Current Columnists

Zen & the Art of Writing, by Rebecca Crandell
Rebecca Crandell writes non-fiction, fiction, and poetry, and owns a home-based business specializing in editing. She has studied ancient matrilineal societies especially in the Mediterranean area, and has authored a speculative fictional series based upon those cultures. An excerpt from the fourth book in the series was a semifinalist in the ABNA competition. Her website is www.the7thmoonchronicles.googlepages.com.


Featured Book Review, by Leah Davidson
After three abortive attempts at grad school in three different fields, a two-year stint as a teacher of freshman composition, grammar, and literature, eight years substitute teaching in public schools, and eight more years as a bookseller for a major big box retailer which shall remain nameless, Leah Davidson has completed two novels in her adult fantasy series, The Alliance Chronicles, OF TWO MINDS and TRUE MINDS, both currently under revision, and is working on a third, as yet untitled. Leah reluctantly "moderates" a modestly popular online critique and discussion group for writers of speculative fiction when her schedule of writing, working for wages, and caring for her family permits.


Running the Gauntlet, by Ian Thomas Healy
Ian Thomas Healy is the author of The Milkman. His manuscript Deep Six: A Just Cause Novel was a Top 100 semi-finalist in the 2007 Amazon.com Breakthrough Novel Award contest. He blogs regularly at http://ianthealy.blogspot.com and http://popcornprinciple.blogspot.com. He also produces a daily webcomic, The Adventures of the S-Team, found at http://ianthealy.comicgen.com. Contact him at ian@ianthealy.com or visit his website, www.ianthealy.com for more information.


The Next Step, by Tom Maremaa
Tom Maremaa is the author of a half dozen novels, including most recently, Soldiers of Orange, a semifinalist in the ABNA competition. A graduate of Dartmouth College, he studied languages, literature and philosophy at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, and worked on his Ph.D in comparative literature at the University of California, Berkeley. He has worked as an editor, teacher of writing, tennis professional, and software developer. He lives with his wife in Silicon Valley, and travels widely to learn about and understand as many cultures and languages as he can. He can be reached at tom.maremaa@gmail.com




Columnists

In Our Words, by Jeff Fielder
Jeff Fielder is the author of Life & Death. After serving six years as a Russian Linguist in Military Intelligence, Jeff earned his degree in Journalism from the University of North Texas. Today he is a graphic designer and freelance writer and photographer in Kansas City, Mo. He is also the author of a non-fiction book, Reflections: A Folklore History of Lewisville, Texas. You can reach Jeff at jfielder13@yahoo.com.


A Novel Approach, by Scotti Cohn
Scotti Cohn is a freelance writer and copyeditor and the author of five nonfiction books published by The Globe Pequot Press, with a sixth book under contract. Her short stories have appeared in magazines for middle-grade and teen readers. She recently signed a contract with Sylvan Dell Publishing for a picture book, to be published in 2009. Her unpublished novel Sister To Dragons was a semifinalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award competition. Her Web site is: www.scotticohn.com


The Next Step, by Julie Ann Shapiro
Julie Ann Shapiro is a novelist and short story author and is widely known for her magic realism style prose.  She has completed two novels the first is Jen-Zen and the One Shoe Diaries, published by SynergEbooks.com in December 2007.  Her second novel, Three Drop Pennies is a semifinalist in Amazon’s Breakthrough Novel Contest. Julie is a Pushcart Nominee and has published over seventy short stories, including the story collection, Flashes of the Other World, published by Pulp Bits in August 2006. The author is a recurring flash fiction workshop leader at the Southern California Writers Conference. Her Web site is: www.julieannshapiro.com