About Sherry

Originally from Tennessee, Sherry loves to take her readers into the past. A romantic at heart, she is an avid student of the Civil War and the Old West. When she isn’t busy writing, she is an English professor working to pass on her love of writing to her students. Sherry is an award-winning writer: 2023 ACFW Genesis finalist, 2021 & 2023 Maggie finalist, 2022 Crown finalist, and 2020 First Impressions winner. In addition, she has won two Minnesota State Art Grants and a RWA scholarship.

Her husband of forty years is her best friend. They currently reside in Minnesota and have three grown children and three grandchildren whom they love dearly.  

I have been in love with stories since I was a child. I’d swing for hours on my swing set, pumping my legs back and forth, dreaming up stories in my head. Even then I had a flair for romance: creating new love interests and episodes for Star Trek’s Captain Kirk, before moving onto plotting original romantic dramas and adventures in distant lands.

My favorite possession at age nine was a set of author playing cards (a matching game with photos of famous women authors). I wanted to be an author when I grew up and bring stories to life on the written page, stories that would impact my readers.

A visit to a historic home in the Shenandoah Valley, when my husband and I were newly married, spurred my love for history and planted the seed for the story of my heart. A few years later, I wrote the novel, then buried it in box in my closet. I returned to college to earn my degree in creative writing, a masters in English, and PhD in literature, wondering if I’d ever reconnect with the stories in my head, the ones buried deep in my heart.

Then, in the summer of 2019, I fell in love with fiction writing again. It had been years since I’d worked on my story. I pulled the box out and unburied the past. I began to read it. And I fell in love with Daniel and Jenny and the Shenandoah Valley all over again. How could I forsake them? I jumped into their heads, and the story began to unfold, again. Except better, deeper, richer than I’d ever imagined.

And God had done so much in my life in those years in between, both joys and pains. He’d been chipping, molding, and shaping me. It is with a heart that is wizened, scarred, and strengthened that I return to writing, with eyes that see what the nine or thirty-year-old me could have never seen.

I finished Shenandoah’s Daughter and then began a totally new book set in 1860 Texas inspired by the true story of the most famous captive of the 19th century that had haunted my heart for two decades. Texas Forsaken, the first book in my Lone Star Redemption series, released in May 2024. Book Two, Texas Divided, will be released March 2025, and I'm busy writing Book Three, Texas Reclaimed.

The Lord opened the doors and cleared the path for my writing dreams to come true!