In our darkest hour, can a deceased love offer guidance? Emily Mason has never been able to escape the grief she feels over the death of her childhood love and hero, Danny – though it’s been almost nine years since he passed away. She will sometimes even sleep on his grave for comfort. She can’t seem to do anything right in the eyes of her husband, Scott – who reprimands Emily about everything from her messy handwriting, to singing Christmas songs outside of the month of December, to her inability to bring home enough groceries in her bike basket. She depends on her reluctantly psychic older sister, Ericka, to always come to her rescue when she is in peril – which is often. Her fears are many – she’s terrified of people dressed in costumes, thunderstorms, and she refuses to drive a car. Just when Emily’s life begins to completely unravel, Danny leaves her a sign that can’t be ignored. Emily is faced with making a decision that will take her far away from the security of her sister’s care, and the comfort of being near Danny’s final resting place. Sunflowers Signs is a quirky, funny, and emotional story about love, family, and the connections we keep with those who have passed over to the other side. Previously published in three parts.
Meet T. Grace Bailey
I am a believer in the spirit carrying on after death. I probably spend more time thinking about this than the average person, and intend on writing a lot more about this subject!
Late one evening in the summer of 2017, I was sitting outside alone under a stunningly clear night sky, doused in bug spray, crying. I’d had a good bit of wine.
I had pretty much hit a wall with my stress level at my sales job – and the desire to snip myself loose so I that could dive into writing, tugged at me constantly. But I was terrified to make that leap. That night, I tilted my head back (taking care not to spill my Chardonnay), and as I often do when I’m upset, I reached out to the spirits of my dad and nana. With tears streaming down my face, I said to the sky, “You could help me you know.”
The second the words left my lips, the biggest shooting star I’ve ever seen in my life shot right over the top of me. It was so large and close, I thought at first my town was being bombed. When it disappeared as quickly as it had arrived, I laughed and cried at the same time, and could imagine my dad and nana holding back grins, turning to each other and saying, “I think we got her attention that time.”
They did. And here I am, following my dream. If a perfectly timed shooting star makes me believe in myself, so be it.
My quirky three-part book, Sunflower Signs, looks at how our deceased loved ones reach out to us. I hope it will make you laugh, cry, and consider the possibilities.
This inspirational collection of ingenious tales that include schemes for getting your life back is woven into a series of hilarious triumphs filled with love, grief, and mischief. High-spirited shenanigans will motivate you to move ahead after a loss, breakup, or divorce. No matter what you’ve been through, every reader (you) will achieve a heightened sense of happiness and a deeper level of confidence than you ever imagined. This book supersedes everything you’ve been told about healing. Uncover unusual secrets for getting on with your life after a big disappointment or being dumped. You’ll be motivated to revitalize your life in ways you never thought of. Spoiler Alert: You’re going to learn more than how to fake your death and dance naked, with dignity. (You’ll love those chapters.) Wine glasses raised here. You’ll not only learn how to tie knots when you’re at the end of your rope, refocus your energy, and outsmart a bear; you will find remarkable ideas to enhance your notoriety before you croak. Begin rejuvenating and basking in self-appreciation and exhilaration. Learn how to get there in one spectacular day! PLUS: a sure-fire plan for moving forward. Discover the one true secret to living a meaningful life. You can laugh, you may cry, but you will ultimately be entertained and redirected. You’ll find that you’re not alone.
This Book is Full of
Encouragement
Enlightenment
Recipes
Affirmations
Life Hacks
Travel Flub Fixes
Fun facts about potatoes, dogs, cows, turtles, dolphins…
Gut-busting inspiration to create happiness all around you
Gleeful tactics to escape humiliation, balconies, & boredom
If you enjoyed bestsellers like Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert, where she takes her life out of the comfort zone, you’ll love Coffee Cups & Wine Glasses‘ real-life examples of haphazard accomplishments. It’s nothing like the book He’s Just Not That Into You, where Greg Behrendt gives you the courage to walk away. You’re probably already walking. Coffee Cups & Wine Glasses is more like: Dance, Rejoice, Laugh, Live, Excel, and Get Your Life Back – no matter who isn’t into you.
It’s a Journal
It’s a Vision Board
It’s entertaining, comical, and inspiring
You deserve more than an old mattress and day-old coffee. Follow the 10 simple steps to getting over Richard Cranium (AKA Dick Head) and learn to live as if you’re going through Hell. Hint: Keep going. Coffee Cups & Wine Glasses is the perfect gift for yourself, your girlfriends, and anyone who needs reassurance, a comical boost, a kick in the rear, or a reason to believe how brave, lovable, and magnificently courageous they are. Be Brave. Scroll to the top and click the “Buy Now” button to find proof that your life can be rewarding and fulfilling!
Meet Debbie Seagle
Debbie Seagle lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia near most of the things she loves: family, friends, dirt, water, and mountain air. She has lived in several countries and all around the USA working as an airshow director, marketing director, operations manager, and Top Secret senior technical writer for some of the world’s unknown oracles.
Debbie authored a Sunday column in the New Orleans Times-Picayune, was a US Embassy newsletter author/editor/publisher, events director, teenage lifeguard, young military wife grocery-bagger for tips, shampoo girl, united airshow grunt (UAG), senior census field manager, and systems trainer to assist in finding bad guys.
When she isn’t hiding at the cabin writing to you, Debbie enjoys being with her family, scuba diving, snow skiing, sailing, gardening, hiking, kayaking, hanging with friends, and good wine in a magnificent wine glass. She once shared a bottle of $1,600 wine with a celebrity. It wasn’t any better than her favorite $28 bottle. That was a life lesson.
She has degrees and certificates for various other obscure vocations, but her lifelong endeavor to become an accomplished juggler has not transpired – yet. Someday she will DOiT.
Random Facts about me (from Debbie Seagle): 1. I’ve jumped out of an airplane 3 times (with a parachute). 2. My Indian name is “Little Whirlwind.” 3. I played the clarinet in the high school concert band. 4. Colonel Sanders touched my boob. 5. Don Hoe grabbed my butt. 6. Bill Clinton winked at me. 7. I had lunch with Nicholas Sparks. He talked to me. 8. I hung out all day with Jeff Foxworthy (once). He signed my sign. 9. Davy Jones & I spent a day at his horse stall. He sang a song to me. My life is complete. 10. I still sometimes twirl a fire baton. 11. I was married to a US Marine and moved 42 times. 12. I’ve been interviewed on TV and radio 72 times. 13. I’ve been to Camp David twice. 14. I planned an international gala ball in the Eiffel Tower. 15. I have 3 sons and 8 grandchildren (so far). 16. I once could do back walkovers on a balance beam. 17. I call my bathroom The Jim. I go to The Jim every morning! 18. I’ve touched 4 US Presidents (I shook their hands, ok?). 19. I’m an expert in fitted-sheet folding. 20. Bananas make my throat itch. 21. I love my truck.
A barracks full of beautiful boys. A girl in disguise, living among them.
It’s the 14th century, and the longbow is king. But in the northern European principality of Ardennes, archery isn’t just the nation’s defense. It’s the national obsession.
MEET THE JOURNEYS 12 young Journeyman archers, the best in the country 2 years of public competitions, in which looks count almost as much as ability 6 will win a coveted membership in the Archers’ Guild of St. Sebastian 1 will become the prince’s new Guardsman
MEET MARIEKE 15-year-old Marieke is as obsessed with St. Sebastian’s as everyone else in Ardennes. Only it’s the middle ages, and girls just don’t become elite archers. Except Marieke’s prospects as a girl aren’t promising either, after a well-timed kick from a mule has left her with a face that’s badly scarred and ruined for marriage. But when circumstances force her to leave her old life behind and flee to the guild for refuge, there are only two things Marieke really knows about the place. One is that a mysterious accident ended her own father’s time as a Journey. The other? There are no women allowed inside St. Sebastian’s. Marieke knows disguising herself as a boy and infiltrating the guild means embarking on a dangerous deception. But it may be her only chance to find out the truth about her father’s past and to stop a murderous plot from coming to fruition. When the dashing young Journeyman Tristan takes her under his wing as his squire, she’s got to stay – at least long enough to help him beat out his brutal arch-rival to win the competitions. Keeping her identity a secret will be hard. Living in close quarters with a pack of gorgeous boys? That will be harder still. But the hardest thing of all will be keeping the vow she makes for herself: to see Tristan become the next Guardsman, without ever letting him find out she’s a girl – a girl, who loves him.
Part Robin Hood and part Princess Bride, with a pinch of Mulan and a dash of Cyrano de Bergerac in the mix, TheArchers of St. Sebastian I: Journeys is a humorous action and adventure saga inspired by late medieval/early Renaissance Belgium and packed with romance, wit, and longbow archery. Perfect for adults who love young adult themes,Journeys is an escape into the past that reads more like romantic historical fantasy than pure historical fiction.
Unrequited love? Ugly heroines who stay ugly? Friendship, coming of age, romance, adventure, and plenty of archery competitions? A unique setting inspired by the glorious city of Bruges, with a richly imagined, immersive world set within the walls of a male-only archers’ guild?Journeys: The Archers of Saint Sebastianhas it all, so if you’re looking for a great escape, don your disguise and join Marieke as she enters the forbidden world of Saint Sebastian’s, and prepare to fall in love with the Journeys – that is, the twelve best and most beautiful archers in all of Ardennes, the Journeyman archers of St. Sebastian’s.
Meet Jeanne Roland
Roland hails from Davis, California, where she spent most of her youth lounging at the pool, soaking up the sun, and daydreaming. She had a key ring that read ‘I’m running away to join the circus,’ and her favorite moment of the day was when the local movie theater went dark, and the slogan ‘escape to the movies’ appeared on the screen. As an adult, her passions include all things melodramatic and beautiful — everything from classic movies, British romantic poetry, ancient tragedy and epic, to Italian opera. She is now a professor of Classics in a small midwestern town, where she lives with her Greek husband, her fraternal twins, and a Bernese mountain dog named Franco Corelli.
In a divided world plagued by oppression and persecution, a monster hunter and renegade mage must embark on a dangerous adventure to awaken a long-dormant dragon and challenge an all-powerful evil force.
Queen Morflava’s reign of terror seems unstoppable as the malevolent mage sows division and hate among humans and fae. With the Warlord Council disbanded and the Citadel destroyed in the devastating Mage Purge, the continent is desperate for a hero.
Cali, last of the Mancar War-Clan, final Apprentice of the Mecha-Mage, and survivor of the Mage Purge, can no longer ignore the call of her dying father’s last words. She must reclaim a powerful artifact said to be her birthright. An object capable of reawakening dragons and challenging Morflava’s rule.
On this perilous journey, Cali is pursued by the Queen’s army, led by her twin brother who betrayed her parents’ legacy by serving as enforcer for Morflava. This murderous horde will stop at nothing to prevent Cali from succeeding in her mission to overthrow the Queen.
But Cali isn’t alone, as an unlikely band of tenacious survivors and outcasts join her in taking on this perilous quest. As they trek over brutal mountains and desert landscapes, will the group of companions be able to resurrect a dragon and inspire a revolution of hope, or will the world be forever caught in the grip of despair under Morflava’s iron fist?
Fans of Wheel of Time, The Stormlight Archives, and Lord of the Rings will love this sweeping new epic fantasy adventure.
Meet E.S. Matthew
Inspired by his years teaching high school literature, E.S. Matthew writes retro-fantasy to rehabilitate the classic genre for modern young readers and contemporary adults. When he’s not teaching or writing, he cooks elaborate meals inspired by his favorite movies and books or accompanies his daughter on guitar for improvised Broadway numbers.
Deep inside every dream lies a door. It waits to be opened, but most never see it.
A world exists inside the minds of all who are aware. Chances are you’ve been there before, but surely you don’t remember.
For dreams are designed to be forgotten in the morning, and you have a real life to live.
The funny thing about real life though is that sometimes the assumed trivial and discarded things can hold the most fantastic opportunities.
The Academy of Zarmore only accepts students with this type of discernment. Follow Teddy Lancaster on his journey to the land outside of time, and discover ‘that which is unseen’.
Meet Johnny Rapp
Johnny Rapp was born and raised in California. He is a U.S. Air Force veteran, has been traveling off and on nomadically since 2015, and is fluent in Spanish.
PRANKS. OIL. PROTEST. JOKES BETWEEN NEWLYWEDS. AND ONE HILARIOUS SIEGE OF A MAJOR CORPORATION.
Remmy grows up with Beth in Bellhammer, Illinois as oil and coal companies rob the land of everything that made it paradise. Under his Grandad, he learns how to properly prank his neighbors, friends, and foes. Beth tries to fix Remmy by taking him to church. Under his Daddy, Remmy starts the Bell Hammer Construction Company, which depends on contracts from Texarco Oil. And Beth argues with him about how to build a better business. Together, Remmy and Beth start to build a great neighborhood of “merry men” carpenters: a paradise of s’mores, porch furniture, newborn babies, and summer trips to Branson where their boys pop the tops of off the neighborhood’s two hundred soda bottles. Their witty banter builds a kind of castle among a growing nostalgia.
Then one of Jim Johnstone’s faulty Texarco oil derricks falls down on their house and poisons their neighborhood’s well.
Poisoned wells escalate to torched dog houses. Torched dog houses escalate to stolen carpentry tools and cancelled contracts. Cancelled contracts escalate to eminent domain. Sick of the attacks from Texaco Oil on his neighborhood, Remmy assembles his merry men:
“We need the world’s greatest prank. One grand glorious jest that’ll bloody the nose of that tyrant. Besides, pranks and jokes don’t got no consequences, right?”
:: PRAISE FOR LANCELOT SCHAUBERT AND BELL HAMMERS ::
“Schaubert recounts a mischievous man’s eight decades in Illinois’s Little Egypt region in his picaresque debut. Remmy’s life of constant schemes and pranks and a lifelong feud with classmate Jim Johnstone and the local oil drilling company proves consequential. This is a hoot.”
— Publisher’s Weekly
“BELL HAMMERS is written in a style not unworthy of John Kennedy Toole and William Faulkner – the vivid characterization of Southern ethnography commingled with stark, episodic spectacle breathes with the spirit of quintessential Americana. It is a text I would happily assign in an American Novel class and would expect it to yield satisfying discourse alongside works in the canon, whether beside the sardonic prose of Mark Twain or the energetically painful narratives of Toni Morrison.”
— Dr. Anthony Cirilla
“Schaubert’s words have an immediacy, a potency, an intimacy that grab the reader by the collar and say, ‘Listen, this is important!’ Probing the bones and gristle of humanity, Lancelot’s subjects challenge, but also offer insights into redemption if only we will stop and pay attention.”
— Erika Robuck, national bestselling author of Hemingway’s Girl
“Myth, regret, the lore of our heritage and the subtle displays of our castes — no one so accurately and imaginatively captures the joys and sorrows of life in the Midwest as Schaubert does here. BELL HAMMERS is a Tree Grows in Brooklyn as told by Gabriel Garcia Marquez if Marquez lived in rural Illinois and only told stories to his grandkids. Seriously a delight to read.”
— Colby Williams, author of the Axiom Gold Medal winning book Small Town, Big Money
“Loved BELL HAMMERS because Lancelot wrote about people who don’t get written about enough and he did it with humor, compassion, and heart.”
— Brian Slatterly, author of Lost Everything and editor of The New Haven Review
“I’m such a fan of Lancelot Schaubert’s work. His unique view and his life-wisdom enriches all he does. We’re lucky to count him among our contributors.”
— Therese Walsh, author of The Moon Sisters and Editorial Director of Writer Unboxed
Meet Lancelot Schaubert
Two excerpts of Lancelot Schaubert’s (lanceschaubert.org) debut novel BELL HAMMERS sold to The New Haven Review ( Yale’s Institute Library ) and The Misty Review, while a third excerpt was selected as a finalist for the last Glimmer Train Fiction Open in history. He has also sold poetry, fiction, and nonfiction to TOR (MacMillan), The Anglican Theological Review, McSweeney’s, Poker Pro’s World Series Edition, The Poet’s Market, Writer’s Digest, and many similar markets.
Spark + Echo chose him for their 2019 artist in residency, commissioning him to write four short stories.
He has published work in anthologies like Author in Progress, Harry Potter for Nerds, and Of Gods and Globes — the last of which he edited and featured stories by Juliet Marillier (whose story was nominated for an Aurealis award), Anne Greenwood Brown, Dr. Anthony Cirilla, LJ Cohen, FC Shultz, and Emily Munro. His work Cold Brewed reinvented the photonovel for the digital age and caught the attention of the Missouri Tourism Board who commissioned him to write and direct a second photonovel, The Joplin Undercurrent, in partnership with award-winning photographer, Mark Neuenschwander.
He remains a committed husband to the grooviest girl on earth and is a public advocate for more free range trees. You know, Ents.
Famous literary critic, George Dixon, is found dead. The murder weapons are several manila folders. The killer might be one person or a committee. This guy had more enemies than Julius Caesar. The only witness is PI Claire DeNardo, who spotted Iola Taylor, well-known author, fleeing the scene of the crime. Too bad earlier that day Iola became Claire’s client. When Iola insists she was merely in the wrong place, wrong time, Claire sets out to discover the truth. Hampering her investigation is the involvement of Michael Bucanetti, the notorious gangster Claire tangled with in previous cases. He’s throwing his mobster weight around and it may crush the life out of Claire and everyone she cares about. As the body count rises and the danger mounts, Police Detective Brian Corrigan pressures Claire to step back from the case and step up their romance. But can’t a girl have it all? And stay alive?
Meet Carole Fowkes
I was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, where my cozy mystery series, The Terrified Detective, takes place. After living for a time in Tampa and Chicago, I settled in Dallas, Texas, with my husband, Greg. Although my jobs have been in nursing and training, I’ve been writing for many years. I began by writing short stories of unusual, weird, or downright scary situations. When I switched to novels, my natural choice was to write mysteries since I have very happy memories of watching whodunits with my mother.
Award-winning novelist and cultural critic Strobe Witherspoon interrogates his own profession. It goes terribly.
“Wildly entertaining …Sometimes sad and sometimes hilarious, Witherspoon’s timely metafictional novel explores the ways (mis)information can shape public discourse in the digital media age.” – Booklife by Publishers Weekly
”Strikingly original …an innovative literary experiment that supplies a thoughtful commentary on the ‘discourse virus’ of our age …Witherspoon tackles a broad spectrum of media, including comically scathing excerpts from tweets, podcasts, blogs, and even academic journals and also keenly exposes the ways in which Strobe, the character, is implicated in his own online assault, due to his obsessive attachment to public life.” – Kirkus Reviews
OOF explores the role of satire in a society lurching from one ridiculous crisis to the next, where media outlets rely on clicks to stay alive and everything is filtered through a lens of anger and misinformation.
———— Strobe Witherspoon just sold his latest satirical novel for a lot of money. The book in question, FLOTUS: A Memoir, is a fictitious autobiography about a former first lady of the United States reflecting on years of misery at the hands of her much older POTUS husband. When a chapter is leaked in advance of the book’s publication, an Online Outrage Fiesta (OOF) ensues via news outlets, blogs, Twitter, troll farms, and everything in between. Witherspoon has his life placed under a microscope. Family secrets are exposed. Now, an anthology has been put together to document Witherspoon’s downfall—and settle the score. ————
”an impressive achievement of unflinching honesty from a noteworthy talent, as resonant and relevant as it is entertaining …OOF tugs at the threads that connect American cynicism with radical extremism and weaves a character-rich tapestry of insight …Each voice, whether of a New Yorker journalist or an Internet influencer, is rendered with uncanny fidelity. Perhaps most masterful is that key events are not depicted but merely alluded to, allowing the text to provide an elegant framework for a more personal story painted almost invisibly in the negative space.”– BlueInk Review
Meet Strobe Witherspoon
Witherspoon’s first novel, furtl, was a 2014 Kirkus Reviews book of the year selection. The absurd near future of that novel became not-so-absurd one year later.
What would happen if a politician decided to tell the truth—the whole truth? Richard Youngblood, aspiring Congressman, is about to find out. He’s running on a platform of honesty and transparency—and against the advice of his friends and advisers he’s decided to start with himself. His autobiography will lay his entire life bare before voters just days before the election. And what a life he’s had. Born in a commune and named Richard Milhous Nixon Youngblood as an angry shot at his absent father, Richard grows up in the spotlight, the son of an enigmatic fugitive and the grandson of a Republican senator. He’s kidnapped and rescued, kicked out of college for a prank involving turkeys, arrested in Hawaii while trying to deliver secrets to the CIA…Dick Nixon Youngblood’s ready to tell all. He’ll even tell his readers about the Amandas—three women who share a name but not much else, and who each have helped shape and define the man he’s become. Are voters really ready for the whole truth? Are you? Pianist in a Bordello is a hilarious political romp through the last four decades of American history, from a narrator who is full of surprises.
Meet Mike C. Erickson
Mike C. Erickson grew up in the idyllic college town of Logan, Utah, but because of a twist of fate he graduated from high school in Honolulu. He left Hawaii brimming with aloha and enrolled at Utah State, where he was awarded two degrees and self-proclaimed minor intellectual status, which was of dubious value when the US Army invited him to vacation in South-East Asia. Ten days after leaving Vietnam, he began decades of dispensing pearls of wisdom as a high school history teacher, academic decathlon coach, and on occasion, as a community college instructor in the Sacramento area. Mike and his wife Trudy, have two grown sons and a grandson born soon after this novel is published. When not in Hawaii or another exotic locale, they live in Gold River, California. This is his first novel.
Three young, inexperienced magicians must defend their world against a wave of increasingly difficult opponents. That’s what Magi of Gaia is essentially about, but if you’re only looking for fierce, hard-hitting action, you’ll overlook the humor, kindness, and drama that bring this world to life. Sure, you might be happy with the amazing uses of magic and the broken noses, but you’ll miss out on seeing the quick temper of the usually-composed Jorri, the softheartedness escaping from Yuna’s severe demeanor, or Eren’s courage overcoming her self-doubt.
This trio, the Magi, are the imperfect heroes—human in spite of their incredible powers—and are tasked with keeping their world from falling into darkness. When a magician enters Gaia’s realm, it’s the Magi’s job to find them, determine whether or not they are hostile, and deal with the situation appropriately. It’s a lot to ask, and things aren’t helped by the appearance of a woman claiming to be a deity whose sole joy seems to be breaking the Magi’s spirit … and their bodies. This woman shows her powers seldomly, but when she does, she breaks the very logic of their world and makes it look effortless.
Come and read more. Find out how our heroines can laugh and joke around, even under the toughest of circumstances. See if you can figure out why Eren, a girl who should be a beloved hero, is treated as though she’s diseased. Discover why 80% of Gaia’s population is … female?!
It seems Gaia is different from Earth is more ways than you might think.
Meet T.E. Holtz
T.E. Holtz is an American writer who first started drafting the original Magi of Gaia (then titled “Welcome to Gaia”) as a playful hobby online in 2014. After a year of writing for fun, Holtz saw that the story could be reworked in a meaningful way with more excitement, better characterization, and a more, fuller view of this new world called Gaia. Finally, after years of tweaking and developing, Holtz ended a nearly 10-year employment at one of the world’s largest retailers in hopes of pursuing a love grander than the universe—a love for the world of Gaia and all the beloved characters than inhabit it.
