Maryann Wakefield’s novel, A Gentle Sun Coming, has been acquired by Deer Hawk Publications!

Maryann Wakefield’s novel, A Gentle Sun Coming, has been acquired by Deer Hawk Publications!

A Gentle Sun Coming

When Kade Turner lost her husband and son to a freak automobile accident, she tried to commit suicide and was hospitalized for a year. Daily sessions with Dr. Luke Bradshaw brought her back to the land of the living… and also of loving. Or so she made him believe, as an unexpected and suppressed emotion is kindled and an eternal flame ignited on the night of her departure. She flees to Destin, Florida with the goal of being reunited with her family ‘on the other side’; unable to believe Luke could love a ‘lost cause’ like herself. Instead, she is targeted by a serial killer who sees her as a challenge. Unbeknownst to Kade, her worst nightmare is her next door neighbor; a man who knows her every move and hears even her thoughts.  Will Luke find her in time? Is what they shared strong enough to turn a determination to die into an undeniable desire to live?
Represented by Loiacono Literary Agency www.loiaconoliteraryagency.com

Published by Deer Hawk Publications www.deerhawkpublications.com

Maryann Wakefield is a retired academic professor who has garnered many distinguished awards and was the Sleuth’s Ink contest winner, 2006. She is currently a member of several writing organizations: Board Member of Missouri Writers Hall of Fame, Ozarks Writers League, Springfield Writers Guild, and Sleuth’s Inc, Panel member for Missouri Writers Hall of Fame, October, 2012. Having been published in several literary magazines, this is her first novel, but far from her last. www.maryannwakefield.com

Lisa Reinhard’s two YA novels are acquired by Deer Hawk Publications!

Lisa Reinhard’s two YA novels are acquired by Deer Hawk Publications!

Lisa Hussey Reinhard is a native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, but grew up in Louisville, Kentucky and Kansas City, Missouri.  She graduated magna cum laude from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas and earned a Master’s in education from Texas A & M /Commerce.  She has been an elementary, middle school, and college teacher for over thirty years.  She is the author of the book Psalms for the Single Mom (Chariot Victor Publishing, 1999).
Reinhard has been working on Unbreakable Will for over four years, ever since discovering that her father was dying of cancer. It is based on his true adventures of leaving Pittsburgh when he was twelve and heading for California. Interviewing her father before his death, she conducted extensive research into the Great Depression, read dozens of books, watched films of riding the rails, the construction of Hoover Dam, and what life was like during that time. She also listened to the music from that era, all of which shines through her words and makes you feel like you are right there.
Unbreakable Will (October 2016)
Set in the Great Depression. Its main character is Will Handler, a twelve-year-old who is riding the rails to escape an unbearable family in Pittsburgh. He quickly finds out that life on the road is not the stuff of boyhood dreams. It is a cold, lonely, and hungry existence. He is befriended by an older man who teaches him the ropes for surviving while camped out in hobo jungles and living out of box cars.
This is Will’s coming-of-age experience during a desperate time in our nation’s history. I believe it has something to say today, since we are facing a similar economic crisis. It is a story of grit, of digging deep inside to find the strength to go on, of not giving up.
***
Washed by a Beach (release October 2017)
Washed by a Beach is the story of how a young teenage girl and her mother escaped the abuse they were going through from their father/husband and then went on to build a new life.  It chronicles the struggles as well as the triumphs of starting over after leaving everything behind.
www.lisareinhard.com
Represented by Loiacono Literary Agency www.loiaconoliteraryagency.com
Published by Deer Hawk Publications www.deerhawkpublications.com

On this day of your life, I believe God wants you to know that it is not necessary for you to report everyone's mistakes to them, much less to give them corrections.

On this day of your life, I believe God wants you to know that it is not necessary for you to report everyone's mistakes to them, much less to give them corrections.

It can be difficult, when you think you know a better way to say something, to keep that to yourself.  But try. Unless someone's life or safety depends on it, do try.

You would not welcome someone else pointing out your own misstep, or less-than-totally-efficient approach to something. Why point it out to them? Do you see it as your duty in life to make sure that all goes the way you think it 'should'?

That would be an inaccurate assessment of your soul's grander purpose. www.CWGPortal.com

Deer Hawk Publications acquires Pathways of the Heart by Diane Yates!

Deer Hawk Publications acquires Pathways of the Heart by Diane Yates!

Rare is it that you read a ‘novel’ that leaves you in awe of the protagonist; a woman who is the epitome of the Wife of Nobel Character in Proverbs 31:10-31. Then you find out Pathways of the Heart is the true story of a woman, of which we can only wish to be as strong.

In a land where families pray together and stay together…

Married while still teens, Kenneth and Clella lived and loved during The Depression. No electricity, running water or any other necessities taken for granted today, they depended on one another for their survival. Through one trial and adversity after another, ending up in Illinois with the promise of a future of less struggle, Kenneth lands a job with Caterpillar. A restless, insatiable tremor runs through his veins until the day he packs his wife and the youngest of their six children and deposits them in the same cabin they originated just so he could relive his lost youth unburdened.

This is the story of Clella’s determination and several forms of true love: God’s, of oneself, children, spouse and the one person who will never leave.

Based on her mother’s real life experiences, Diane Yates is Clella’s seventh child; born in faith.

Diane is a member of the Columbia Chapter of the Missouri Writers Guild and the Ozark Writers League. Diane's humorous short story "All the Boys I've Loved Before" was published in the 2012 literary works of Well Versed. She is currently working on the sequel to Pathways of the Heart, entitled All That Matters. www.dianeyates.com  Represented by Loiacono Literary Agency www.loiaconoliteraryagency.com Published by Deer Hawk Publications www.deerhawkpublications.com Tentative release date April 2016.

On this day of your life, I believe God wants you to know that the greatest waste in the world is the difference between what we are and what we could become.

On this day of your life, I believe God wants you to know that the greatest waste in the world is the difference between what we are and what we could become.

Ben Herbster said that, and he was right. If you know what you could become, it would leave you breathless. Or maybe you do know...and are just waiting to catch your breath.

Okay, then. Rest for a while. Catch your breath. Yet move as soon as you can, yes? Your soul awaits what
you could become.

Neal Donald Walsch www.CWGPortal.com

Tarrant County College Northeast Campus, has named Kathleen M. Rodgers as one of the Distinguished Alumni of the campus for recognition in 2014!

Tarrant County College Northeast Campus, has named Kathleen M. Rodgers as one of the Distinguished Alumni of the campus for recognition in 2014! 

“This is one more positive spin for Johnnie Kitchen (the protagonist in Johnnie Come Lately Camel Press, February 2015) as she too went back to college later in life. And in my own little way, I tried to shine the spotlight on community colleges in JCL.”

As president of Tarrant County College Northeast Campus, I would like to congratulate you for being named as one of the Distinguished Alumni of the campus for recognition in 2014! 

Recognition of graduates who have made a difference in the community is a relatively new endeavor for TCC Northeast.  Twelve years ago I established a committee of faculty members with the goal of developing guidelines for this project.  The committee decided to ask departments to name outstanding former students who had graduated from TCC Northeast at least five years ago with associate degrees or certificates.  In the last few years, we also wanted to include students who had attended TCC Northeast for a substantial portion of their college course work, but who may have transferred to another institution to finish a degree.  Each discipline chose one person to be recognized in a ceremony that will take place on campus in May during the Faculty Luncheon.  As a member of this group of Distinguished Alumni, you will receive a certificate that will be presented during that ceremony.

We have scheduled the recognition ceremony/luncheon to take place in the Center Corner (NSTU 1615A) in the Student Center Building.  You might remember that this is the building with the clock tower.  It will begin at approximately 11:00 a.m. on Tuesday, May 6, 2014 and should be over by 1:00 p.m. 

The photo and a short bio will eventually be transferred to our Distinguished Alumni Wall of Recognition housed in the J. Ardis Bell Library on the Northeast Campus.

Again, congratulations, and I look forward to seeing you next month.

Larry Darlage, PhD

President| Tarrant County College Northeast Campus

Represented by Loiacono Literary Agency www.loiaconoliteraryagency.com
Bestselling author of THE FINAL SALUTE 

JOHNNIE COME LATELY, forthcoming from Camel Press, an imprint of Coffeetown Press 2/1/15 www.kathleenMRodgers.com

5 Writing Tips: Dinaw Mengestu

5 Writing Tips: Dinaw Mengestu

By Dinaw Mengestu

Apr 25, 2014

Dinaw Mengestu is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, was one of the New Yorker's "20 Under 40," has won the Guardian First Book Award, and has a whole host of other accolades. His new novel, one of 2014's best, is All Our Names. Check out his writing tips below.

1. Be generous to your characters: kill them, save them, break their hearts and then heal them. Stuff them with life, emotions, histories, objects and people they love, and once you've done that, once they are bursting at the seams, strip them bare. Find out what they look like—how they stand, talk move, when they have nothing left. Now put them back together, fill them once more with life, except now leave enough room for the reader to squeeze their own heart and imagination inside.

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2. Believe that a good writing day can be one passed entirely in silence, with hours spent staring at a blank screen, or glaring at a single word or paragraph, knowing there is nothing you can add or change at that particular moment. Listening is writing's occasionally overlooked and undervalued companion, and when not clacking away at the keyboard, comes the chance to sit in sometimes awkward, sometimes painful silence with the characters and world you’ve struggled to create. Even if not a single word is written, you have shown up, you’ve affirmed the simple fact that you care and have the patience to endure.

3. Don't think about how your characters sound, but how they see. Watch the world through their eyes--study the extraordinary and the mundane through their particular perspective. Walk around the block with them, stroll the rooms they live in, figure out what objects on the cluttered dining room table they would inevitably stare at the longest, and then learn why.

4. The older I get, the fuller and more complex my life becomes with family, friends, students, and above all children. I’ve learned now not to be precious about the conditions I work in. I’ve learned not to wait for the total silence, which on the vast majority of days, will never, ever come. And so forget about hoping to find the proper weather, or the light that pleases you best of all colors (to steal a phrase from William Carlos Williams). Abandon the desire, masked as need for perfectly pressed coffee. Write in crowds, in alleys, in the back seats of crumb-filled cars. Steal time from the crowded world even if it's only a few minutes, or a blessed hour. Take being tired and emotionally exhausted as an excuse to take excessive liberties with language, with your imagination.

5. And in case it’s possible to forget—remember the world does not need your book. The world will go on just fine without it. There are plenty of wonderful novels, poems, stories, essays for many lifetimes of extraordinary reading, and so write out of necessity, out of personal privation, because you, and perhaps only you, needs to read those words.

Porfirio Press interview with Tony Lee Moral, author of Playing Mrs. Kingston

Porfirio Press interview with Tony Lee Moral, author of Playing Mrs. Kingston

http://porfiriopress.com/2014/04/24/announcing-tony-lee-moral/

Words from Pep Cleft of the Rock

Words from Pep

Cleft of the Rock

The climb was steep and randomly blocked by alders. Occasionally there was an erupting boulder covered with spongy yellow/grey lichen sitting heavily within the talus providing a respite, something to lean against, catch my wind, refill my lungs with the breath of life. From my canoe I had glassed the face of this cliff for some time before deciding on a route. Finally, reaching the top of the rock debris along the base of the cliff I stood overlooking the boreal forest below. A carpet of larch, spruce and pine stretched to the horizon. No towns, no roads, no human sign visible. Here and there a birch reached above its cone-bearing neighbors and spread its light green canopy to catch the sun. Each step upward brought freedom to my heart and love for life.

 Along with several black flies, I waited a few minutes for what feeble breeze there was to dry the sweat in my shirt, cool me off. Below, a thin ribbon called the Michipicoten River, my highway into this area, curved out of sight around the bluff to my left. Kinew (eagle) glided over its surface seeking carrion, anything that was easy pickings. I turned and looked upward into the ascending cleft of the rock that would lead me to the top. It was here I would put my faith.

All stones now gave way to near vertical solid granite. I reached upward taking hold of a slender root tracing a crack. With its help I placed the toe of my boot on a lip of stone and began my levitation to heaven. Behind me and above came the cry of Kinew, “Come up higher!” My spirit soared with her and I found a finger hold for another boost, and another, and another. Pressing my check against the stone I turned to look outward. I was unsecured, without tether, yet the higher I rose the more fear dissolved. Was I a fool?  A misstep and gravity will have its way. A diagonal fracture gave me confidence and upward I ascended. Soon the remaining face became smooth, polished. I reached as far as I could, feeling, searching for a way to finish the climb. At first there was nothing. Finally, between the tips of my fingers I barely caught hold of another rootlet and gently, inch-by-inch drew it into my palm. Slowly testing, I determined it was anchored up and over the edge. “Come up higher!” she cried again. Then, as if the root itself lifted me into the throne room of God, I found myself in the realm of spirits.

Kinew echoes the heart of our Father, a heart calling us to “Come up higher - into the Love.” From nowhere a refreshing current of wind blew past and was gone. Far below I could see my small craft on the shore of the Michipocoten. The “Cleft of the Rock” had led me safely upward. www.theteacherwithin.com

--
ONE WORLD  -  ONE FAMILY OF MAN  -  ONE CREATOR OF ALL

Super review for SUPERCELL by Buzz Bernard

Super review for SUPERCELL by Buzz Bernard

Super-sell of a read!, April 23, 2014

By B.F. Spink "Author, After Midnight In Savannah" (Atlanta, GA)

Verified Purchase(What's this?)

This review is from: Supercell (Kindle Edition)

Buzz Bernard knows weather, but better still Buzz Bernard knows how to wrap a twister of a story inside a real-live twister of a tornado. Protagonist Chuck's life is broken, and he's accepted his beer-for-breakfast as the highlight of his day when out of nowhere comes a million-dollar offer that just might repair a lot of that brokenness. There are conditions, of course, and the odds are against Chuck finding what this Hollywood hotshot wants him to find in an impossible time frame. But throwing caution and his steady job as a janitor to the, ahem, wind, Chuck decides to chase the pot of gold at the end of the tornado-to-end-all-tornadoes. There's a chance this might help him fix the sadness of a seemingly impossible-to-resolve conflict with his son. And, of course, along the way, a potential love interest jumps into the fray, a female agent chasing bad guys who chase storms. Add in the point man from Hollywood who holds the key to the golden money just happens to be in line for Jerk of the Year, and you have a cast of characters that Bernard, ahem, spins into conflicts, messes, disappointments and, ultimately not what the reader expects at the end. Bernard is a master of suspense (read "Plague" if you haven't already), and he uses knowledge gained in the weather industry to take us a lot more up-close-and-personal with Mother Nature than most authors can do. The result is that "Supercell" is a page turner, Grade EF-5. What's EF-5, you say? It's covered in "Supercell."

50th Annual Georgia Author of the Year Nominee Buzz Bernard, SUPERCELL

50th Annual Georgia Author of the Year Nominee Buzz Bernard, SUPERCELL

Winners and finalists will be announced at the banquet and ceremony on Saturday, June 7, at the KSU Continuing Education Center in Kennesaw. Sponsored by the Georgia Writers Association since 1994, the Georgia Author of the Year Awards is the oldest literary awards in the southeastern United States. Go to authoroftheyear.org for more information.

A native Oregonian, Buzz attended the University of Washington in Seattle where he earned a bachelor's degree in atmospheric science while also studying creative writing. After leaving active duty with the Air Force, he and his wife Christina lived in New England and suffered through its winters for two decades before heading for the milder climate of Roswell, Georgia, near Atlanta. It's much warmer there!

HAROLD W. BERNARD

SUPERCELL

Fiction Novel

www.buzzbernard.com

www.bellebooks.com

www.loiaconoliteraryagency.com

The Stonehenge Scrolls has now been released in paperback!

The Stonehenge Scrolls has now been released in paperback!

If you have ever wondered “how” or “why”, this is the story that explains it all.

Published by Muse-It-Up Publishing www.museituppublishing.com

Represented by Loiacono Literary Agency www.loiaconoliteraryagency.com

www.TheStonehengeScrolls.com

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The Stonehenge Scrolls, although fiction, has years of research and facts to back it up.

The story follows The Monument Builders and how they succeeded in constructing such incredible feats of art with only man and farm animal power, Mother Earth, and the elements. She opens our eyes to the emotional, spiritual, philosophical, and physical aspects of the endeavors.

Her style of writing allows you to "pass through the stones" to the time of their construction and into the lives of the people who dared to defy, nature, gravity, and physics.

This book explains so much of the stigma, dogma, and mysticism surrounding the structures, as well as the significance of where and why it exists. A true enlightenment.

"A fine saga, The Stonehenge Scrolls is driven by drama and tight, involving writing and is a pick for any who enjoyed Auel's 'Earth's Children' series and similar historical novels." --Midwest Book Review.

***

The Frederick Celtic Festival, Saturday, May 9th in Mt. Airy, Maryland, is a fun day of Scottish and Irish musicians and dancers, Highland Games, Celtic dog breeds, a British car show, and readings by Celtic authors like K.P. Robbins, author of The Stonehenge Scrolls. 

http://www.frederickcelticfestival.com/celtic-author-tent/

THE BIGGEST MISTAKE BEGINNING WRITERS MAKE By Buzz Bernard

THE BIGGEST MISTAKE BEGINNING WRITERS MAKE

By Buzz Bernard

http://buzzbernard.com/2014/04/biggest-mistake-beginning-writers-make/

Jim Powell’s Wally Avett and Murder in Caney Fork!!

Jim Powell’s Wally Avett and Murder in Caney Fork!!

Jim Powell, a well-known artist in North Georgia and currently an editorial cartoonist for several weekly newspapers, did this marvelous caricature of Wally Avett holding a copy of his new release, Murder in Caney Fork. 

            “He did this bobble head — how, I don't know —and he is an old friend of mine. Jim was raised in his grandfather's country store, where he listened to never-ending discussions on country life, weather, farming, politics, etc.  He taught school at Blairsville, and was editor of the weekly paper at Hiawassee when I got to know him.  Great guy, we traded stories (and sometimes pocket-knives) when he made his weekly trip to Murphy to get his paper printed on our big web press.”

Jim Powell lives with his writer-wife Roxanne (married 45 years) in the mountains near Young Harris. 

Murder at Caney Fork

by Wally Avett

It’s the trial of the century in a 1940’s North Carolina town.

Rape. Murder. Vigilante justice.

War hero and law student Wes Ross has to save his uncle—but hide the truth.

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Published by BelleBooks www.bellebooks.com

Represented by Loiacono Literary Agency www.loiaconoliteraryagency.com

The Man Called Brown Condor by Thomas E. Simmons is now available at Wal Mart online!

The Man Called Brown Condor by Thomas E. Simmons is now available at Wal Mart online!

Published by Sky Horse Publishing

www.skyhorsepublishing.com

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Indie Bound

The Man Called Brown Condor is the biography of John Charles Robinson, known in the media of the 1930s as The Brown Condor of Ethiopia. This is the true story of Robinson’s struggles to overcome the racial prejudice that all but closed the field of aviation to Blacks. His outstanding success in accomplishing his dream of flying, his influence toward the establishment of a school of aviation at Tuskegee Institute (there would have been no Tuskegee Airmen without him) and his courageous wartime service in Ethiopia during the Italian invasion in 1935 are brought to life.

It was during Robinson’s service to Ethiopia that he took to the air in opposition to the first Fascist invasion of what would become World War II. This remarkable American Hero may have been the first American to oppose Fascism in combat. www.thomasesimmons.net Represented by Loiacono Literary Agency www.loiaconoliteraryagency.com

KD McCrite’s midgrade series, Confessions of April Grace, now available at Wal Mart online!

KD McCrite’s midgrade series, Confessions of April Grace, now available at Wal Mart online!

Confessions of April Grace: In Front of God and Everybody

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Buy all three!

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Indie Bound

published by Thomas Nelson/Harper Collins

http://www.thomasnelson.com/in-front-of-god-and-everybody.html

In Front of God and Everybody video trailer

http://youtu.be/Ak0sKk4acmg

Confessions of April Grace: In Front of God and Everybody is a midgrade novel and the first of a series of stories about a rural community in the Ozarks and April Grace Reilly, who changes everything. Centered on the Reilly Family who has lived there for generations and the St. James who reluctantly moved there to start over, it is a true “country mouse” meets “city mouse”. The challenges of tolerance and acceptance and the miracle of saving grandma because of it make this a endearing novel. You will be as captivated by The Reillys as we all were with The Waltons in the 70s.

***

Confessions of April Grace: Cliques, Hicks, and Ugly Sticks!

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Indie Bound

by KD McCrite

published by Thomas Nelson/Harper Collins

http://www.thomasnelson.com/cliques-hicks-and-ugly-sticks.html

Just when April Grace thought the drama was over . . .

After an automobile accident, Isabel St. James—resident drama coach and drama queen—needs help putting together the church play. Mama insists April Grace and Myra Sue will help. April’s fall is now devoted to spending every afternoon with Isabel and Myra Sue—if anyone is as big of a drama queen as Isabel, it’s Myra Sue. Plus, she’s dumb. (Okay, not dumb, but "older sister dumb.") If that’s not enough, Isabel is wreaking havoc in the community trying to get Rough Creek Road paved, the new boy at school will not leave her alone, and then Mama drops the biggest bombshell of all . . . April Grace is no longer going to be the baby of the family . . .

Girls will completely relate to April and love her sense of humor as she deals with siblings, boys, and the many changes that come with growing up.

***

Chocolate-covered Baloney

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by KD McCrite

published by Thomas Nelson/Harper Collins

http://www.thomasnelson.com/chocolate-covered-baloney.html

The last thing April Grace wants is more change in her life--but that's exactly what she gets! Plus, April has a new mystery to solve when Myra Sue starts sneaking around and acting very suspicious!

From snooty new neighbors to starting junior high to getting a new baby brother to having her grandmother get a boyfriend, April Grace has had enough change to last until she is at least 87 years old.

But when it rains, it pours, and April Grace is in for the ride of her life when her prissy, citified neighbor Isabel becomes her gym teacher and a long-lost relative suddenly reappears and throws everything into a tizzy. On top of that, April's sister, Myra Sue, has been hiding something and sneaking around. April needs to find out what is going on before her silly sister gets herself into trouble again. More important, will April find the grace she needs to handle her topsy-turvy life and forgive past wrongs?