Step Into a World of Words

S. F. Parkhurst A Little Squirrely, A Lot Creative

Meet S. F. Parkhurst, the author who believes that the best stories are a little outre' and full of heart. From a young age, Sally Freeman Parkhurst was obsessed with books (no surprise there, right?). Growing up in Falls Church, Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C., she spent her childhood buried in stories, getting lost in the lives of characters who seemed to live a little more freely than the people around her.

But it wasn’t until she was studying anthropology in graduate school that Sally got the “nudge” to start writing. Several professors told her she had a knack for words, and just like that, the seed was planted. "You can’t be a good writer without being a good reader," she says, and let’s just say that philosophy has shaped her entire writing career.

Her first attempt at writing a full novel came in 2011 with The Emboldening of Kassia West, a historical fiction novel set in Victorian England, though it’s still gathering dust on her hard drive. But it was enough to get the wheels turning. Now, Sally writes stories that are anything but ordinary. Her debut fantasy novel, Azazel’s Scriptures, was inspired by none other than her son, a huge fantasy fan. Sally, however, wasn’t one to read fantasy novels for fun, so she just sat down one day and decided to create a world filled with magic (in Tudor England!), mystery, and friendship.

Sally is also the founder of Squirrely Publishing, a name that perfectly captures her personality and her writing style, quirky, unpredictable, and just a bit eccentric. Squirrely Publishing is all about stories that make readers smile, laugh, and maybe even think a little deeper. Although she’s currently the only author under the Squirrely umbrella, Sally plans to expand her publishing house to bring in other quirky writers who can appreciate a good, offbeat tale.

When Sally isn’t writing or daydreaming about new worlds, you’ll probably find her riding horses or reading a book (or watching a movie with subtitles because she prefers to read). And yes, every single one of her stories has a horse scene. It’s a thing. She can’t help it.

Sally’s current project is a novel set in the 1970s, featuring a young girl who discovers she can enter other people’s dreams. And who knows? Maybe there’s a dream sequence with a horse in it.

If she could collaborate with anyone, Sally would definitely choose Charles Dickens (and, well, he’s dead, but let’s pretend they could do a time-travel collaboration). She’d share her ideas for an ending (because there wasn’t any) to The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Then she would introduce Dickens to James Thurber, have them mix and stir and create something utterly quirky and fantastic!

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