Claudia Volkman has more than thirty-five years of experience in acquisitions, product development, editing, and typesetting, and has worked full-time for several trade publishing houses. Now, as the owner of Creative Editorial Solutions, she assists publishers, authors, entrepreneurs, and speakers with their editorial needs. A Chicago native, Claudia and her husband reside in Southwest Florida with their two charming Corgis.
Early Bird Special! 2022 Next Generation Indie Book Awards Call for Entries – Over $10,000 in Monetary prizes, +80 categories.
Early Bird Discount $75 – Call for Entries: 2022 Next Generation Indie Book Awards
If you would like to receive greater recognition, monetary prizes, awards and exposure for your books, here is an opportunity not to miss. Enter the 2022 Next Generation Indie Book Awards.
Calling all indie book authors and publishers – including small presses, mid-size independent publishers, university presses, e-book publishers, and self-published authors who have a book written in English released in 2020, 2021 or 2022 or with a 2020, 2021 or 2022 copyright date to enter the most rewarding book awards program.
Take advantage of this offer and enter by September 30, 2021 and receive the second category for free! Final Deadline: February 11, 2022
Sorrow: the legacy of cio-cio-san continues the journey of the son of U.S. Navy Lieutenant B.F. Pinkerton and Cio-Cio-san (Madama Butterfly); Kate, Pinkerton’s new American wife; Sharpless, U.S. Consul to Nagasaki; and Suzuki, Cio-Cio-san’s trusted guardian. The novella also chronicles Sorrow’s struggles and choices as he navigates through two cultures on a journey of self-discovery.
Dorothy Hall Is Darrington, Maryland’s Darkest Secret.
That is until Emarie Lukins, a reporter for the Washington Intelligencer, is assigned to write a story about a sixty-five-year-old woman who killed her twenty-five-year-old lover.
When Emarie’s boss, Jim, gives her a file that contains only a one -page document and a photo of the world’s homeliest woman dressed in a T-shirt with the words World’s Best Mom on the front, Emarie’s gut screams for her to refuse the assignment.
Before she can back out, she is trapped in the depraved world of Dorothy Hall. Emarie digs into Dorothy’s warped reality, untangling a web of abuse, deceit, manipulation, and murder, revealing Dorothy’s true identity.
When she uncovers damaging information Jim is desperate to keep under wraps, Emarie’s own world is turned upside down.
Nonetheless, Emarie is determined to write a book that proves Dorothy is not who she claims to be and exposes Darrington, Maryland’s cover-up of Dorothy’s despicable and deadly deeds.
In the end, Emarie’s book shatters lies and lives, putting her life at risk.
[more]
Last night at ten o’clock, an empty wagon full of people ran over a dead horse and killed it.
Prince Thane of Idlebury is a very bad boy with special powers—powers that could get him killed. And when he takes a nocturnal trip through the thirteen dimensions while reciting the above age-old curse, performing illegal magic, and creating mayhem, every creature in the universe knows he has found the long-lost book A Magic Maniac’s Many Ways to Make Mischief.
Immediately a universal battle for the coveted book ensues, putting Thane’s life in danger. Realizing he’s in big trouble, he travels to Dimension X and begs his sister Gwen to help him. [more]
Gwendolyn Fanny has an unimaginable imagination. And after two weeks of housebound boredom, her imagination has run amok.
One day, as Gwen stares out a window, wishing for power, admiration, sophistication, and adventure, a story in Universal Scandals magazine grabs her attention. Gwen discovers the Queen of Idlebury in Dimension XIII is searching for her long-lost adopted daughter. Gwen’s belief that she is the real Princess of Idlebury tears her from her world of make-believe and throws her into a reality not even she could have imagined.
[more]
Joanne Hughson, the author of the Idlebury Series and Shattered Series, grew up in the Washington, D.C. area. While dabbling in writing books, she toiled through two careers, one as an advertising copywriter/creative director and the other as a mental health therapist. She hopes her third career as an author brings enjoyment to many and that her readers have as much fun reading her books as she had writing them.
Website: https://idleburybooks.com/
Coming in 2022
Prudence: Idlebury Series Book 3: Pure Evil
Shattered Dreams (Book 2)
The Bedford Competition
Let your talent flow and compete with authors from around the world! We invite you to submit stories up to 3000 words and poems up to 40 lines long.
1st Prize £1000
2nd Prize £200
3rd Prize £100
The Bedford Writer’s Competition is a non profit group. All net proceeds will go to Schoolreaders, Bedford, a charity giving free one-to-one reading support to children, and The King’s Arms Homeless Project.
Competition opens 1st May and closes 31st October 2021.
The standard entry fee is £7.50 per story or poem.
To enter visit our website: http://www.bedfordwritingcompetition.co.uk/
Come Here To Me (Prickly Hawthorn Village)
by Karen Dean Benson
When a progressive gentleman doctor struggles to fit into the deeply entrenched culture of a rural Irish village, he realizes not all learning comes from books. Christopher Curran, newly graduated from Edinburgh Medical School, has dreamt of bringing modern medicine to Hawthorn Village. His struggle to fit into the deeply entrenched culture of the rural Irish village worsens when rumor of an unspeakable crime sifts through the village suggesting he might be involved. Renata Fitzjames and her irascible mother are newly arrived in Hawthorn from Portugal. They have come to fulfill a promise she made to her father on his deathbed. She resolves to keep her distance from the doctor knowing he has good reason to interfere. Dino, a runaway cabin boy off a pirate ship, becomes an unwitting complication for the doctor when the lad seeks refuge in the unlikeliest of places. [more]
Secret at Dark Castle (Prickly Hawthorn Village Book 1) by Karen Dean Benson
A secret no one dared whisper… 1816 County Waterford, Hawthorn Village, Ireland Mairéad, left in a basket on the steps of The Sacred Heart Convent and raised by the nuns, intends to take vows in the fall when she turns eighteen. Having lived her life within the cloister, she knows nothing of the secular world except for the dealings she has had with people who bring their manuscripts to be illuminated. Her delicate artistry is a source of income for the convent. A local aristocrat, Lord Darnley, willing to pay a vast amount for work on his manuscript, demands she stay at Rockmore Hall for the summer to illuminate a book he wrote about his ancestors. [more]
