Hidden Shadows came about from a strange situation involving my younger child. I admit that I’d never heard of the Shadow People until my son, who was three-years-old at the time, brought them to my attention.  Night after night, he stood at the foot of my bed, asking for safety from the shadow man who was sitting on his bed.   I would smile, pull up the covers and he would slide in and immediately fall asleep.

I’d expressed some concern to a co-worker, who gave me a brilliant idea to create a monster spray potion.  I found a small, spray bottle, made an awesome label off of the computer and that evening, gave the potion to my son.

He raised an eyebrow and asked me if this stuff was real.  I bit my lip and assured him it was, despite the fact that it was water.  I asked him to spray the shadow man the next time he visited, and he would never come back.

That very same evening, in the middle of the night, he ran into my room screaming.

“What’s wrong? I asked, thinking my heart was going to pound out from inside of my chest.

He cried, and said “I sprayed the shadow man and now he’s mad!”

My son’s continual visitations to my bed, to gain refuge from the plight of the shadow man, were causing me to lose sleep.  Unable to handle the fatigue during the work day any longer, I decided to look up shadow people to try to end this nightly occurrence. I had to get this child to sleep in his own bed. I was tired of repeating the verbiage that shadows cannot hurt you over again to no avail.

When I started hunting online, I was shocked to find over a 100,000 various websites listing the shadow people or shadow folk. I found stories and details and sometimes even pictures of them. Some of the stories matched exactly what my three-year old had spoken of.

That year with the shadow man was long and hard, but it did eventually dwindle down.  My little one claimed he was simply sick of him and told him to go away.  I wish I wish back then I would have known it could be that easy!

***

Maryann Paige was born in Brooklyn, New York, lived in Nevada and Texas and landed back in her home state.   She resides in the beautiful Hudson Valley and uses the area as the setting for her novels and stories. She attributes the idea for Hidden Shadows to her younger son, who claims to have met the shadow people on a nightly basis.  After researching and learning of them, she decided to write a novel loosely based on her son’s experiences. Please visit Maryann at www.maryannpaige.com to find out about her latest novel, Cemetery Gates.

I am asked constantly what inspired me to write Evolution of a Sad Woman, my mystery, suspense, thriller and romance novel. I always respond that it just popped into my head one day.  That is the truth.  I believe my story came from a divine presence that wanted the story told.  I can offer no other explanation.  When you pray for an answer, and in my case it was a story – and it happens – you have your answer.

I sat down at my computer and began to write my story.  I did not have to pause, to think, to decide what to write next.  It just flowed upon the paper.  My characters were around me.  I saw the story unfold inside my mind.

My novel, Evolution of a Sad Woman, is a mystery, suspense, thriller and romance book.  I have been asked how I made my story so many genres.  My answer is that the story is multiple genres.   My story is a lot like life.  It is multiple genres.   Again, this story must be told.

When asked how I made my characters so realistic, I can only respond that the story made them come to life.  They were meant to be realistic.  Each one has its own personality.  They react much the way humans do.  Each one reacts in a different way depending upon their personality.

The romance in my novel was captured only by the beautiful love between the men and Kizzy.  Their relationships were unforgettable much as this story is unforgettable. Their love made them happy at times and sad at other times much like a real love story.

It always amazes me the message that people get from a novel.  The author always has a message inside.  My readers received my message.  I never knew I had other messages lurking within the pages.  One reader told me she never realized how much a man could love a woman.  After reading my book, now she does.  The male readers found the suspense heart pounding and learned how much a book can make you feel. Others were influenced as to how one person can totally influence another person’s life. One reader was just drawn to tears.  She said they were happy and sad tears all mixed together. The sixteen-year-old Kizzy fascinated another male reader when she walked down the stairs.  He said he fell in love with her himself.  Of course, he was sixteen years old again.   Each one received their own message.  This had to be the divine presence at work.

Well, the divine presence has been at work again.  My next novel, The Bunkhouse, just popped into my head one day and so has several other future novels.    I know when I get the story from my divine presence it will surely be a divine story – just like Evolution of a Sad Woman!

Gale Laure, a native Texan, is the international selling author of Evolution of a Sad Woman, a mystery, suspense, thriller and romance novel .   She resides in a small suburban town in the Houston area with her husband and family.  Laure’s hobbies include genealogical research, movies, creating stories for the children around her, involvement in her church and people watching. She is busy at work editing her second novel, The Bunkhouse, and writing the sequel to Evolution of a Sad Woman. It is entitled Alana – Evolution of a Woman.  As mysterious as her  book, Laure writes under a pseudonym.  Adamant about maintaining her privacy and the privacy of her family, she keeps her identity a mystery!

For more information about Gale Laure or her novel, Evolution of a Sad Woman,  visit www.galelaure.com or her blog  www.evolutionofasadwoman .

One Holy Night started out as a short story back in the late 1980s. I was working with another author to develop a book of short stories that revolved around Christmas, each with a different theme, and all within a larger story that tied them together. I was assigned to write a miracle story, and what greater miracle is there than the birth of Jesus? After we each wrote several stories, however, the project was shelved and never completed. But although I forgot about the story, a seed had been planted.

Over the years I’ve done a lot of thinking about the gritty issues that impact our lives—intergenerational and interracial conflict, addictions, war, illness, death, divorce. Brokenness of one kind or another affects every family and individual. And the more I thought about it, the more I questioned how we can make sense of our lives and find reconciliation in our relationships. How can we find purpose, strength, and healing when we go through painful experiences?

I continued to think about these issues, and when the Gulf War came along in the mid 1990s, it shaped my thinking some more. Around 1999 or 2000, I was looking for a new project, so I got this story back out, reset it during the Vietnam War, and played around with it off and on. Then 9-11 happened, and right around that time a young woman in our church was diagnosed with intestinal cancer and died within a year. In the fall of 2002 my parents both died as the result of a car accident. Afterward the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were in all the headlines, and opposition was growing along with the casualty count. Commentators began to compare the war in Iraq with the quagmire of Vietnam—a conflict I was well acquainted with since I was in high school and college during those years.

So all these things started to find their way into this story set during 1967 about a family in a small town in Minnesota that is faced with these issues while the son is away, serving in Vietnam. The conclusion I came up with is pretty well summed up in the little blurb for the book: As on that holy night so long ago . . . in a world torn by sin and strife . . . to a family that has suffered heart-wrenching loss . . . there will be born a baby . . .

For a long time I didn’t think this story would ever be published and find its way to readers, but the Lord hadn’t forgotten it. One Holy Night was published in April 2008 and won the Christian Small Publishers Book of the Year in 2009. It continues to touch readers’ hearts and to receive excellent reviews, all to God’s glory.

J. M. Hochstetler writes stories that always involve some element of the past and of finding home. Born in central Indiana, the daughter of Mennonite farmers, she graduated from Indiana University with a degree in Germanic languages. She was an editor with Abingdon Press for twelve years and has published four novels. Daughter of Liberty (2004), Native Son (2005), and Wind of the Spirit (March 2009), the first three books of the critically acclaimed American Patriot Series, are set during the American Revolution. One Holy Night, a retelling of the Christmas story set in modern times, is the 2009 Christian Small Publishers Fiction Book of the Year and a finalist for the 2009 American Christian Fiction Writers Long Contemporary Book of the Year.

Hochstetler is a member of American Christian Fiction Writers, Advanced Writers and Speakers Association, Christian Authors Network, Middle Tennessee Christian Writers, Nashville Christian Writers Association, and Historical Novels Society. She and her husband live near Nashville, Tennessee.

You can find Joan online at www.jmhochstetler.com or at this book’s blog http://oneholynight.blogspot.com.

The picture book –Too Many Visitors for One Little House – is based on a true story about the crazy summer we moved into our new house in Beverly Hills and ALL THESE VISITORS came to stay.

First my sister drove in from Miami in a GIANT camper with her husband, four kids, and housekeeper. For a surprise they brought my parents and uncle from Russia.

Then I got a call from my sister-in-law in Houston. She was getting a divorce and was moving to LA.  She and the 3 kids needed a place to stay until she found a new house. She arrived with 3 children and a housekeeper.

Soon after that my mother-in-law got out of the hospital. She moved in — together with her nurse.

All together 23 people lived in our house that summer. Every evening the invaders… oops, sorry… visitors — would congregate on the front lawn. On occasion my uncle from Russia led the group in a Russian folk song. On some nights my dad joined in with Klezmer on the clarinet.

Our formerly quiet little neighborhood buzzed with music, noise from children at play, and the barking of a scraggly dog — who adopted our family that summer too. Our not-so-quiet little house began to bust at the seams. On various occasions the neighbors summoned the police to check out the “suspicious activity” at the house of the new family on the block!

I always thought I would write this story as a screen play or musical yet sixteen years later it finally manifested itself as the children’s picture book.

Susan Chodakiewitz is a writer, composer and producer. She is the founder of Booksicals Children’s Books- Encouraging the love of reading through the arts. Through her company Booksicals she has created the Booksicals on Stage literacy program which is currently presenting musical performances of the picture book Too Many Visitors for One Little House at schools, libraries, and special events.

Susan lives in Los Angeles in a lively household filled with music, three sons, a husband, a Dalmatian and lots of visitors. Susan loves picture books and when she wrote a musical based on one of her favorites, she realized it was time to start writing her own picture books. Too Many Visitors for One Little House is Susan’s debut book. You can visit her website at www.booksicals.com.

Ever since I was a child, I’ve been a what if kind of person. Not necessarily in a constructive way. It is usually just to amuse myself. I’ve written down a lot of those fantasies, and they became stories. At first, that was all my stories contained: A bunch of action and emotional dialogue, with little sense of character. Fun stuff.

At some point in my twenties, that changed. Growth as a person parallels growth as a writer. Once I started seeing others as complete people, my writing got a little deeper. Every person I see, I get a flash of what s/he would be like as a character of mine, of what backstory I’d create.  Doing that used to keep me from actually relating to people–I’d be off in my own world, dreaming with my eyes open. I learned to compartamentalize. By now, I can take a snapshot of my surroundings, and revisit it once I’m at the laptop.

All writers are mixed and folded into their work.

Shakespeare Ashes is a load of those snapshots, collected and unfiltered. I originally wrote the story in third-person, and from one character’s point of view. But this character had friends who were just as interesting. They wouldn’t shut up, so to speak. So I kept writing the things I heard them say. One day, I wrote a chapter in first person, “just because”, and I realized the story was meant for that format. I rewrote the book. It took almost a year.

There are more characters to imagine. More what ifs. And it all started with my illustrated book from the second grade, with wallpaper for a book cover and a crayon drawing pasted on front. The title was, “Forkhead”, about a boy with fork-shaped ridges in his head. Forkhead and his best friend play some pranks around school. They trade some schoolyard snaps. Then they somehow become astronauts and camp on the moon in sleeping bags, with no space suits. i remember they stayed on the moon for 999 days, and the story ended there, so my guess is, they must have gone insane…

Chris DeBrie was born in North Carolina, creating comics and stories as soon as he could hold a pencil. He wrote the millennial love story As Is as a ninth grader, publishing it a decade later. Selective Focus was the result of those homemade comic screenplays. With Shakespeare Ashes, he pulls the reader into the raw thoughts of four very different characters. DeBrie is a fan of photography, learning languages, and clean water. He lives in Virginia.

http://www.washyourhandsproductions.com/

Throughout my life, I have been fascinated with watching people and trying to understand why they do what they do…from what they eat to what they watch on TV, wear on their bodies or even believe.  I absolutely love to people watch and kids are no exception.  For example, why do a lot of boys like dinosaurs and trucks and many girls like dolls and pick dresses at an early age?  For years, I noticed how kids, especially boys, go bonkers when they see a garbage truck coming down the street.  One of the first words my nephew said was trash truck.  I also noticed there weren’t many books or toys about trash trucks that tell kids how they pick up the trash we create.  I thought, “Someone needs to write a book”.  It did not occur to me at the time that the someone I was thinking of was me!

Then one morning when I had slept late, I was awakened by the sound of the garbage truck in my neighborhood.  I opened my eyes and suddenly saw a clear image in my imagination of Colonel Trash Truck, just the way he looks on the cover of my book.  He had a friendly but determined look on his face and seemed to be telling me to write something.  I then reached for a pad of paper and began writing the poem that is now the majority Colonel Trash Truck.  It felt like I was taking dictation because it seemed like the Colonel had a lot to say about telling kids to pick up trash and recycle.

Colonel Trash Truck is a fun, likeable but admirable character, determined to fulfill him mission to win the garbage war.  What is so exciting about Colonel Trash Truck is that he appeals to kids and parents on so many levels:

• Kids love trucks, especially garbage trucks so the Colonel will get their attention.
• He is a fun, sometimes silly character that will make kids giggle.
• He is a hero that kids will look up to and want to mimic…”Karunch!” is his favorite phrase.
• Plus, he is teaching kids at an early age one of the most important positive habits they could possibly learn – to pick up trash and recycle.

At a time when so much is being discussed about the future of our planet and its natural resources, it can be challenging to get kids to understand how important their part is in saving the planet.  Colonel Trash Truck is the perfect book to get their attention and convince them to ‘join him in his quest.”

Kathleen Crawley has been an advertising executive for over fifteen years.  She resides with her husband Ronald Thomson in Redondo Beach, California.  She is a native Californian having graduated from UCLA with a B.A in sociology.  Colonel Trash Truck is her first book.  About writing for children, Kathy says, “I have a number of books I want to write for kids because I think children are fascinating.  They are open, creative, and interested in everything; they bring out the kid in me.”

You can visit Kathleen online at www.coloneltrashtruck.com.

Buy Colonel Trash Truck at Amazon.com today!

Over the years, I listened carefully to many of my wife’s stories. Her father was Commander Blake Field, a naval academy standout and veteran of the Korean, Vietnam, and Persian Gulf wars. I obviously patterned the commander in my story after him.

Prior to her parents’ divorce, my wife lived the typical military lifestyle, with the family moving every couple of years to far off lands. Often, her father went on secret cold war missions and I recalled listening to my wife tell me how frightened she was as a girl that her father would never return. That of course, sparked my interest and was the sentiment I built off of years later when I decided to write this story.

The other major incident, which inspired me a great deal, happened while I worked at a hospital in my early thirties. One morning after my shift was over, a priest I knew at the hospital divulged that a young mother died during childbirth the previous night. He used the term placenta previa and went on to explain what had happened and why he was told the woman passed on.

Together, somehow, over a fifteen- to twenty-year period these stories found their way to the forefront of my mind, and served as the mechanisms that launched my tale. From there, I simply needed to create the right setting and to apply my craft.

Garasamo Maccagnone studied creative writing and literature under noted American writers Sam Astrachan and Stuart Dybek at Wayne State University and Western Michigan University. A college baseball player as well, Maccagnone met his wife Vicki as a junior at WMU. The following year, after injuring his throwing arm, Maccagnone left school and his baseball ambitions to marry Vicki. After a two year stint at both W.B. Doner and BBDO advertising agencies, Maccagnone left the industry to apply his knowledge of marketing in a new venture in an up-and-coming industry. Maccagnone created a company called, “Crate and Fly,” and turned it from a store front in 1984 to a world-wide multi-million dollar shipping corporation by 1994.  

In the mid 90’s Maccagnone decided to fulfill the promise of his writing career, by first penning the children’s book, The Suburban Dragon and then following up with a collection of short stories and poetry entitled, The Affliction of Dreams. His literary novel, St. John of the Midfield was published in 2007, followed by his For the Love of St. Nick, which was released in 2008.  Maccagnone expanded the original version of For the Love of St. Nick and had the book illustrated for a new release in June 2009. 

Garasamo “Gary” Maccagnone lives today in Shelby Township, Michigan, with his wife Vicki and three children. You can visit Gary online at www.garasamomaccagnone.com.

The Peruke Maker by Ruby Dominguez (click on cover to purchase)

Driven by a mystical dream I had after trying on a 100% hand-tied human hair wig that I purchased online in 2004, described to be harvested from a reliable and youthful donor.

I woke-up from the dream in shivers, seemingly reliving a dark history of a young woman’s horrifying fate named Bridget and her father’s (The Peruke Maker) vindictive quest for justice beyond the grave.

Eerily, I believed that in Salem, Massachusettes from three centuries ago, the Peruke Maker’s Shop lay hidden behind a forgotten and abandoned room of an old crematorium built-up with dust and cobwebs with a finished white wig still sits by the boarded up window to this day.

Wefts of yak, goat, horse and human hair, fishhook-like needles, pomade, powder and a wooden head are laid down on a work table wherein a pair of rusty scissors, entwined with strands of Bridget’s red hair eerily rests by the wall mirror.

THE PERUKE MAKER – The Salem Witch Hunt Curse, is my first published book written as a screenplay.

It was my initial intention and still is, that it becomes a Halloween blockbuster  movie.

In the meantime to generate a buzz, I opted for self-publishing for immediate distribution to the e-world.

It didn’t take me long to discover Outskirts Press via internet and then submitted my manuscript for their consideration and acceptance.

And now my book is available in 25,000 internet stores around the world.

It took me 1 year of dreaming about it, 1 year of research work, 4 weeks to put down into written words, and another 2 years to crystallized the story.

Submitted it to Lejen Literary Consultant – Lee Levinson for script coverage analysis and after 2 months received it back with a good review.

Thereafter, it took Outskirts Press  approximately 2 weeks to review and accept

The author, Ruby Dominguez is challenged by the conflicting complexities of the past and future. Undeterred, she strokes with pen the somber and bright hues of her visions. She currently resides in San Francisco and works in the field of property management/leasing. She has been a recipient of the “Editor’s Choice Award,” by the National Library of Poetry in 1999 and 2007 for her published poems in the SHELTER OF SHADE. Visit her website at: www.outskirtspress.com/theperukemaker, and blog at www.salemcurse.wordpress.com

The premise behind A Land Beyond Ravens, the final book in the Macsen’s Treasure Series, began with the question: how did the quest for the Holy Grail get started? A very big question with no definitive answer.

Each of the four books in the series involves part of a fictional set of five sacred symbols belonging to Britain’s ancient high kings—collectively called Macsen’s Treasure. They are loosely based on the mythical “Thirteen Treasures of Britain,” and include a torque, spear, sword, grail and crown. Except for the crown, all the other pieces were separated and hidden for safekeeping during the turbulent years following the withdrawal of Roman leadership in the early fifth century.

The bare sketch for A Land Beyond Ravens required it include something about Macsen’s grail, a sense of the growing influence of the Christian church in Britain, and that Arthur would finally become high king. A few other notes floated around involving the main characters of master spy Marcus ap Iorwerth and his wife Claerwen, as well as Myrddin (Merlin). That, and the framework that history and legend provided as a backdrop, was all I had when I started writing.

Where to go from there?

First popularized in the late Middle Ages (but long after Arthur’s alleged historical period), the quest for the Holy Grail became known as a catalyst that split apart Arthur’s court and ended his reign. From where the grail stories originated is unknown, but they became inseparable from the Arthurian cycle. The Christian overtones may stem from the church’s alleged “adoption” of many pagan symbols, festivals and holidays in its early days. Using activities with which people were familiar drew them to the church. Gradually, formerly pagan holidays and symbols were Christianized and the older influences were either forgotten or outright forbidden.

What if—likewise—a grail existed that was older than Christianity and was at one time held to be sacred by a people seen as pagan? My personal theory is that this grail could also have been “adopted.” We have the church’s story of Joseph of Arimathea, a kinsman of Jesus, coming to Britain with a cup that was allegedly used either at the Last Supper or to catch the blood of Christ at the crucifixion. If the grail of the high kings was lost, conveniently, who could refute the church’s claim on it?

Based on these thoughts, I wondered: what if the seeds for the quest for the Holy Grail were planted long before it actually gained momentum? What if it was started on purpose? What if it was started by accident? All impossible to prove, but still plausible. And so began the story of A Land Beyond Ravens.

Charlie and Mama Kyna is an award-winning charming book with beautiful illustrations for children. The story and illustrations are based on my internationally acclaimed film, Going Home, which was shown worldwide, including 45 film festivals and London Film Festival.

The story is about a little stuffed animal frog, named Charlie who runs away in fear after accidentally breaking his mother’s favorite vase. Charlie makes his way to the city and meets a stuffed animal Lion, named Leo and a stuffed animal giraffe named Joe outside Mrs. Cupcake’s Bakery. The three become best friends and live inside a little orange tent outside the bakery.

After awhile, Charlie becomes homesick, misses his mother, Kyna, decides to go home and invites Leo and Joe to live with them. On the next sunny day, Charlie, Leo and Joe, journey to find Mama Kyna’s home.

The book was written because I received so much positive responses for the film, Going Home. My passion is to tell you this story.

My inspiration for writing the book comes from my love of animals and stuffed animals. They are so cute! In addition, when I am listening to new age music especially music by Enya, I am so inspired to be even more creative.

Diana Rumjahn earned a bachelor’s degree in social science from San Francisco State University where she currently works at the College of Creative Arts . She wrote and directed the film Going Home which has been screened at venues worldwide. She is also the author of the new children’s picture book, Charlie and Mama Kyna. Rumjahn resides in San Francisco and is currently at work on film and book projects.  You can visit her website at www.dianarumjahn.com.