CL Pauwels at Large

I’m always eager to share the work of fellow writers (hence Other Author Thursday!), but this week’s entry is extra-special. Sharon Short is the author of not one but two detective series (Patricia Delaney and Josie Toadfern) – enough reason for me to swoon right there! – and most recently the wonderful MY ONE SQUARE INCH OF ALASKA (which won First Place in the Young Adult category of the Chaucer Awards for Historical Fiction), a literary novel that straddles the line between older YA and book club fiction. Full disclosure: she’s also my boss at the Antioch Writers’ Workshop where she serves as Executive Director. You can also find her sharing the literary love in the Dayton Daily News weekly “Literary Life” column, and now at mydaytondailynews.com.

Like so many of the writers I’ve met during my literary journey, Sharon is awesome off the page, too, and at the risk of betraying a confidence (I won’t go into explicit detail), suffice it to say she publicly stood up to a grown man who should have known better than to bully the young female students who dared get in his way.

Go, Sharon!

The next time I’m faced with a similar situation (and we all are, at times), I hope remembering her actions will give me the courage to take a stand as well.

Each time a woman stands up for herself, without knowing it possibly, without claiming it, she stands up for all women. ~ Maya Angelou