Today we’d like to introduce you to Beth Shelton.
Hi Beth, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
It all began with my parents. Seriously, they were my heroes – loving, intelligent, risk-takers.
My father was an accountant, entrepreneur, and amateur musician. When I asked him why he had so many different businesses, he said it was because he never could decide what he wanted to do. I’m blessed with the same problem. Having so many possibilities, what’s a small-town southern girl supposed to do?
With a music education degree, my first real job was band directing in North Carolina. In 1985, my husband and I moved to Texas, and I earned a master’s in music performance at North Texas State University (UNT) in Denton. After a brief music instructor position at Mansfield University in Pennsylvania and band directing in North Richland Hills, Texas, I turned all my attention to my most important endeavor – raising our daughter, Anna.
Before she was school-age, my husband, Mark, needed a woodwind player in his band, Tin Roof Tango. For the next eight years, I performed on twelve different instruments with his world acoustic music group. As a professional musician, I experienced wonderful and varied opportunities: recording, composing, freelancing, and performing throughout Texas and in many other states.
Wanting to travel less, spend more time at home with my daughter, and itching to do something completely different, I became a high school math teacher at Edward S. Marcus High School in Lewisville ISD.
Before retiring from teaching in 2020, I grew obsessed with writing. Through local continuing education classes, I found a writing coach, Lee Sneath, who taught me writing and storytelling skills, edited my work, and encouraged me. Motivated by gifted classmates, I experimented and drafted the stories burning inside me. Writing is my third career, or more of a third chapter, a chance to learn something new.
Sugarland (E. B. Shelton), a self-published collection of stories, captures my Louisiana ancestors traveling down the Mississippi River from Illinois to South Louisiana in the 1890s.
I’m currently writing a historical fiction novel, Hear the Dirt Sing, based on true events in the early 1900s in the Louisiana Delta, the place I called home. The book, set for release in Spring 2024, tells of five single sisters and their challenges in running a cotton farm in the Deep South.
Grateful to those who have trusted me, encouraged me, and helped me along my journey, I can honestly say I’m right where I’m supposed to be. My husband and I live in Lewisville, and when I’m not writing, I’m playing with my 3-year-old grandson, Clark.
We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Does anyone have a smooth road in life? I don’t think so. Life’s road is not smooth.
Breast cancer. My biggest struggle. I’m ten years out from diagnosis and happy to say I’m cancer-free. I still take a pill. My hair never fully grew back after treatment. I have residual pain from radiation. Once cancer finds you, even if it’s treatable, you’re never the same.
The doctor called to give me my cancer diagnosis on my way back from New Mexico with my sister after we had hiked to Mt. Wheeler’s peak at 13,167 feet. We didn’t know it then, but she had an undiagnosed cancer on that trip and lost her cancer battle a few years later.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar with what you do, what can you tell them about what you do?
I’m pleased when, after reading one of my stories, a reader says, “Oh, I didn’t know that.” I want my writing to educate and entertain. Some of my work is posted for the world to read on ebshelton.com and medium.com/@ebshelton.
Historical fiction is my favorite genre to read and to write. I’m fascinated by the reasons people take risks and the hardships they overcome, especially in times gone by when travel and communication were primitive compared to today. Being a “journey is the destination” kind of person, the research needed for this style is as fun for me as the writing.
Hearing my music played in-store or on the radio, seeing former students recognized for outstanding accomplishments, reading my work in a real newspaper – those things make my heart full.
Can you talk to us about how you think about risk?
My mother told me, “Don’t be afraid to live life dangerously.”
I remember her words whenever I’m faced with the choice to step from my comfort zone. Most cozy in my self-created rut, now and then, I get a wild hair, as they say.
Skydiving on my fiftieth birthday and hiking from North Rim to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and back are two of my favorites.
I have reached the summits of the highest peaks in twenty states, albeit one was Florida’s Britton Hill at 345 feet. Mt. Elbert, Colorado, my only fourteener at 14,439 feet, took two attempts, but I was determined to not let it beat me.
I’m thankful the professional risks I’ve taken were not catastrophic, and they left me with interesting tales to share.
What stories are burning in you?
Contact Info:
- Website: www.ebshelton.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bethbshelton/
- Other: ebshelton.medium.com
Image Credits
Sharon White Photography
