We’re five months into the year and for me, 2025 is delivering a heaping tablespoon of stress and turbulence on a personal level but on the writing front, the outlook continues to be bright.
To recap, my SF adventure tale “In the Span of a Heartbeat” was published in January in Black Cat Weekly online magazine issue #176. This was my first time submitting and publishing with them. I’m pleased to report that at the end of April, Black Cat Weekly accepted a supernatural story from me called “Where Halloween Never Ends.” It will be published in one of their October 2025 issues. Stay tuned for more info. It’s an honor to work with editor and longtime genre writer John Betancourt.
The Greater Lehigh Valley Writers Group, of which I’m a member, publishes a themed anthology every odd year. For 2025, the theme and title are Writing a Wrong and I’m pleased to have my ghost story “Give Them Peace” included. It’s the first short story featuring Miranda Lorensen, my psychic-medium protagonist from my novels Testing the Prisoner, By Your Side, and Like Mother, Like Daughters.
In early April, I learned that I’d won two first place awards from the Pennsylvania Press Club—one for my novel, By Your Side, and one for a time travel story I wrote last year called “A Thorne in Time” about a scientist and detective who travel back twenty years to stop a serial killer. That story was published in Ruth and Ann’s Guide to Time Travel (Celestial Echo Press, August 2024). All first place winners in every category are forwarded to the National Federation of Press Women communications contest to compete against other state affiliates. Results will be announced in June.
My next science fiction story comes out on May 20th. It’s called “Isaac Geary’s Instant Utopia” and will be published in a utopian science fiction anthology called Bright Mirror.
Finally, I have a supernatural tale called “A Certain Magic” that will be included in a charity anthology later this year from Year of the Book Press in partnership with the Mindful Writers Retreat. The retreat takes place every February and October in Ligonier, PA nestled in the Laurel Highlands region of the Allegheny Mountains. I attend the five-day October retreat almost every year as the area is gorgeous in autumn.What’s next? Well, all new writing projects are on hold until I finish a series of home improvements through spring and summer. However, I’m compiling the first of a two-volume collection of my short stories that have been published over the past decade. I hope to have it out by the end of the year with volume two slated for 2026… if all goes well.
Once the renovations are over, I hope to resurrect a project I started two years ago—a sequel to Like Mother, Like Daughters. The first draft was nearly finished before I put the project aside to work on a spate of short stories for various publishers and deal with a series of personal and family matters. At least I’ll return to the project with fresh eyes, which can’t hurt.
I’ll be back with updates about Bright Mirror and Retreat in the coming weeks. I’ll probably post them to the “What’s New?” section on the front page of this site. Until then, be safe, be healthy, and enjoy a good book!
