Today's Special - - Sharon Sala

It is my pleasure to welcome the much loved, very prolific and utterly delightful Sharon Sala to The Romance Dish.  I had the opportunity to chat with Sharon at the RWA National Conference in Atlanta last summer and was struck once again by how warm, gracious and real this successful author is to fellow writers as well as her legions of fans.  

Sharon Sala, who also writes under the name Dinah McCall, has 99 books in print, is published in four genres: romance, young adult, western, and women's fiction, and has sold more than 1.5 million books. Her books have appeared on USA Today, New York Times, and Publishers Weekly bestseller lists 47 times, and have been published in many different languages.  She was the 2011 recipient of the Nora Roberts Lifetime Achievement Award.

Follow Sharon on Facebook or visit her online at sharonsala.net.

As Sharon approaches publication of her 100th novel, I asked her to share with us her thoughts on her journey to this point in her life.  Here's what she had to say.

I began writing because of a job I hated, which was a grocery checker in a local supermarket. One night after a particularly difficult day I went home, pulled the typewriter out of a closet and sat down and started writing a book that had been in my head.  It took a year to finish it and it was terrible, but I was hooked on the process, so I wrote another that took another year, and it was no better. I stuck both of them under the bed and told myself I’d do this one day when I had more time. 

Four years later my father and then my only sister died within two months of each other. It was a horrible wake-up call to the fact that if I had a dream, I had to make it happen. No one was going to give it to me. After a few more years of joining writers groups, and learning how to put on paper what I saw in my head, I wrote a third book, and the first place I sent it, bought it. I haven’t looked back. 

That year my first granddaughter was born, and this coming May she graduates from college and I helped put her through college with proceeds from my books. She has become my touchstone to marking off the writing years.  She will be beginning her adult life and career, and I will soon mark the release of my 100^th book.  It’s called, making two dreams come true.

Awesome authors and pals
 Maggie Shayne, Sharon Sala & Jean Brashear

Thank you, Sharon for sharing your journey with us.  Readers, what dreams are you making come true?  Or, if you haven't yet begun your journey, what dreams do you hope to make true?








One randomly chosen reader leaving a comment no later than Midnight, (EST)Thursday, February 6th will receive a copy of Sharon's new book, The Curl Up & Dye.  

About Curl Up and Dye

In The Curl Up & Dye (February 2014) no piece of gossip can get past the sassy women who run the Curl Up & Dye salon. As patron LilyAnne Bronte declares she’s finally ready to move on 11 years after the death of her fiancé to the war in Iraq, the women of the salon take matters into their own hands. Sala explores the hopelessness within LilyAnne that’s all too relatable, and reveals with honest humor and cutting emotions the realities young American women must face when they lose a partner and try to move on. It’s Sala’s soulful writing that will make readers want to befriend LilyAnne and join the ladies of the Curl Up & Dye in in helping her find love again.