Writer, Physician, Human Being
Early Life
Oranges and Columbines...
Shannon C.C. Nedelka was born in Florida but moved with her parents to Telluride, Colorado, where she spent the rest of her childhood. At a young age, she dreamed of being a writer, drafting short stories in grade school (one of her first stories was about a cigarette smoking alligator to demonstrate the dangers of tobacco). By the time she'd reached high school, attending the Cate School in Carpinteria, California, she was working on a novel and writing essays and poetry.
Writer
Survival is insufficient...
Shannon had been missing creative pursuits for what felt like a very long time and in 2018, she decided to get serious about her writing. She started taking classes at Grub Street in Boston, meeting and being mentored by some truly amazing people. She submitted her first short fiction to literary journals in 2022 and made her debut in West Trade Review in March 2023.
Physician
The nerd is strong with this one...
Despite her early interest in writing, she somehow thought medical school would be a cool thing to do, so she majored in molecular, cellular and developmental biology at the University of Colorado at Boulder (go Buffs!) before going on the medical school at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. She chose OB/GYN as her specialty but only lasted a year before deciding she'd made a horrible mistake and switching to Diagnostic Radiology residency in upstate New York. She then went on to complete a fellowship in musculoskeletal imaging and stayed on the faculty at the University of Rochester. She later joined a private radiology practice in Dover, New Hampshire, working as a general radiologist for the next 18 years. She's now employed as a remote emergency radiologist (a "Nighthawk") for a multihospital practice in the midwest.
Human Being
Happily Ever After...
Shannon met her husband, Jan, an engineer in R&D at Kodak during her residency. They got hitched in a deconsecrated church and had their rockin' reception in an avant garde art gallery. A couple of years later, they gave birth to a healthy baby boy (who, as you can see, looks nothing like his father). They live on a hobby farm in Dover, New Hampshire with their chickens and their cats, Machiavelli and Marmalade.