Talent Tuesday: Rie Sheridan Rules!

Good Morning everyone!

Please welcome Rie Sheridan for Talent Tuesday!

Rie’s visit with us is especially meaningful to me. Ten years ago I joined Writer’s Village University in a quest to learn the craft of writing. Rie and I met there and I’ve followed her growing career on and off over the years. To have her here, for the first ever event and on Talent Tuesday, is definitely serendipitous.

Rie Sheridan has been writing since she first picked up a crayon. In 1998, she entered HalfPrice Books' "Say Goodnight to Illiteracy" contest, was one of 20 national finalists, and published in the 1999 Annual Anthology. She has also had poetry appear in print in Dreams and Nightmares and Mythic Circle and short stories in online zines, Dragons And Vampires, We Love Writers, Spaceways Weekly, and T-Zero Xpandizine. She likes to spend her spare time reading, writing, and role-playing, and collects action figures, musical instruments, and non-sports cards (though she is really proud of her Joe Montana rookie card....) Rie lives in Texas with her husband Newell and several cats, all spoiled rotten.

A thought about what makes a person a writer:

What makes a person a writer…? Well, to give the short answer, they write. Everyone fits into that category each time they put pen to paper to make out a grocery list. However, in a deeper sense, a writer is a person who lives and breathes words. Must you be published to be a "writer?" No.

My father--one of the wittiest writers I know--shares his insights only with a select group of e-friends--but is he a writer? Oh, yes. Because he manipulates words with the ease of a circus juggler, and creates pithy vignettes that will make you think twice about life. He is only now beginning to expand the readership for the wonderful life-slices he serves up. Although he has always written them, they were personal speculations--private musings. That doesn't make him any less a writer.

I first realized that I was a writer--or wanted to be--as soon as I began to read what other people had written. As I was growing up, when asked the inevitable, "What do you want to be…?" question, my answer was always whatever the flavor of the month happened to be--detective, scientist, teacher--"...and a writer." I started my first novel when I was nine.

I've been published in many non-paid venues. However, I must admit--the $5.00 check from my first professional sale is still uncashed because it is so awesome to show it to my friends and say, "Look! I sold something."

To sum it all up--a person who writes because they have no choice…because the words pour from their fingertips into their pen, or into the keys of their computer, that is a writer. Does this person have to be paid? No. Does it help? There ain't nothing like it!

Rie's short stories appear in Double Dragon's From Within The Mist ebook and The Stygian Soul as well as Mundania Press' Beyond The Mundane: Flights Of Mind. Her anthology RieVisions is available from Mundania Press and novel The Lute And The Liar is under their Awe-Struck Books imprint.

Writer's Exchange re-released her Young Adult fantasy, The Right Hand Of Velachaz, and Yard Dog Press is home to humorous horror chapbooks Tales From The Home For Wayward Spirits And Bar-B-Que Grill and Bruce and Roxanne Save the World…Again.

Midnight Showcase carries romantic fantasy Sidhe Moved Through The Faire. She also has several poetry anthologies – Take Out from the Writers Café; If My Sandcastle Drowns…Can I Live With You?; Dancing on the Edge; and Straying from the Path: A Baker’s Dozen of Fairy Tale Poems.

Some surprising insider information about Rie:

Sidhe Moved Through the Faire was a NaNoWriMo project several years ago that got picked up for publication by Midnight Showcase.

She wrote the lyrics and original music for a song called “Soul of a Harper” that was tweaked musically and performed by The Brobdingnagian Bards on several of their albums. They even performed it live at their final concert together (YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYCAYdq9uPM.)


Rie has generously agreed to offer up three autographed books for today’s event!


From Yard Dog Press:



Tales From The Home For Wayward Spirits And Bar-B-Que Grill (http://yarddogpress.com/tales.htm )

One of the stories in Tales from the Home For Wayward Spirits And Bar-B-Que Grill – “Zombie Invaders from Mars…or Someplace Like That” – was originally a runner-up in the Killer Frog contest to write the worst possible horror story. I have been told it contains the best way to destroy zombies since Mars Attacks!



Bruce and Roxanne Save the World…Again (http://yarddogpress.com/bruce&.htm )

From Mundania Press:


RieVisions (http://www.mundania.com/books-rievisions.html )

“Steel Velvet” – one of the RieVisions stories – was inspired by the texture of the industrial machine I was feeding parts into when I was bored one night at work. And another in that collection – “MacKenzie’s Rose” – was written by hand on scrap paper originally as I worked too. It was a productive environment.

You can find Rie on the internet here:

website: http://www.riewriter.com
Blog: Water Off a Crow’s Back http://riesheridan.livejournal.com/
Facebook fanpage: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Rie-Sheridan-Rose/38814481714

Thank you so much for hanging out with us today!

Warmly,
Jenny