The Longest Trek

Book signings are always fun, and next Saturday November 10th I’m making my longest trek to date to promote Shepherd’s Fall. I will join Larry Kerr author of By the Light of the Moon at Eljay’s Books in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania at 2pm.

So join us if you are in the area.

Larry was born and grew up in western Pennsylvania. He graduated from Lock Haven University and attended graduate school at Penn State. He worked various jobs before beginning his newspaper career.

Larry was a reporter/photographer at two small newspapers in western Pennsylvania prior to taking a position as a copy editor at a newspaper in south central Pennsylvania. He held that job for nearly ten years until moving into web programming. He now works for an agency that serves the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

Always interested in fiction, Larry began writing in earnest in 2004. His first novel, By the Light of the Moon, was published in March 2011. His second novel, which is historical fiction and set in the Civil War, came out in September 2012.

In addition to his first novel, several of Larry’s short stories have been published and he won honorable mentions in two local short story contests.

Seeing Is Not Always Believing

As I get ready to leave for Gettysburg for the 2012 Horrorfind Convention, I’m reminded of this ghost story. I have to admit out of all the stories I’ve been told since I started writing paranormal suspense novels, this is one of the strangest.

Even before I start to relate the tale, I have to disclose that Brad is a total skeptic, he does not believe in anything supernatural or paranormal, and this is his story. He tries to explain this event as a mass hallucination. I even find that hard to believe, but that’s just me.

When Brad was a young boy, as opposed to the young man he has become, he visited the Gettysburg battle field with his Boy Scout troop. Of course this included a stop at Devil’s Den. Now that area of the battle field has its fair share of ghost sightings, but he didn’t see anything unusual at the rocks.

The troop enjoyed their time exploring the large rocks and then started to follow a trail that led up to Little Round Top. Brad explained that when he was a boy more trees had grown up in this area and were later removed to make the battlefield more authentic to the period of the actual battle. I seem to remember hearing this myself. At the time his troop followed this path, it went through some thick trees and came out in a clearing that was bordered on both sides with split rail fences.

When the troop stepped into the clearing, Brad said it felt like time had slowed down, and a golden retriever ran out across the clearing. The dog seemed to move in slow motion. What must have only been a few minutes felt like it spanned into hours as the dog bolted across the clearing and entered the forest on the other side. When the dog dove into the brush time snapped back into place. All the boys and even their adult leaders had experienced that same slow motion feeling watching the dog.

The path did not continue past the clearing so they returned to the road and followed another trail up to Little Round Top.

A few weeks later Brad returned to the battle field with his parents and wanted to show them where he had seen the dog, but they could not find the path that lead back to the clearing.

Although Brad did some research and discovered Golden Retrievers were used to carry messages during the Civil War he still dismisses the event as a mass hallucination.

After hearing this story, I did a little due diligence and did in fact find references in the form of a quote from http://www.esdaw.eu/dogwork.htm  ESDAW European Society of Dog and Animal Welfare, “[t]he American Pit Bull Terrier was used in the American Civil War to protect, [and] send messages”.

So it does appear that dogs were used in the battle fields.

I’m not sure what to think about all these ghost animal stories I’ve been hearing, but maybe I will take a dog biscuit with to Gettysburg this weekend, just in case.

An Oasis in the dessert: The Write Stuff Conference

The writer’s journey is predominantly a solitary quest, spending many hours alone in front of the keyboard, but every so often an oasis rises up in the distance promising a reprieve from the solitude. The Greater Lehigh Valley Writer’s Group’s The Write Stuff Conference is one such event.

Held at The Four Points Sheraton located at 3400 Airport Road Allentown, PA, this conference once again offered a chance to meet with old friends and to make new ones. Aside from the camaraderie, there were also, as is always the case at this conference, great educational opportunities. I particularly enjoyed Hana Haatainen Caye’s The Business of Writing - Ways to Make Money as a Freelance Writer, and Mindy Starns Clark’s Making Mr. Right. (Although as a paranormal suspense writer I must admit I was disappointed that Mindy’s session was not about the Frankenstein monster.) Actually, her lecture on adding romance to genres outside of the romance novel was very informative. Both women inspired me to try new things in my writing.


James Scott Bell entertained, educated, and moved us with his keynote speech “Storytellers Save the World: How Fiction Keeps Us From Going Nuts.”


I left The Write Stuff Conference once again refreshed and ready to continue my own writer’s journey. If you have never attended this excellent conference, then I highly recommend you consider it next year.

The Book Signing

Meeting a published author is always a treat. Today I went to Tina Crone and Susan Kelley’s (Susan Gourley) book signing at the MIDTOWN SCHOLAR BOOKSTORE, 1302 North Third St. Harrisburg. And although I know both these talented authors, it was still a delight to see them meeting and greeting old and new fans of their work.

Before I talk about the book signing, I want to comment on the MIDTOWN SCHOLAR BOOKSTORE. I stepped through the front door, and found the shop filled with people. There was a band playing music, people sitting at tables enjoying coffee and other delicious looking treats, and customers perusing the shelves. Brick and mortar stores that continue to create an environment that unites readers and writers in such a vibrant way will always draw an audience. I must say, I have visited this store a few times and always enjoy the large selection of used and new books and the excellent atmosphere.

Now back to the book signing: I purchased a copy of Susan’s novel The Keepers of Sulbreth, book one in the Futhark Chronicles. It is available in paperback and also e-book; look for it if you couldn’t make it to the signing today. Just reading the first page, I’m hooked.

I also picked up a copy of Tina Crone’s Speculative Journeys. I can highly recommend this collection of Tina’s short stories because I have read several of them. Go now, run don’t walk, and purchase a copy. Tina creates excellent speculative fiction that will take you to distant moons, the back street of dystopian societies, and even the grave. Keep an eye on this up-and-coming author.

In this age of drastically shifting distribution channels for publication, it still all comes down to one reader connecting with one author’s words. That is when the magic of literature occurs. Both these authors will transport you to amazing new places through their work. For me it was once again a thrill to meet someone who creates that magic.

Write From the Gut

At the recent Writer’s Digest Conference in New York on January 21^st, one of the editors in the editor’s panel (unfortunately, I cannot give credit where due, because my memory fails me on her name.) suggested to the gathered assembly of writers, that in order to connect with an agent, editor, and reading audience they should write from the gut.

At first glance this sounds simplistic. But as I thought about this later, I realized that so often we (as authors,) get so caught up in all the trappings of creating the technically correct story that has active voice, strong character development, and a dynamic plot that we pray will sweep our audience away, we forget about the passion that drove us to create the story in the first place.

By the ninth or fiftieth draft we are so caught up in polishing that the second guessing begins; maybe the story starts too slow, or… fill in the blank, that we forget what our gut told us in the first place. The passion and instinct that drove us to tell the story is lost under a list of do’s and don’ts and we undermine our own story telling instincts.


Like the old saying goes: no guts no glory, so the moral is write with passion, write with faith, and write the story the way your guts tell you to.