Author Bio
Early one morning, I was sitting in my backyard drinking tea (as is my wont), my notebook open on my knee and my pen poised to begin making marks. A dozen student essays clamoured for attention, but their voices did not carry out into the summer air. This is my time, and I share it with only songbirds and crows, the distant traffic, and the occasional fox.
On this particular morning, I noticed a tiny blue door had emerged in the night. Such a remarkable occurrence deserves investigation, so within moments I was down on my hands and knees, knocking politely on the wee portal. No one answered, though I knocked for some time.
“Go on,” said the fox, appearing as always at precisely the right moment. “You know you want to.”
After ascertaining that no one was watching, I turned the doorknob with the tips of my thumb and first finger. It opened easily and I leaned forward until my cheek was resting on the grass.
Peering through, I saw myriads of stars—all the constellations of my life. Each point of light was a window into the past, opening on memories both new and faded. The nearest window revealed a white dress, a pint-sized trickster named for a silent film star. Further on, I glimpsed a bathtub under a skylight, a slightly drunken pathway meandering through a graveyard, a mouse-infested flat. There were windows that scanned a hidden valley, a dreamland, all the way to a sunlit hill whereon a marble stone lies nestled in a bed of crocuses.
The fox assured me with a wink that she would sniff me out if I were gone too long—she is always good that way. And now early every morning, while the rest of my world is still dreaming, I chase the stars on the other side of that little door. As is my wont.
Author Bio Take 2
Sharon teaches English literature and Professional Communications at Fanshawe College (London, ON), which means she gets to roam the realms of other people's stories when she isn't writing her own. She has an MA in Medieval literature, and a PhD in Canadian literature. She has published several academic book reviews as well as a monograph, Memory and Identity in Canadian Fiction. Her short story, “Mine Own,” appeared in Mythaxis in December 2020. Click here to see her full publishing history.
Early one morning, I was sitting in my backyard drinking tea (as is my wont), my notebook open on my knee and my pen poised to begin making marks. A dozen student essays clamoured for attention, but their voices did not carry out into the summer air. This is my time, and I share it with only songbirds and crows, the distant traffic, and the occasional fox.
On this particular morning, I noticed a tiny blue door had emerged in the night. Such a remarkable occurrence deserves investigation, so within moments I was down on my hands and knees, knocking politely on the wee portal. No one answered, though I knocked for some time.
“Go on,” said the fox, appearing as always at precisely the right moment. “You know you want to.”
After ascertaining that no one was watching, I turned the doorknob with the tips of my thumb and first finger. It opened easily and I leaned forward until my cheek was resting on the grass.
Peering through, I saw myriads of stars—all the constellations of my life. Each point of light was a window into the past, opening on memories both new and faded. The nearest window revealed a white dress, a pint-sized trickster named for a silent film star. Further on, I glimpsed a bathtub under a skylight, a slightly drunken pathway meandering through a graveyard, a mouse-infested flat. There were windows that scanned a hidden valley, a dreamland, all the way to a sunlit hill whereon a marble stone lies nestled in a bed of crocuses.
The fox assured me with a wink that she would sniff me out if I were gone too long—she is always good that way. And now early every morning, while the rest of my world is still dreaming, I chase the stars on the other side of that little door. As is my wont.
Author Bio Take 2
Sharon teaches English literature and Professional Communications at Fanshawe College (London, ON), which means she gets to roam the realms of other people's stories when she isn't writing her own. She has an MA in Medieval literature, and a PhD in Canadian literature. She has published several academic book reviews as well as a monograph, Memory and Identity in Canadian Fiction. Her short story, “Mine Own,” appeared in Mythaxis in December 2020. Click here to see her full publishing history.
