Featured Author: Bethlehem Writers Group, LLC
January 29, 2025 by Bethlehem Writers Group 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.
Wisdom by Neetu
January 26, 2025 by Neetu Malik in category Poet's Day by Neetu Malik tagged as acceptance, Neetu, sleep, The Moon, The quiet
Wisdom
tonight
the silk moon weaves me
into its silver streams
the day
creased and gritty
washed, dried
folded away
this moment
I linger in solitude
caressed by that moon
so perfectly round
eyeing me through
the window
a wink
I think I perceive
the acceptance
lulls me slowly
to sleep
© Neetu Malik
Some of Neetu’s Books
Faery Swap by Susan Kaye Quinn
January 24, 2025 by marianne h donley in category Apples & Oranges by Marianne H. Donley, Book Reviews tagged as Faery Swap
Faery Swap
Susan Kaye Quinn
ISBN: 9798348298463
Publisher: Twisted Spaces LLC
Pub date: 12/12/2013
Two souls, one body. A missing brother. A missing father. Stonehenge. And math-based magic. All the elements necessary to conjure up an engaging and fast pace story that will keep kids (grades 3 to 6) on the edge of their seats.
Both Finn, the 14 year old whose body gets snatched trapping him in the Otherworld fighting spriggans and faeries and walking trees, and Zaneyr, the faery who does the snatching and must fight off his father’s seekers, have compelling and sympathetic reasons for the choices they make.
Finn needs to get out of the Otherworld to protect his sister from Child Protective Services and neighborhood bullies. Zaneyr wants to hide himself from his father who is planning a World and Otherworld catastrophe—regardless of the humans or faeries he destroys.
Add to all of this is the ticking clock of Midsummer’s eve. Once it’s over, the boy and the faery are stuck just where they are—likely for a lifetime.
The book is published in ebook (free for January 2025), paperback and audio. There are links in the back for a cool two minute book trailer, a virtual author visit video and a downloadable teacher’s guide. The teacher’s guide included discussion questions, activities, and a card game for classroom play.
Agents from Heaven
January 22, 2025 by Veronica Jorge in category Write From the Heart by Veronica Jorge tagged as Agents, agents from heaven, dream agents
AGENTS FROM HEAVEN
BY
VERONICA JORGE
Back on January 22, 2018, I wrote the following post for this blog.
Manuscript…completed.
Filed in pending like a treasure in a hope chest.
Praying I don’t end up an old maid: no agent, no publisher.
Living on standby.
Waiting for transport to book deal heaven or please…no, not the dreaded
Depths of Sheol: REJECTION.
I’m watching the news for what’s flooding, raging or burning. Hopefully not my manuscript.
Nervous like a wind-up toy falling off the edge.
Feel like a balloon losing air: out of control, and all over the place.
Waiting for Spring. Signs of sprigs.
Hoping for agents, not pennies, from heaven.
Want to be a Weather Girl singing, “Hallelujah, it’s Raining Agents!”
Raining men: second choice.
Today, I ask you to rejoice with me because this year, 2025, I found my dream agent!
Hopefully, I’ll have good news to share in the near future.
See you next time on February 22nd.
Veronica Jorge
P.S. (Still waiting for the raining men portion).
Books Reviewed by Veronica Jorge
Never Too Late by Kitty Bucholtz
January 19, 2025 by Kitty Bucholtz in category Writing tagged as It's Worth It, Kitty Bucholtz, readers, Series novels
A few months ago, I was wandering through the Sci-Fi Bookstore here in Malmö (Sweden) and picked up a book whose cover caught my attention. I turned it over to read the back cover and decided this looked like something I’d be interested in. Then I realized it was book fourteen in a series I’d never heard of.
I opened up the library’s website on my phone and – voila! They had the first several books of the series! The Mercy Thompson series by Patricia Briggs about a woman who shapeshifts into a coyote, was raised by werewolves, and now lives in Washington State as a mechanic with her own shop.
I immediately read book one and it is AWESOME!! I love it!
I’m now on book six, and the friend I told about it just finished book twelve already! I love this series so much – the characters, the character and story arcs, the surprises, and mostly just how believable it all is! I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve closed the book after a chapter and thought, I want to write this well.
My point to you, my writer friend, is this: book one was published in 2006. That was nineteen years ago. Nineteen years! And at least two people are going through the series for the first time and telling their friends. It’s never too late to find more readers. Never too late to make more sales.
So don’t give up. Keep writing. Keep promoting. Keep looking for your readers and encouraging them to try the books they haven’t read yet. It’s never too late to find new fans – or even super fans!
Featured Books
BEAGLEMANIA
Lauren Vancouver is the head of HotRescues, a no-kill animal shelter north of Los Angeles, but it's often human nature that puts her in the path of danger.
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4 IN THE AFTERNOON
Dates, dogs, football, monsters in the attic, misunderstandings, and unexpected discoveries abound in these four romantic comedy short stories.
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