Featured Authors of the Month: Bethlehem Writers Group
December 1, 2018 by Bethlehem Writers Group in category Featured Author of the Month tagged as Bethlehem Writers Group, BWG, Featured Author of the Month
Featuring 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.
BWG has published five anthologies. Each anthology has an overall theme—broadly interpreted—but includes a variety of genres, and 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.
Besides anthologies and yearly writing contests, the group publishes a quarterly literary journal, The Bethlehem Writers Roundtable, and hosts twice monthly writing workshops and a critique groups for local members. You can see the schedule of BWG meetings and events, including author signings here.
About A Christmas Sampler
Christmas is a time for love, laughter, and wonder. A Christmas Sampler: Sweet, Funny, and Strange Holiday Tales, is an award-winning compilation of twenty-three Christmas stories commissioned by the Bethlehem Writers Group to capture all of Christmas’s myriad possibilities.
Paul Weidknecht’s “Those Things Remembered” is about a long-time mall Santa who realizes he has forgotten a child’s name. Courtney Annicchiarico believes against all evidence that she is pregnant in “Mis-conceptions.” Hilarity reigns in Headley Hauser’s explanation of a bachelor’s Christmas traditions in “A Modern Single Holiday.” In Carol L. Wright’s “You Better Watch Out” a small-town lawyer takes on a mystery when Santa falls from her roof three weeks before Christmas. In “Walter and Stella,” by Ralph Hieb, Walter finds himself dead on Christmas Eve, but refuses to leave his beloved alone for the holiday. And in “The Perfect Gift,” Emily P. W. Murphy explores that moment in a relationship when one partner is ready for marriage, and the other seems not to notice.
This premier anthology also features stories by Jeff Baird, Carol A. Hanzl Birkas, Cindy Kelly, Jerome W. McFadden, Stanley W. McFarland, Sally Wyman Paradysz, Jo Ann Schaffer, and Will Wright.
These heartwarming, hope-filled, and hilarious tales will delight readers of any age.
Next up for BWG
BWG is working on their sixth anthology, Fur, Feathers, & Scales: Sweet, Funny, and Strange Animal Tales.
In connection with this anthology, they are hosting The Bethlehem Writers 2019 Short Story Award. The 2019 Short Story Award will open on January 1, 2019. The theme will be Animal Stories,broadly interpreted. Stories of 2,000 words or fewer about WILD ANIMALS, PETS, or IMAGINARY BEASTS will be welcome (so long as an animal is an important character or element of the story). The winner will receive $200 and may be offered publication in the above mentioned upcoming anthology. The 2019 guest judge will be John Grogan, best-selling author of Marley & Me.
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Marianne H. Donley, Featured Author of the Month
October 1, 2018 by marianne h donley in category Featured Author of the Month tagged as Featured Author of the Month, Marianne H. Donley, Untethered
Featruing Marianne H. Donley
Marianne H. Donley writes fiction from short stories to funny romances and quirky murder mysteries. She makes her home in Tennessee with her husband and son. Marianne is a member of Bethlehem Writers Group, Romance Writers of America, and Music City Romance Writers. She is pleased to annound that Untethered: Sweet, Funny, and Strange Tales of the Paranormal is available today! In addition to her story, “The Roman Coin” there are twenty-six other stories from the members of Bethlehem Writers Group, LLC included are the winning stories from the 2017 and 2018 Bethlehem Writers Roundtable Short Story Award by Suzanne Purvis and Christine Eskilson respectively. We’re sure you will enjoy this volumn of paranormal stories.
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Featured Author of the Month: Meriam Wilhelm
August 14, 2018 by Meriam Wilhelm in category Featured Author of the Month tagged as August, Featured Author of the Month, Meriam Wilhelm, Witches of New Moon Beach
Featured Author of the Month: Meriam Wilhelm
For thirty-five years, Meriam Wilhelm worked in education. From high school teacher to college dean to her favorite job of elementary school principal, she took an excitingly non-traditional pathway, always passionate about shaping young minds.
When she retired, something magical happened. Wilhelm was bitten by the writing bug and her chosen genre was paranormal romance – specifically of the witchy persuasion. Now, six books into The Witches of New Moon Beach series, she is bringing her passion for learning to her new profession.
A world traveler, Wilhelm has researched the history and culture of witchcraft and found inspiration as far away as Bergen, Norway and as close as her home town. A Redondo Beach resident, she decided there was no better location for her family of witches to reside than the beaches outside her own front door. “I think there is magic in everyone you meet,” Wilhelm says. “You just have to look for it.”
In her case, you also must write about that magic. Currently, Wilhelm is working on book seven, The Witch of Bergen. She is the recipient of the Paranormal Romance Guild Reviewers Choice Award. She is married and the mother of three grown children and a brand-new grandma. When not writing or traveling, Meriam Wilhelm can be found at her sewing machine, at yoga class or, of course, reading.
Featured Author Jina Bacarr
July 28, 2018 by Jina Bacarr in category Featured Author of the Month tagged as contemporary romance, Featured Author of the Month, Jina Bacarr, YA
Jina Bacarr : July Featured Author
Jina Bacarr discovered early on that she inherited the gift of the gab from her large Irish family when she penned a story about a princess who ran away to Paris with her pet turtle Lulu. She was twelve. She grew up listening to their wild, outlandish tales, and it was those early years of storytelling that led to her love of history and traveling.
She enjoys writing to classical music with a hot cup of java by her side. She adores dark chocolate truffles, vintage anything, the smell of bread baking and rainy days in museums. She has always loved walking through history—from Pompeii to Verdun to Old Paris.
The voices of the past speak to her through carriages with cracked leather seats, stiff ivory-colored crinolines, and worn satin slippers. She has always wondered what it was like to walk in those slippers when they were new.
Author Jina Bacarr
July 21, 2018 by Jina Bacarr in category Featured Author of the Month tagged as contemporary romance, Featured Author of the Month, historical romance, Jina Bacarr
Jina Bacarr : July Featured Author
Jina Bacarr discovered early on that she inherited the gift of the gab from her large Irish family when she penned a story about a princess who ran away to Paris with her pet turtle Lulu. She was twelve. She grew up listening to their wild, outlandish tales, and it was those early years of storytelling that led to her love of history and traveling.
She enjoys writing to classical music with a hot cup of java by her side. She adores dark chocolate truffles, vintage anything, the smell of bread baking and rainy days in museums. She has always loved walking through history—from Pompeii to Verdun to Old Paris.
The voices of the past speak to her through carriages with cracked leather seats, stiff ivory-colored crinolines, and worn satin slippers. She has always wondered what it was like to walk in those slippers when they were new.
Featured Books
THE RELUCTANT GROOM AND OTHER HISTORICAL STORIES
Enjoy historical fiction? Like short stories? Then dive into this collection of historical shorts by an award-winning author.
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THE SECRET POISON GARDEN
Rita Calabrese finds her newfound journalistic zeal on a collision course with her fierce maternal instinct.
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WHERE EAGLES CRY
Jilted by love in 1834, Cara Lindsay sails from Boston to Mexico’s rugged California to begin a new life with a favorite aunt.
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