Episode 69 - Co-authoring and the Survivalist series, with Sharon Ahern

Sharon Ahern, Dragoncon

Sharon Ahern, along with her late husband Jerry Ahern, is the co-writer of over ninety novels, some short stories, magazine and newspaper articles and even an unpublished song or two. Best known of their work is THE SURVIVALIST series which ran from 1981 to 1993 and then picked up and continued in 2013 by Sharon with fellow friend and writer Bob Anderson. The series has been considered men’s adventure, science fiction and soap opera with a twist of in your face social commentary thrown in. Two spinoffs have evolved from the SURVIVALIST series, EVERYMAN, also co-written with Bob Anderson, and CAMP ZERO, a young adult series, written by Sean Ellis.

An avid researcher, Sharon has traveled around the world during various times in history via national geographic and Britannica searching for information to broaden the scope of their stories and make them as fact based as possible. In some cases, looking for a particular piece of information has led to the inception of still another story idea. Some days, all it takes is listening to the news.

Sharon is also a professional photographer and a small-time antiques and collectibles dealer. She’s an avid reader and enjoys anything that requires getting dirty such as refinishing furniture and gardening and has lost a lot of her thumbprints using hot glue guns. She is the proud mother of two children and five grandchildren and lives in Northeast Georgia with her hound dog Shelby and two goldfish.

Her upcoming book LODESTAR will be the 34th book in the series. It will be available at Speaking Volumes http://www.speakingvolumes.us

To get her other books simply click the cover!

BOOKS

Interview with Sharon Ahern

Show Notes
In this episode we learn:

How the Survivalist Series came to be (1980s) and how Sharon and her late husband, Jerry, used the series to kill off the population of Atlanta.
Who published the series in the early days, and why it was considered men’s adventure rather than science fiction.
Why Axel Kilgore and Jerry Ahern are closely affiliated.
Who made up the stories for the series
Sharon’s thoughts on series writing and how to know when the end of the series should happen
What co-authoring is like and if it is easy or hard to accomplish
How authors create characters when co-authoring
What Jerry wrote specifically and what Sharon wrote – and how they acted out scenes in real life
One huge mistake can make a reader stop reading your book and Sharon shares how this happened to Jerry and what the outcome was
Sharon shares what she thinks the formula for success is for a long-running series

and so, so much more, including BEST advice for aspiring authors

Listen to the AUDIO ONLY version of the interview here:

You can find Sharon online at:
WEBSITE: https://www.fantasticfiction.com/a/sharon-ahern/
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/jerry.ahern.73
AMAZON: https://www.amazon.com/Jerry-Ahern/e/B001HP264U
SPEAKING VOLUMES: http://www.speakingvolumes.us/

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