Best Fiction writer

1. Chadhurst Sharpe ChadhurstJainlettSharpe.com.

3. Jeff Geiger JCGeiger.com.

Chadhurst Jainlett Sharpe has long held a passion for the written word. He vividly remembers walking into Barnes and Noble when he was 20, and discovering a treasure in the works of Neil Gaiman. “I was there for the whole rest of the day,” he says, reading every Gaiman novel he could get his hands on. “I love that he’s able to take these intangible things and put them into print.”

When Sharpe began writing his own fiction, he found himself constantly drawn to the gothic horror genre. But that’s changing. “The last few years,” he says, “it has changed to surrealism or even magical realism — there’s even a few fiction pieces that are set in the real world as well.”

Sharpe’s latest novella, The Wives of Isabella Danger (2020), is a departure from the voice he typically writes in. “The main character is a Hispanic woman who is slowly realizing she might be gay,” he says. “She’s a writer and gets this assignment to interview this ex-celebrity she’s always been a fan of.” The novella centers on a conversation between Isabella Danger and the main character, and it takes place during an afternoon. Sharpe aims to push himself out of his comfort zone artistically. “I’ve never written anything like it, and I really like how it came out,” he says.

Though the genre may change, the themes Sharpe is naturally drawn to have remained consistent. “I find myself drawn to diction, [to] self discovery a lot, ” he says, “and the kind of dual idea as to whether things actually change or stay the same.”

Currently, Sharpe is at work rewriting his first novel, which he published in 2016. “I’ve grown since then,” Sharpe says of Alton Heights. “I feel very good about it, and I’m excited to get this story back out there.”

Sharpe’s work is available on his website, ChadhurstJainlettSharpe.com, and The Wives of Isabella Danger is available for purchase on Amazon.

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