Activity: Book Launch
Host: Moray House Trust
Date: Wednesday 23rd September 2015
Sharon Maas is Guyanese by birth and was educated in Guyana (Bishops High School) and in the UK. She worked as a trainee reporter with the Guyana Graphic and was later a feature writer for the Sunday Chronicle. She travelled widely in South America, India, the Mid-East and Europe. She is the author of six books translated into five languages. Her parents, Eileen Cox and David Westmaas, were veterans of the Independence struggles and staunch defenders of workers’ and citizens’ rights. Sharon divides her time between Germany and Guyana and is the mother of two grown children.
This event was the local launch of her most recent novel, ‘The Secret Life of Winnie Cox’. The novel was inspired by (though not based entirely on), the tale of one of her ancestors and is a work of historical fiction. Ms Maas read a few short extracts from the novel, described her difficulty in finding a publisher and gave frank accounts and fascinating insights into the process of writing and the world of publishing. Ten copies of the novel were given to members of the public who had drawn lots on entry to the book launch.