WFWA, I bet?
Sharon Wishnow [:Well, you read the acknowledgments in my book, and the first thing it it I thank is WFWA. I would not be having this conversation with you without WFWA.
Kristi Leonard [:Yeah. Same. Absolutely. So where is the best place for folks to find you? I assume your website maybe?
Sharon Wishnow [:Yes. www.sharonwishnow.com. You can read me. There's recipes, because there's recipes in the book. There's reader questions. There's information about pelicans. There's information about Restore Grand Isle. You can sign up for my newsletter, Research for Writers and Other Curious People, and there's an events and media page to show you the book festivals and tours that I'm going on.
Kristi Leonard [:Oh, very cool. I actually get your newsletter, and I would love to give a plug for it because it's so creative and different, and it's super fun. So we always like to end our conversations with what book or story inspires you the most. It doesn't have to inspire you. It can inspire you. It can inspire your writing. What is the most inspiration that we just talked about how you maybe not a big reader, so I'm curious for this answer.
Sharon Wishnow [:So this is gonna be kind of, like, corny, but the one book that I read, I used to read it every spring. I don't know why. I think it's because I used to it's Eby White's Trumpet of the Swan.
Kristi Leonard [:Oh, that's a good one.
Sharon Wishnow [:It's a children's book, and it is about a swan who is a little bit humanized, who doesn't have a voice. And it's a wonderful children's story. EB White is a master, and he steals a trumpet and cuts the webs on his fins or his fingers and learns to play the trumpet so that he can trumpet. And if you look at Gumbo the pelican, who's the character in my book, Gumbo is not quite that humanized in my book, but I definitely see that maybe as an early influence. And it's just like the one book that I go back to all the time. It's always on my shelf. It's always there.
Kristi Leonard [:That's awesome. You'd be surprised how many people actually pull out children's books when we get that answer. Yeah. It's excellent. This has been a very quick 15 minutes. We packed a lot in, and I could not be happier to be talking to you about your book. Your first book, I'm sure it will be the first of many. I hope.
Kristi Leonard [:And we hope to see whatever you're gonna do next.
Sharon Wishnow [:Great. Thank you so much for having me.
Kristi Leonard [:Absolutely. Thanks for being here. Thanks for joining us. We hope you take a second to give us stars or a review on your favorite podcasting platform, And we'll be here again next Wednesday. Follow us on Instagram at author express podcast to see who's coming up next. Don't forget, keep it express, but keep it interesting.
