Welcome Fall!

Today is the official first day of fall. Welcome, autumn! It’s such a beautiful time of year. Life gets busier for me in the fall—I go back to work as a substitute teacher, I start making soups, pumpkin bread, and other foods to put up for the winter, I get out the fall decorations, and of course I start thinking about Christmas buying for my family. 

This year, I have a new fall devotional out too! If you want something to read daily that sticks to a fall theme, you would enjoy this book. It’s geared toward women abs even has some fall recipes in it! It can be purchased here.

Cascade Awards!

 

I’m ending the summer the way I began it—with a writing award! In June it was a Selah, or two actually. One was for A Stand for Truth, which in full disclosure, my husband wrote more of than I did. But the other was a 2nd place award for an article I wrote. A few days ago, on 8/18, I won a 1st place Cascade Award for a nonfiction short story I wrote that was published in a Chicken Soup for the Soul last year. I am thrilled beyond words and wanted to share my good news! 

Making My Editorial Debut!

I am achieving a milestone that I never thought I would achieve. I am now officially listed as a book editor! Back in high school when I discovered my love for writing, I also discovered that my papers got a lot of read marks on them from my teachers. This discouraged me enough to abandon writing and pursue another field in college and I became a nurse instead. Now that I have been writing for over ten years, I realize that much of my problems in high school were due to the fact that I had a lot of British in my writing from growing up in a country heavily influenced by the British. They spell and punctuate differently in England. Hence all the corrections from my teachers. After having literally hundreds of editors, mostly magazine editors, tweak my writing, I now have most of the British out of me. Still, I would never try to pass myself off as a copy editor, but I can content edit the heck out of a piece. And that's just what I did when a friend asked for help with his book recently. 

That book, Maroon & White by Donald K. Jackson, just released on August 1st and it's selling like hotcakes! It is a number #1 New Release and is overall in the low thousands on all of Amazon's paid paperback store, out of tens of millions of books! And it has me listed as its editor. Paint me happy!

 

Writing & Book News!

I’ve had a busy summer so I nearly missed posting anything on July. But being busy with so many other activities does not mean I haven’t been writing and I do have a few things to share on that front. 

1) Chicken Soup for the Soul seems to love one of the stories I sold to them. They have featured it three times now! They featured it when they bought first rights to it in a book they published about dogs. Then they featured a reprint of it in June of this year in a book of funny stories and now they are featuring it on their podcast. I have the story featured in one of my own books too—Confessions of a Prayer Warrior

2) I spent much of June completing a devotional assignment from “The Quiet Place” (David C. Cook Publisher) and just got my author copies of the upcoming issue that also has seven devos of mine on it. I’m a regular contributor with them. 

3) I taught a workshop on memoir writing in June at The Kentucky Christian Writers’ Conference. 

4) Jumping ahead to some things coming up in August: I am a finalist in the Cascade Awards for a published nonfiction short story. Those winners will be announced on 8/18. I’ll keep you posted. And I will make my editorial debut in a memoir written by a friend in just a week! I’m not posting the cover or title of that book until my friend—the author—does, but am super excited about it. You will definitely hear more about this shortly! 

5) And finally, I have a cover reveal to make along with a sale up tell you about. My newest release is now up for pre-order! It’s the last in the “Glimpses of God” year around devotional series and the kindle is on sale if you pre-order it. I love my publisher’s cover design! Presenting Glimpses of God Autumn published my “Entrusted Books”!! 

Selahs!!!

 What a great time I’ve had the last couple of days! I had not registered to attend the Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers Conference. My daughter got married last week and I just was not able to go to a conference and put on a wedding all in the same week. But I was up for a Selah in the “Articles in Print” category and my husband and I together were up for one in “General Nonfiction Books / Bible Studies”, a combined category. Because of Covid it was not certain for a long time whether people could come in just for the awards ceremony. As it turned out, we were not only allowed to go, North Carolina had also dropped its mask mandate for vaccinated people so we went, mingled, and had a great time. And ... won and placed in the contest!!!

My article took 2nd place in it’s category and our book, “A Stand for Truth” won 1st place. We are thrilled! (The book is available on Amazon here.

                                  In this picture: Gregg Bridgeman, our publisher, John and me.

Read, Laugh, Repeat

I had surgery on my right hand a few weeks ago and it’s still in a cast. Consequently, it’s been hard to write / type lately. Because of this, I have not posted any new blog posts and this one is going to be short. But I did want to let you know that a story I wrote will appear in the soon to be released Chicken Soup book titled, “Read, Laugh, Repeat”. This is a book of previously published humorous stories. I’m honored to have had one of mine chosen. 

Upcoming writing news: 

My husband and I will attend the Selah Awards Banquet on June 3rd. I’m so looking forward to that! And I’ll be teaching a workshop on memoir writing at the KCWC in June. More on both of those later. 

Selah Award Finalist!

This morning I learned that pieces I wrote have been selected as finalists in two different categories in the Selah Awards writing competition. An article that was published in “Power for Living” last year is a finalist in the published article category and A Stand for Truth was selected as a finalist in the nonfiction book category. The winners will be announced June 3rd at the Blueridge Christian Writers Conference at Ridgecrest, NC. I’m humbled and honored beyond words. (The picture is the article that finaled.)