Sharon Gunason Pottinger
Nearly twenty years ago I first set foot in Caithness. The wide open skies, even for someone like me from the broad prairies of Midwestern America, spoke to something deep inside. Two years later I became a farm wife—not a farmer’s wife as I was told. My husband wanted me to be able to do something I’d never been able to do before - besides feeding calves and retrieving sheep on their backs.
Thus, after nearly 30 years of technical writing and teaching others how to write, I wrote essays for the local paper while working on fiction, poetry, plays, and a screenplay. I was declared an honorary Caithnessian the night my student screenplay was premiered.
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We’ve moved from the farm now. I write what I see between the Pentland Firth and the Greenland Moss. My first novel was indie published. I’ve had poetry published in Northwords Now, New Writing Scotland, and poetry and short stories in Caithness Writers anthologies. I’ve participated in John O Groats Bookfest and community arts projects: a photo essay, Living Landscape, and most recently, I was videorecorded for Voices on the Wind, a project by Caithness Makar, George Gunn. I have drafted another novel, Wire, and hope to find a Scottish publisher to give it a home.
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Two recent on-line publications are a flash-fiction, Old Bones which was published on Mulberry Literary, and was runner-up in their Fresh Voices award, and a poem, You Con't Say No published in Tentacular.
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Online publications include a story in The Haar, a bijou creative arts e-zine named after the Scottish sea mist (scroll down to find Ozymandias Reborn) and a story from my days as a cattle wrangler.