STORY

Every story has a beginning, and the Carousel Publishing story began just after September 11, 2001, when serial entrepreneur, Sharon Thayer, watched her current business collapse as surely and quickly as the Twin Towers. With the dust settled and empty pockets, Sharon and her teenage daughter, Jessica, sat down to brainstorm. They wondered if there was something they could do to generate income and also bring Christmas magic to others during this dark time.

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Early the following morning, Sharon woke with a story exploding in her head. Sitting at her desk, watching the snow fall gently on the mountains out her window, she wrote the words that flowed like snow from the North Pole onto the paper. With a dyslexic history of over 40 years of struggling with reading, Sharon was surprised. She had never dreamed of being an author. But there it was, a magical story, begging to bring joy to little believers and their families. 

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She spent the next two months visiting childcare centers marketing her story, The Story of Santa's Beard, as a letter from Santa with a snippet of beard folded carefully inside. After busy weeks of sending out Santa letters, Sharon delivered the last batch to the post office two days before Christmas. Her Santa Letter sales were enough to pay her bills and buy small Christmas presents for her children. Little did she know, the greatest gift—the discovery of a new career—was under the tree waiting for her. 

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A few years later, as the owner of a nature-based childcare center, Kid Central, Sharon found that stories were the perfect place to plant positive messages and words of wisdom for children to discover. Over the next eight years, she filled a file cabinet drawer with stories in her precious spare time. 

Taking a risk in 2011, Sharon sold Kid Central to become a full-time author, speaker, publisher, and grandmother. The struggles were ever-present, but nothing that 15-hour days, encouragement from friends and family, and keeping her focus on creating magical stories couldn't surmount. 

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When asked if selling over 75,000 books and earning 15 state, national, and international awards have proven her success, Sharon says, "No. "I know I'm successful when families tell me their new tradition is reading The Story of Santa's Beard before bed on Christmas Eve or reading A Tooth Fairy Named Mort the first time a child places a tooth under their pillow. It's all about the magic."

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The story's ending? Well, you'll have to wait. There are many more stories to come before the end materializes. Meanwhile, Sharon will be hiking life's trails, searching for her next story, and smiling each time she watches the beautiful snow fall gently on an early November morning.