About
Self publishing author Mary Ellen Sherlock.
About
Mary Ellen Sherlock was born and raised on Long Island, New York with a loud, loving family of seven children and a gaggle of rescue dogs. As a child, she wrote adventures and plays which she cajoled her siblings into performing with her. During high school and college, she continued her hobby by writing children’s stories. After college, while teaching kindergarten, Mary Ellen accepted a temporary summer assignment at a finance firm in NYC. The firm offered her a full-time position where she enjoyed a wonderful and successful 25-year career. Upon retirement, she reignited her love for creating stories. Her first book, A Rainbow of Colorful Wishes is an excerpt of her commencement speech at The Goddard School of Murray Hill in NYC.
Mary Ellen is a wife and mom of two grown children. She and her husband live in New York City.
Growing up, one of my favorite stories was a book called What Mary Jo Shared by Janice May Udry. It was about a young girl who is encouraged to bring something to share with her classmates. She has a few attempts and ideas but decides against sharing them because she doesn’t believe that her classmates will find them interesting. Mary Jo wants to be unique. Talking with her parents at dinner one night she comes up with a clever idea. She decides to the next day for Show and Tell to share her dad with her class. The book was inspirational for me because most of my ideas are about memories and experiences with loved ones.
I decided to self-publish after working with Lynda Farrington Wilson who was the illustrator of my first book, A Rainbow of Colorful Wishes. She guided me through the steps and process for using independent publishing platforms. It provided me with a good deal of flexibility to publish my books myself.
I feel incredibly blessed to have worked with some very talented people including my illustrators, Lynda Farrington Wilson and Kathrine Gutkovsky. Both ladies were instrumental in helping bring my stories to life. Especially as it pertains to children’s books, the pictures and illustrations convey much more than words. I also have a wonderful editor Jodi Giddings who assists with grammar and formatting for publishing platforms.
When my daughter Lindsay was young, I used to love reading Jamie Lee Curtis’ books to her. Her favorite was Today I Feel Silly and I remembered how we both couldn’t help but smile and giggle. Her books always left me with a joyful feeling and I believe that is what I aspire to provide to my readers.
My latest book, The Loving Night Light, is the first of a 3 book series called The Southold Summer Series. Kathrine (my illustrator) and I are hopeful that we will have the other two stories completed by early spring 2023.