Author Biography

Hi, my name is Shanandoah Sterling, and I write in Fiction Fantasy with an edge of Magic. My passion for writing placed me on an academic journey later in life at the age of 46. First, I obtained my Associate of Arts degree, Certificate of Creative Writing, Outstand Student in English Award, and President Award for Academic Excellence from Yavapai College. At Yavapai College, I ran the English Club and Phi Theta Kappa chapter for the Verde Valley Campus. 

In August 2021, I received a Bachelor of Arts in English, Creative Writing Emphasis, Summa Cum Laude from Northern Arizona University (NAU). 

WRITING EXPERIENCE at Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, Arizona   Thin Air Magazin, Intern               January - May 2021 

* Submission reader and wrote reviews for 45 written submissions in the genres of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry using Submittable.  

* Collaborated on upcoming social media projects and a digital “Look Book” of the print magazine.  

Editing and Publishing, Design Team Editing Manager   August - December 2020 

* Collaborated, designed and created an undergraduate online literary magazine named Cloudwalker.

* Worked in designing webpage layout and content.

* Led virtual meetings, wrote, and reported meeting notes, assigned tasks to team members with deadlines, and follow-up with progress reports. 

* Submission reader, proofreader, copyeditor, and voted on twenty pieces submitted to Cloudwalker. Tracked and managed the final 32 written submissions that were uploaded by the website launch date.  

* Authored book analysis and review.  

*  https://cloudwalkermag.weebly.com/

My first piece of writing, "Christmas in a Box," was published in 2019, and my second piece, "Will Covid Teach People to be Stewards of the Planet?" was published in 2020. 

My unique writing ideas flare from my upbringing with a Navy father and a mystic mother. My father and his secret-op military friends would be called to perform off-the-books government operations. I would sneak out of my bedroom, crawl down the hall, and wedge myself between the couch and wall to hear what the men were speaking about in hushed tones at the dining room table. My curiosity had the better of me, and I never got caught. On the flip side of my life, my mother taught me the wonders of nature and how to still my heart in peace so wild deer and other critters would approach me in the woods. She taught me how to read a room full of people. She could nail a person's mood in under ten seconds. From her, I gained the ability to observe the subtleties in daily life. 

It is the mystic side of me that drives my writing. The years of practice to drop into a peaceful state that allows my words to flow. There are moments that the words tumble so fast that I stop hearing the clicking of the keyboard, stop seeing the words develop on the screen, and become lost in the scene. When I am finished, I am always amazed that pages are created.  

• I live in Sedona, Arizona, with my husband. When I am not writing, we love to travel, which is another element that inspires my prose! Our journeys traversed us thousands of miles. We camped in a fishing village in Mexico to kayak with dolphins and grey whales. We sipped wine behind 2500-year-old castle walls in the south of France. We danced our way along the cobblestone streets of Italy and