​Sherry Roberts
Award-Winning Author
Children's Picture Books
and Middle Grades​
About Sherry Roberts
​
I spent most of my life in the South and Midwest. My life journey began in Muskogee, Oklahoma. Yes, I am truly an Okie from Muskogee as the song says. Many Christmases and summer months were spent at my grandparents in Muskogee. It was a time full of cousins, neighborhood friends, and family. No matter where we moved, we always came home to Oklahoma and all our relatives who still lived there. The first picture is of me one Christmas as a “fashionista.” I had my “fur” stole for years and loved playing dress up.
Most of my childhood was spent in East Tennessee. To this day, I love the serenity of the Smokies. We would camp, play in the creeks, chase fireflies, and relax in those mountains. My father was the band director at a small college in East Tennessee, and the picture is of me before my first halftime show. It was a Halloween show. It was fun, scary, and so exciting. I mean who wouldn’t love being carried around a football field in a bass drum?
My sister, brother, and I had an entire campus as our playground with our friends. In the summer we would all play baseball, climb a big magnolia tree, and ride bikes down the lane. During the fall, we watched band practice, went to football games, and played in the woods. When winter came, so did the snow, snowmen, sledding down hills, and snowball fights. Spring always brought the spring play presented by the theater and music department. One of my favorite times of the year. I still love musicals.
Moving to Louisiana brought a new adventure. Time on the beach, our families first boat, and seafood. I was in my first flood and could not understand why a little snowfall was such a big deal that we had to turn our seats at school to watch it out the windows. Remember, I moved there from the Smokies and we had SNOW.
I graduated from a small college in Missouri (one of our moves). When in college I was privileged to be part of the collegiate shows for the USO tours. Our college show group went to Germany for six weeks. The picture shows me in costume at a show we did on campus for alumni.
After college, I began to move for my jobs and further education. I received my first
master’s degree from a university in Northeast Arkansas, where I was a high school teacher. I moved to Kentucky to teach middle school and later began my doctoral studies. Moving back to Arkansas, I began my collegiate career. A job opening in middle Tennessee provided me the opportunity to move back to a state from my childhood that I always loved.
As an academic, writing for journals and even textbooks is just part of the job description. After writing three textbooks and multiple journal articles, I wanted to change directions with my writing. My love for children’s stories was evident when My nephew and nieces were young. I loved to read to them and make stories up with them. Most of the stories I write have something personal to me. It is either the storyline, the characters, or inspired by my family.
For your convenience, my bio is available for download using the buttons below (PDF format).