Featured Author: Bethlehem Writers Group, LLC
January 14, 2025 by marianne h donley in category Apples & Oranges by Marianne H. Donley, Contests, Featured Author of the Month tagged as #TheBWG, Bethlehem Writers Group, Bethlehem Writers Roundtable Short Story Award, new release, Seasons Readings, Short Story Award
About Bethlehem Writers Group, LLC
The Bethlehem Writers Group, LLC (BWG), is a community of mutually supportive fiction and nonfiction authors based in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. The members are as different from each other as their stories. BWG also publishes quality fiction through their online literary journal, Bethlehem Writers Roundtable, and their award-winning A Sweet, Funny, and Strange Anthology series.
Each anthology has an overall theme—broadly interpreted—but includes a variety of genres. All but the first anthology include stories from the winner(s) of The Bethlehem Writers Short Story Award.
Their first anthology, A Christmas Sampler: Sweet, Funny, and Strange Holiday Tales (2009), won two Next Generation Indie Book Awards: Best Anthology and Best Short Fiction.
Season’s Reading: More Sweet, Funny, and Strange Holiday Tales is the latest in A Sweet, Funny, and Strange Anthology.
About Season’s Readings
In this new addition to the “Sweet, Funny, and Strange”(R) series of anthologies, the multi-award-winning Bethlehem Writers Group, LLC, returns to its roots. As denizens in and around Bethlehem, Pennsylvania (also known as “Christmas City, USA”), we were happy to make our first anthology a collection of holiday tales. But one volume just wasn’t enough. Now, in our eighth anthology, we’re returning to the theme to bring you twenty-one new stories that span the holidays from Thanksgiving through New Year’s Eve.
Emwryn Murphy’s sweet tale tells about a chosen family’s “Friendsgiving,” crashed by a blood relative who might, or might
not, be happy with what he sees in “As Simple as That.” Jerome W. McFadden once again reveals his humorous side in his story about
a would-be Santa who gets into trouble in “Flue Shot.” A. E. Decker shares an intricate Christmas fantasy about “The Goblin King’s
Music Box.” And Paula Gail Benson gives a new twist to a traditional symbol for the New Year in “Star of the Party.” Beyond these holidays, Diane Sismour writes about Krampusnacht, Debra H. Goldstein about Pearl Harbor Day, and Peter J Barbour about Hanukkah. Other favorite BWG authors, including Jeff Baird, Ralph Hieb, D.T. Krippene, Christopher D. Ochs, Dianna Sinovic, Kidd Wadsworth, and Carol L. Wright, also share their holiday musings.
In addition, this volume includes the 2023 and 2024 award-winning stories from the Bethlehem Writers Roundtable Short Story Awards. Sally Milliken, the 2023 first-place winner, presents “The First Thanksgiving.” From 2024, we have our top three winners with first-place winner Rhonda Zangwill’s “Oh! Christmas Tree,” second-place winner Bettie Nebergall’s “Just Ask Santa,” and third-place winner Mary Adler’s “Narragansett Nellie and the Transferware Platter.”
We hope you enjoy these holiday gifts and that all our readers experience the very happiest of holiday seasons.
Next up for BWG
BWG is working on their ninth anthology, Illusive Worlds: Sweet, Funny, and Strange Tales of Science Fiction and Fastasy
In connection with this anthology, they are hosting The Bethlehem Writers 2025 Short Story Award.
The 2025 Short Story Award opens on January 1, 2025. The theme will be Speculative Fiction (tales of science fiction and fantasy,broadly interpreted).
BWG is seeking never-published short stories of 2,500 words or fewer.
First Place:
$250 and consideration for publication in our upcoming anthology: Illusive Worlds: Sweet, Funny, and Strange Tales of Science Fiction and Fantasy or Bethlehem Writers Roundtable
Second Place:
$100 and publication in Bethlehem Writers Roundtable
Third Place:
$50 and publication in Bethlehem Writers Roundtable
The 2025 contest judge is science-fiction and fantasy author Adrian Tchaikovsky.
For more information on the 2025 Short Story Award and for information on how to enter, click here. You can also read an interview with Mr. Tchaikovsky here.
Books from Bethlehem Writers Group, LLC
The Bethlehem Writers Group, LLC (BWG), founded in 2006, is a community of mutually supportive, fiction and nonfiction authors based in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. The members are as different from each other as their stories, spanning a range of genres including: children’s, fantasy, humor, inspiration, literary, memoir, mystery, paranormal, romance, science fiction, women’s fiction, and young adult.
See the schedule of meetings and events here.
ELDRITCH, INC by Christopher D. Ochs
December 8, 2024 by marianne h donley in category Spotlight tagged as Christopher D. Ochs, Eldritch inc, fantasy, Magical realism, new release, science fiction
ELDRITCH, INC
1st in the new Michael yeager Series
Christopher D. Ochs
Anigrafx, LLC
978-0998172637
December 5, 2024
After an alien intrusion mutates his fiancée into a monster, grad student Michael Avery Yeager is dragged into the world of magic, super-science, spirits, demigods, parallel realities, and amazing coffee.
He’s given the choice of joining Eldridge & S.Q.Amos, Inc. to find a cure for the woman he loves, or lose her—and the memory of her—forever.
Michael doesn’t expect that an out-of-the-way insurance company is Earth’s sole protector against the forces that crawl out of the darkness. Nor does he expect to uncover the unearthly secret within himself that ties him to Eldridge.
Who knew preventing Armageddon required so much on-the-job training?
The X-Files meets The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy in this science-fiction/fantasy/horror mashup!
Other Books By Christopher D. Ochs
Bananapants by Penny Reid
August 7, 2024 by marianne h donley in category Apples & Oranges by Marianne H. Donley, Spotlight tagged as Bananapants, hijinks and shenanigans, new release, Penny Reid, romantic comedy
★★ NOW AVAILABLE! ★★
‘Bananapants’ by Penny Reid is LIVE and available on all platforms. Don’t miss out on this bonkers romantic comedy.
Bananapants: A Bonkers Romantic Comedy
Penny Reid
August 6, 2024
Cipher-Naught
★★ BLURB ★★
Estranged childhood friends unexpectedly reunite under bizarre circumstances and bicker their way to love in this bonkers romantic comedy.
Ava Archer misses her best childhood friend most especially during the month of April. Ask any tax attorney, it’s a lonely, grueling time of year. Luckily, Ava has just received a surprising and delectably absurd offer from her posh doppelgänger at work. She must pretend to be the aforementioned posh co-worker for one night at an extremely fancy party; a party so fancy, there exists absolutely no chance anyone will recognize her or suspect her ruse. . .
Desmond (Des) Sullivan is a thief. And not the heart-of-gold kind. He’s the steal-from-the-rich-and-give-to-the-also-rich-so-he-can-get-paid kind. He does, however, have one firm rule: never steal what the target can’t afford to lose. After a brutal falling out with his father, Desmond hasn’t returned to Chicago in over ten years. But when a good friend is swindled and something priceless is stolen, Desmond must return home, both as himself and his thieving alter ego.
Infiltrate a dangerous secret society of the world’s most elite billionaires while leveraging his estranged father’s resources and not blowing his cover? Sure. No problem. Or it wouldn’t be a problem if Ava Archer hadn’t just walked into the room, wearing a ridiculous wig, speaking with a preposterous accent, and pretending (badly) to be someone she’s not.
★★ Read ‘Bananapants’ Now ★★
‘Bananapants’ is a full-length, contemporary romantic comedy filled with hijinks and shenanigans. It can be read as a standalone, but the parents of the main characters will be familiar to anyone who has read the Knitting in the City series.
More Books by Penny Reid
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The Blue Riders
August 3, 2024 by marianne h donley in category Apples & Oranges by Marianne H. Donley, Rabt Book Tours tagged as Historical thriller, Jim Lester, new release, RABTBookTours, The blue riders
Historical Thriller
Date Published: June 28, 2024
When the pen becomes mightier than the sword, a reporter’s quest for truth leads her into a web of danger and deceit.
1897. In New York, the newspaper war between Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst rages, while in Cuba a brave band of Cuban rebels struggle to overthrow the tyrannical rule of Spain. When reporter Cassie O’Conner goes undercover in an insane asylum, she discovers a plot to murder President William McKinley that triggers a thrilling adventure
About the Author
Jim Lester holds a Ph.D in history and is the author of three successful young adult novels, Fallout, The Great Pretender, and Till the Rivers All Run Dry.
He is also the author of two previous historical thrillers, Deadline New York and Call to a Nightmare as well as the disaster thriller Atlas 5 and a non-fiction book entitled Hoop Crazy: College Basketball in the 1950s. He lives in Colorado.
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The Gariboldi Affair
August 2, 2024 by marianne h donley in category Apples & Oranges by Marianne H. Donley, Rabt Book Tours, Spotlight tagged as DA Nicodemo, Literary Historical Fiction, RABTBookTours, The Gariboldi Affair
Fiction, Historical Fiction, Literary, mystery & detective, amateur sleuths
D A Nicodemo
Date Published: June 2024
Crime – Murder – Guilt – Redemption
Colonel Emilio Gariboldi is a complex man. He is also a veteran of the Second Italo-Abyssinian War. An idealist as a young man, he had hoped to emulate his hero Italo Balbo and hence joined the Italian air force.
A fatal encounter with an enemy intruder while camped with his air force unit on the heights of an elevated plateau near Axum in the northern parts of Ethiopia changes his life forever.
The discovery of the body of a young black woman prisoner found in bed next to him cements his embroilment with a criminal organization involved in human trafficking.
Almost two decades later, another young black girl is found dead at the foot of the Terzano Tower in Campobasso.
Are the crimes related?
About the Author
I was born in Montorio nei Frentani, province of Campobasso, in the Molise
region of Italy. My father, Costanzo Nicodemo, emigrated to Canada and
worked in Montreal, Quebec. The rest of the family followed later. My
parents then built their home in the northeast of Montreal where I spent
most of my early years.
I graduated from Loyola College and went on to obtain my Master’s
degree in physics at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. A paper
was published from that work in the Journal of Polymer Science Part A-2:
Polymer Physics.
Afterwards, I traveled throughout Europe and Egypt. Once back in Montreal, I started a music retail business and later went on to music production. One international hit came out of that endeavor: ‘Living on Video’ by the Montreal group Trans-X.
I am now retired and living in Nova Scotia with my friend Louise, dogs Daisy & Boo, & cat Cora.
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COLTON 911: CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE
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THE VISCOUNT’S SEDUCTION
An Irish lady from a scandalous family gets a chance at a Season in London and an opportunity for revenge, but her schemes stir up an unknown enemy and spark danger of a different sort in the person of a handsome young Viscount.
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