Mustang Mountain: Fire Horse

About Sharon Siamon

Where do you live, and where did you grow up?
I live in horse country, in a house in the woods near Ottawa, Canada's capital city. I grew up near Toronto, in an area of fields and farms where there were also lots of horses.

What books did you like as a child?
So many! Some of my favorites were Alice in Wonderland, My Friend Flicka, Enid Blyton's Famous Five books, Anne of Green Gables, the Narnia series. I always had my nose in a book, and read at night with a flashlight after lights out.

Who are your favorite authors?
Right at the moment: Alexander McCall Smith, Patrick O'Brien, J.K. Rowling, Jane Smiley and Annie Proulx. I still read lots of children's books and every book I can find about wild horses.

When and why did you decide to become a writer? Did you write stories when you were a child?
My father was a writer so I was surrounded by books and manuscripts as a child. I wrote and illustrated my own stories from a young age. Before I knew how to read or write, I made up stories for my brother, Chris, and pretended to read them from a book which was often upside down! But when people asked me if I was going to be a writer like my dad, I always said "No!" It wasn't until I was in my thirties that it finally dawned on me I'd been a writer all along and might even make a living at it.

hat do you do in your spare time?
I read, explore the country around my new home, ride horses whenever I can.

Do you ride? How old were you when you started riding, and do you ride now?
I fell in love with horses at a very early age. My brother and I used to ride the work horses on the farm across the road. We'd lure them to the fence with apples and then climb the fence to clamber on their backs. Those were short rides! I dreamed and schemed and plotted and planned to get a horse of my own my entire childhood, but it never happened. I never got to be a very good rider, but retained my love for and interest in horses (especially wild horses!). When I started writing, they galloped into my books and back into my life.

These days I ride at a lovely stable called Meadowbrook Farms and go trail riding at a place called The Eastern Cowboy. My husband and I go on horse treks in the Rockies and Arizona and this year are going riding (we hope) in Scotland.

Do you have a favorite food?
Yes! My favourites are chocolate and artichokes.

What else would you like your readers to know about you?
When I was 20 I traveled to Africa, took a barge loaded with onions up the Nile River (very smelly by the end of the trip), taught school in Uganda, and climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. I still have dreams about that mountain! I'm sad that the snow on the top is melting. I have always wanted to return to East Africa and maybe someday I will.