Thunder Over Kandahar

Sharon E. McKay is from Kilbride, ON

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Sharon E. McKay was born in Montreal, Quebec. She says, “I haven’t lived in Quebec for 22 years, but if I am asked where I live, I often blurt out Montreal. I miss Montreal, but Kilbride, Ontario, is my home now.

Early childhood summers were spent at Lake MacDonald in the Laurentians. To a child’s eye, the house was magnificent and sat on acres of rolling hills that ran down to a private beach. Enid Blyton books were her constant companions during these perfect summers.

The house was sold when she was 13 and her summers were then spent in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Never mind “The Troubles” or an ongoing war; Sharon was surrounded by a warm and wacky family: “One day I will tell the story of how my uncle set his pants on fire, and how I accidently left my other uncle’s leg on the road. It was made of tin. Then there was the time I purposely sold a bogus story to a reporter, and saw a dead guy in a coffin in his front window. Great times. I return to visit my cousins in Belfast regularly.

Sharon now lives with her husband David in a log house on a couple of acres of treed land—not counting the three rock gardens. They share their house with a very large, standard poodle named Phoebe. Son Sam is now a technical theater producer. Second son Joe is a student at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia. Best of all is Kai, Sharon’s grandson. “He’s amazing. Oh and Laurel, Sam’s partner. She’s amazing too.

In 2009 Sharon was named as a Canadian War Artist, the first young adult writer to hold the title. This venerable institution that hearkens back to WW1 includes Alex Sorrell, George Plante, A.R. Thompson, Arthur Lismer, and Alex Colville. War artists may or may not support the action, but historically they support the soldier.

Sharon’s trip to Afghanistan in 2009 (KAF and Bazaar-E-Panjwayi, Kandahar Province, on the Pakistan border) inspired her to write Thunder over Kandahar (Fall 2010). She writes outside her level of comfort, and often chooses areas of the world that are hard to reach. War Brothers is the story of child soldiers in northern Uganda. To write that story she went to Gulu, Uganda, and interviewed child soldiers. She also loves historical fiction. Estheris the story of the first Jew to live in New France at a time when Jews and Protestants were not allowed. The Whispers series, stories from the Holocaust, was written with the brilliant author Kathy Kacer, herself the daughter of Holocaust survivors. Next, Sharon plans to go back to historical fiction and see what happens.

For Sharon, school visits are the best part of being a young adult author, though at first she was a little confused about them: “Here’s my ‘how dumb can you be?’ story. I have written dozens of non-fiction books, but my first historical fiction was Charlie Wilcox. At that time, I really did not understand the world of author visits. A teacher phoned and asked me if I would come to her school. I was thrilled. She said, ‘Is $500 OK?’ I was shocked and told her that I would get back to her. I called my husband and said, ‘Can we afford to pay the school $500?’ He said sure, but making a habit of it was not a plan. I turned up at the school with a $500 check in my pocket. Imagine my amazement when the teacher handed ME a check!

Here are some of her best lines ever from school visits:
“Are those your real teeth?” Northern Ireland (Yes)
“Is that your real hair?” Shangdong Province, China (Yes)
“Do you write your own books or does someone do it for you?” Saskatoon, Canada (I wish)