To: Helen Back
By: Sharon Back
Sharon lives life like she’s at an all-you-can-eat smorgasbord with a bad case of the munchies. From being a firefighter to fallen model, she's experienced more lives than a cat. Today she's a flight attendant. No matter what role she’s playing, she’s always creating new stories to tell.
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With each decade of her life, Sharon gets wiser, arguably more formidable, and hopefully better at finding her place in the world. She gathers her life lessons in an oversized duffle bag where they inevitably get lost until she digs them up, usually while she’s looking for car keys. Like a story dumpster diver, Sharon repurposes her escapades over the years and polishes them up for you, the reader, to laugh, cringe, and hopefully gather some wisdom from a well-lived life.
To: Helen Back, Sharon's first book, is a collection of funny true stories. From her feral upbringing to her wild youth to her ferocious single-mom years, she discovers that fairy tales are not what they’re cracked up to be. Not even close. Sharon kisses a few toads and instead of bringing forth a prince, she gets warts. And Little Red Riding Hood was not so much a victim as she was an entitled girl with terrible instincts. These tales of ill-fated cruises, pet mishaps, and drunken horseback riding will convey truths about self-awareness, womanhood, and hope.
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February 2022, Berkeley, California.
Sharon is the winner of a Moth StorySLAM at Freight and Salvage theater in Berkeley, and qualifies to compete in a Moth GrandSLAM event in San Francisco, California.
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Sharon’s story for the theme "Love Hurts" recounted the day she gave her 15-year-old boyfriend a tattoo with hypodermic needles and a bottle of black shoe polish stolen from the 7-11 up the street. Trying to memorialize their deep, thick, hot teenage love only turned into a nasty infection and a scar that will never fade. Perhaps their love was forever, after all?
Winning The Moth Radio Hour StorySLAM moves Sharon to the GrandSLAM competition in San Francisco, at the Castro Theatre in November 2023.
To get tickets as soon as they’re available, click here for notification.
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"I had this Sharpie pen that looked like a tattoo when it was on skin. Utilizing my well-honed artistic skills, I created a two-inch fully bloomed rose on his upper arm. Everyone marveled at its beauty and depth. "Let's make it permanent!" said one of us idiots. Because this was well before online tutorials, I based my technique on prison movies".