Season 2: Episode 3: Do Something
While it’s not Sharon Shy Brown’s only job, when it comes to journalism though, she is the Memphis Grizzlies beat writer for the Memphis Flyer.
If you follow her on Twitter, you’d know that her focus has been on more than Ja Morant’s latest 2K-like performance. In her own words, she’s trying to save lives.
It’s what you do when you worked hard to grow a platform – and then a tragedy occurs that so personal and important that you can’t help but get involved.
You see, in August, in her hometown of Cleveland, Miss., a city two-and-half hours from Memphis straight down Third Street, a 31-year-old mother and her 5 year old daughter from a gas leak in their apartment. Sharon knew them.
The gas leak set off a chain of events where they lived, Sunset Village Apartments, that exposed living conditions so horrid and inexplicable that Brown was spurred to action. Listen to what one resident sent her.
In case you didn’t hear, the tenant said her bathtub has been running nonstop for two years.
When people come to you and ask you to use your platform to amplify their voice, what else are you supposed to do?
That’s the focus of this episode of the mark up by mediaverse.
My name is Sharon Brown, and I’m a writer.
Writing has always been something I loved to do. First, it was poetry. A poem I wrote about my deceased cousin was published in a book of poems. I used to have the book but somehow it was misplaced in my move to Memphis.
Writing is my release. Putting words on paper somehow let me somehow escape the pressures of everyday life, even if only for a moment.
Journalism was my first career choice, then I wanted to be an attorney. One stuck and the other one didn’t. I was a journalism student at Lincoln Land Community College in 1994, and the first article I ever had published was about basketball.
I have always loved basketball. I’ve watched guys play at the courts and I played against the guys at Aloe Park in my hometown in Cleveland, MS.
When I moved to Memphis in 2003, I fell in love with the Memphis Grizzlies. I watched the games on TV during the Pyramid days. My love for the Grizzlies inspired me to start All Heart in Hoop City with Aimee Stiegemeyer. All Heart is a unique community of women sports writers that was founded in 2014.
I have had featured articles published with ESPN’s The Undefeated, The New Tri-State Defender Newspaper and Complex plus various other sites.
Currently, I’m a Memphis Grizzlies beat writer for The Memphis Flyer and a contributor at Dime Mag.
Stories from the Mississippi Free Press: Oct. 17, 2022; Oct. 18, 2022; Millenia Companies Response to the Mississippi Free Press
