Author Spotlight - Sherrie Cronin

What movie do you love to watch? This is goofy, but I have an odd old movie that I will watch repeatedly. It’s a Bill Murray thing called “Groundhog Day” and I just love the concept of getting to do something over and over until you finally get it right. I mean life is that way, isn’t it? I even watched it in Spanish, trying to learn to speak better. It was a good movie for that because they keep repeating the same words.

Are you a city slicker or a country lover? Country. I love to visit cities. I love their diversity and entertainment and great food and all the energy, but in the end I want to be able to go home to peace and my garden and my front porch and fresh air.

How do you feel about self-publishing? I love it, because it has given me the chance to write this very quirky collection of novels that don’t easily fit into a mold and therefore would likely not have seen the light of day

otherwise. I don’t like marketing, but I understand that one has to do that in traditional publishing as well.

How many friends does a person need? One good one will do.

What social issues interest you the most? World peace. I’m not trying to be flippant. The concept of developing empathy with those who are different, or far away, or who threaten you or have a history of hostility with your kin is a subject that fascinates me. It inspired x0, the first novel in the collection, and it plays a large role in the theme of z2 as well.

Do you find the time to read? I do but I can’t read other people’s lengthy works of fiction while I am writing my own. It hurts my momentum too much. I do read some short stories, mostly science fiction, and a lot of non-fiction on subjects about which I am writing.

Last book you purchased? Tell us about it. It’s called “Half the Sky” and it’s by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. It tells inspirational stories about the many women and men fighting for women’s rights everywhere. It’s an incredible book.

Who do you admire? I admire anyone who is sincerely trying to make this word a better place. With each of my novels I have found a group of people that impressed me so much that I have pledged to give ten percent of my profits from that novel to the organization. Researching the book x0, which takes place partially in Nigeria, I learned about the origins of “Doctors Without Borders” in the Biafra struggle for independence. When I started to design my blog for the second novel, y1, I discovered that an organization in the Pacific already had the URL I wanted. It’s called “To the Power of One” and it’s dedicated to making communities on islands in the Pacific more self-sufficient. Finally, I turned to the Southern Poverty Law Center for a lot of the research for z2, and ten percent of my proceeds for z2 are going to the SPLC.

What is your favorite quote, by whom, and why? “Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.” An English politician in the 1700’s named Edmund Burke said it, and I find it provides this odd sense of comfort that I can make a difference, or at least that I’m not a fool for trying to do so.

Did writing this book teach you anything and what was it? Writing each book has taught me so much that I don’t know where to begin. I’ve learned to be more organized and disciplined. I’ve learned to be a lot more thick skinned. I’ve learned that I can do something that I once thought was almost magic. I’ve learned that I have strong voice inside. And I’ve learned that Kiribati is the only nation on earth to straddle four hemispheres, and how to write the numbers one through twenty in Mayan hieroglyphs. It’s been a great journey already.