Author Sybil Austin Skakle Talks About Finding a Love to Fill the Emptiness from the One That’s Gone

A memoir, “What Came Next” follows Sybil Austin Skakle’s a first one: “Valley of the Shadow.” The first memoir concerned the unexpected death of her husband of 33 years and follows the stages of grief for her. It is a travel log.

Two widows, she and her sister-in-law, make the tour to Europe that she and her husband planned. She writes of another trip to Weeping Water, Nebraska with a friend, which helps her come to terms with her singleness.

“What Came Next” includes two love stories, as well as family conflict and her involvement with litigation concerning ancient land grants. She marries Sir Charles of New York. He moves out, but remains in her life.

Alone and lonely, she confides in Cowpoke, correspondent from Kansas City, Missouri. After ten months alone, she decides to visit Lee. There are surprises.

Torn between two human loves and God’s, she attempts the impossible, to find her happiness, without causing unhappiness to the other two or compromising her beliefs. You will discover what she learned as you read.

Get a copy of “What Came Next: The Story of a Widow’s Loves and Life After Loss” by Sybil Austin Skakle on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Author’s Biography

Sybil Austin Skakle, born in a small North Carolina Outer Banks fishing community in 1926, the daughter of a Hatteras merchant and a schoolteacher from Wanchese, was the fourth of five children; Shanklin, ten years older, her only brother. Her younger sister, Ramona, and she were the children still at home when the three older children left the island for school “up state.” Her other sisters were Marjorie and Josephine.

She graduated from Hatteras High School in 1943, worked in her father’s general merchandise store and managed her brother’s theater for a year, while he served in the United States Army, in India, during World War II. She began college in 1944; attended one year at Woman’s College of the University of North Caroline before transferring to University of North Carolina Pharmacy school in 1945; graduated June 1949.

She and Donald E. Skakle, a returning United States Coast Guard veteran, met and married in 1947. Their first son, one of three, arrived eighteen months later. She graduated in 1949; B.S.Pharmacy degree; Don, in Physical Education in 1950. She worked in Greensboro, North Carolina as a pharmacy intern at two different drug stores. A second son was born in Greensboro in 1952 and she obtained her license in 1954. Their third son was born at Buxton, North Carolina, while she and her family lived at Hatteras and worked with her parents for four years.

Sybil did some temporary work as a pharmacist, but the hospital one she began in 1967, from which she retired September 1990, was her only full time employment as a pharmacist, from which she retired 1990. She enjoyed her role as a stay-at -home mom and wife to Don Skakle, a successful Carolina tennis coach for 23 years. Don died in his sleep April 1980.

Writing, always Sybil’s interest, became her intent after retiring. She began to seek publication. Her stories and poems were accepted for inclusion in anthologies and various periodicals before her first book, Searchings-Rocks, Revelations Rainbows, was released 1998, following a friend’s urging.

What Came Next: The Story of a Widow’s Love and Life After Loss
Author| Sybil Austin Skakle
Genre| Memoir
Publisher| Westbow Press
Published Date| April, 2014

Contact Information

Clindon Tabanas

Author Relations Officer

ReadersMagnet LLC

(1) 800-805-0762

Authorrelations@readersmagnet.com