Mystery

Patricia Sprinkle

www.patriciasprinkle.com

For fifteen years Teensie MacAllester deferred her own life to care for her ailing aunt and mother and her aging father. He promised that when he died he would leave her his magnificent marble house and enough money to go on caring for elderly people in it. Friday’s Daughter is the story of the outrageous things Teensie does when she discovers her father has failed to change his will and that she must share equally with two sisters and, at forty, must create a new life for herself.

           Patricia Sprinkle’s roots lie deep in Carolina soil and she has lived most of her adult life in the South, much of it in Georgia. She has written 30 Southern mysteries, four Southern novels, and several non-fiction books.

Mystery

Teresa Lynn

Eugenie Escousse is a thirty-nine year old married career woman and her biological clock is ticking. For the past year she has undergone monthly donor inseminations, fertility medications, lab tests, and surgery -- all with negative pregnancy results.

Dixon Hearne

www.dixonhearne.com

Plantatia High-toned and Lowdown Stories of the South -- A collection of thirty-four new stories written by Dixon Hearne, resonating with the voices of laughter and human struggle. Tales of discrimination and comeuppances, love and connections, preachin’ and prayin’, and facing choices along life’s journey.

          Thanksgiving to Christmas, A Patchwork of Stories, an anthology edited by Dixon Hearne. The stories and memoirs in this wonderful new collection sing with joy and celebration, reminiscence and longing, humor and hope. The magic of Christmas as seen through the eyes of a child, selfless acts of giving, hearty laughs, and heartfelt gratitude are all captured eloquently within these pages.

          Dixon Hearne, Ph.D., lives in southern California, though his writing draws greatly from the rich images in his daily life growing up along the graceful river traces and bayous in West Monroe, Louisiana. After many years of writing for research journals, his interests turned toward fiction -- and writing in a different voice. 

Philip L. Levin

www.doctorsdreams.net

Inheritance --Tricia Tracy anticipates receiving a multimillion dollar Inheritance on her twenty-fifth birthday in four months. She may not live that long. In her Corpus Christi newspaper column, Tracy’s Tidbits, she accuses Lupe Garcia of murdering his wife. He stalks her and attacks her, her life saved by Bill, a mysterious sailor. Tricia falls madly in love with Bill, and breaks up with her boyfriend, Mel, a police detective.

          Tricia’s and Mel’s paths crisscross in their investigations of a cocaine ring, the mysterious death of one of Tricia’s friends, and a bribery scandal involving millions of dollars in damages. Tricia and her Inheritance face a determined menace, with her very life hanging in the balance.

          Consuto and the Rain God and Ndovu the Elephant are two beautiful children's books with colorful photographs taken by Levin in Kenya and in China.

Children's Fiction

Lynda Deniger

Children’s Author and storyteller Lynda Deniger has been entertaining and educating children for years. Her books in the Salty Seas Series include an audio CD and sing-along song with catchy fun tunes based on each story.

            Salty Seas & His Heroic Friends relates the adventures of the Salty Seas shrimp boat, includes the Blessing of the Fleet and the Shrimp Festival and promotes friendship and teamwork.

            Patti Pelican and the Gulf Oil Spill helps children understand the importance and value of preserving and protecting our environment while conveying a message of hope and inspiring environmental stewardship.

            Deniger is a member of the National Storytelling Network. She is listed on Louisiana Performing Artists Roster and a performing artist with Young Audiences of New Orleans. She was the featured storyteller for Literacy Week in Navarre, FL in 2011 and will perform at the Louisiana Book Festival in late October.

Historical Photos

Historical Photos

Historic Photos of Mississippi: Imagine a ride with the Mississippi mockingbird as it soars through the Mississippi skies. Beginning in the land of Elvis at Tupelo, one moves down to the Piney Woods of East Central Mississippi where the ground is covered with fragrant pine straw and where Choctaw moccasins once walked the trails. Then turn south where the ocean waves swell upon sandy beaches and sea gulls hover and squawk in the breeze. Continue onward to the mansions of historic Natchez and the cotton fields of the Mississippi Delta where the blues reigns supreme. Finally, swoop down toward Old Man River, the majestic Mississippi, and skim across its yellow waters. The waters have seen war and defeat, loss and love, heartbreaks and triumphs.

          Remembering Mississippi takes the reader back to a bygone era - one of gentle people as they lived through war, prosperity, division, survival and a coming together. The cover photo shows the lazy Mississippi River as it meanders near Vicksburg on a quiet summer afternoon. The smoothness of the river does not indicate the turmoil of the Civil War during the 1860s, but verifies that the river has mended from the conflict as well the citizens of Mississippi. Mississippians have once again warmed their hearts to find peace and contentment. The book uplifts the beauty of Mississippi and the strength of her people.

          Anne B. McKee is a literary and performing artist. She is listed on the MSArtist Roster sponsored by the MS Arts Commission. McKee contributes to the arts community in her roles as a storyteller, humorist, public speaker, writer, creator of historic literary events, and work on Mississippi heritage projects.

Essays

Essays

George Thatcher

Scenes from the Beach: George Thatcher's poignant recordings of his daily shoreline walks. Inspired by the moving beauty of the beach and sea, George Thatcher shares the quiet splendor of his daily walks on the beach. As with his column of the same name, and his first book Beach Walks, George provides witness to the incredible life and beauty found on tranquil shores. These remarkable reflections of serene contemplation live on in your mind even when the moment itself is gone. Join George on a journey that will enrich your soul.

          "George Thatcher is the unofficial poet laureate of Coastal Mississippi. His daily dispatches in The Sun Herald provide witness to the incredible life and beauty on these tranquil shores. His eye for detail allows all of us to see miracles of the mundane, small scenes beneath the microscope of a writer's lens, painted in spare and eloquent prose. The result is a treat for his readers who may have gone too long without the joy of sand in their shoes." —Stan Tiner, Vice President and Executive Director of The Sun Herald

          A Decade of Beach Walks: A collection of seaside observations written over the last ten years and published in George Thatcher's daily column in the Sun Herald newspaper.

Peggy Webb aka Anna Michaels

www.peggywebb.com and www.annamichaels.net

The Tender Mercy of Roses by Anna Michaels is a Southern fiction debut with the raw power of The Lovely Bones, the magical enchantment of Garden Spells, and a haunting and unvarnished beauty all its own. In a nuanced character study wrapped in mystery, the spirit of Pony Jones leads her father, Titus, and failed detective, Jo Beth, toward a killer and ultimately toward redemption.

          Elvis and the Tropical Double Trouble by Peggy Webb takes the Southern Cousins and their sassy basset hound to an archeological site where Elvis digs up bones that spell T-R-O-U-B-L-E. Additionally, Lovie is kidnapped, and if Callie wants to bring her home safe, it's now or never.

          Elvis and the Memphis Mambo Murders by Peggy Webb follows the Southern Cousins and famous basset hound Elivs as they shake, rattle and roll through a dance competition at the Peabody where somebody wants the dancers dead. There's a whole lotta sleuthing going on! This is the third book of the Southern Cousins Mystery series.

Romance

Melanie Atkins

http://www.melanieatkins.com

Melanie Atkins single title romantic suspense, Flash Bang, an April 2011 release from Whiskey Creek Press, is an EPIC Award finalist.

          When Allie Robbins broke his heart, Noah Sterling couldn’t leave Magnolia Springs fast enough. He joined the military, then the FBI. Ten years later, a domestic terrorism case forces him to return, only to discover that Allie is now a widowed mother with one young son--and that she's suspected of aiding the group responsible for setting area churches ablaze.

Curtis Wilkie

The Fall of the House of Zeus traces the rise and fall of billionaire lawyer Dickie Scruggs, documenting how he made his fortune through class-action lawsuits directed at the tobacco and asbestos industries before his conviction for conspiring to bribe a Mississippi state judge.
          Curtis Wilkie has served as visiting professor of journalism at the University of Mississippi since 2002. He was appointed to become the first Overby Fellow with the Overby Center for Southern Journalism and Politics at the University of Mississippi in 2007. Wilkie and his wife Nancy reside in Oxford, Mississippi, and New Orleans, Louisiana. He has three grown children, Carter, Leighton and Stuart.

NF: How-To

Peter Bowerman

www.wellfedwriter.com

The Well-Fed Self-Publisher: How to Turn One Book into a Full-Time Living

          Landing a publisher has never been harder. Even when you do, count on anemic royalty rates, 18 to 24 months to publication, and giving up the rights to your book. And you’ll still be expected to do most of the marketing yourself! There’s a better way. Thanks to the Internet, self-publishing has become easier, more viable, and more potentially lucrative than ever before.

          Author Peter Bowerman has self-published four books, which together, have yielded 60,000 copies in print and a full-time living for ten years. TWFSP is a step-by-step chronicling of the process and strategies Peter followed to achieve that atypical publishing result.

          Join him as he signs this double-award-winning book, along with his latest book, the 2010 quadruple-award-winning how-to guide on lucrative freelance “commercial” writing.

Cookbook

Victoria Olsen

www.cajunbomber.com

The Cajun Bombers Knockout Cookbook - Boxing to Beignets - The life story of an undefeated boxer, Dale Bellard, told in anecdotal short stories beginning in the cotton fields of Louisiana. Many simple tried-and-true Cajun recipes are sprinkled among the boxer's international tales of boxing.

MS Photos

Joe Mac Hudspeth, Jr.

www.southernfocus.com

Joe Mac Hudspeth, Jr.’s first attempt at wildlife photography occurred some thirty years ago when he photographed a sunning screech owl with a Kodak 110 Pocket Instamatic camera. Since 1987, the self-taught Mississippi photographer has turned his hobby into a part-time job with his work appearing in numerous state, regional and national publications. In 1993 he received national recognition when his image of an immature least bittern was awarded the “Grand Prize for Wildlife” by the Roger Tory Peterson Institute for Natural History.

          Since 1997 his photographs have graced 13 Mississippi Duck Stamps and 15 Mississippi Sportsman’s Licenses and he has published signed and numbered lithographic prints of them. The book’s cover, “Top of the Morning,” his most popular photograph, was a favorite at Ducks Unlimited banquets.

          Today, he is proud to announce the release of his newest coffee table book, Return to the Southern Wild, a collection of wildlife and scenic photography he has taken throughout Mississippi over the past 30 years. Return to the Southern Wild contains 144 full color pages of deer, ducks, turkeys, gators, gallinules, and Mississippi scenery that are sure to appeal to anyone who loves the great outdoors.

Randy Pierce

www.painunforgiven.com

Sometimes facing your past is the only way to move forward.

          In Pain Unforgiven, Grant Hicks, thirty-seven years old and a partner in an Atlanta law firm, has managed to escape his past. Almost. While preparing for an upcoming trial, his long-time secretary interrupts him with a phone call. It is Elsie Smallwood calling from Grant’s hometown.

          Greene County is a place to which Grant vowed never to return. For almost twenty years, he has been successful in avoiding his past. However, Elsie’s unexpected phone call sends him back to the place that harbors the painful memories. When he arrives, he finds a community in need of healing and a dying friend’s desire for the pain of others to be released.
Grant’s journey is a testament to individual and communal redemption and to the good – and bad – within all people. Through lovable characters and unexpected twists of events, Grant and the place he calls home are finally able to confront the painful past. And by doing so, each comes face to face with pain unforgiven.

          A true son of the South, author Randy Pierce is a native of Greene County, Mississippi. He’s a CPA, former State Representative and Chancery Court Judge. Currently he serves as an Associate Justice on the Mississippi Supreme Court.

Contemporary

Schledia Benefield

When Aralyn Liddell looks in the mirror, she sees a plain girl with drab brunette hair, pale skin tainted with freckles, and no lips! Standing next to her gorgeous sister with porcelain skin, deep-brown eyes, raven-black hair, and rosy, plump lips does not help matters either. With such a beautiful sister she is easily overlooked and soon realizes that she is nothing more than a Plain Jane. Prevailing through adolescence, she creates an arsenal of pretty dresses to camouflage her plainness, but the loom of the Fates seems to be spinning a dark future for the young poet!

          Schledia lives in Big Point, Mississippi with her husband and five children; she is a dedicated wife and mother. As a child she often fantasized about three things: getting married, having children, and creating imaginary worlds for others to read about. After seeing her first two fantasies come to life, her love of words and of the imagination led her to pursue her life-long dream of writing novels.

Terry I. Miles

As You Lie There... Sleeping. Lafouchfeye County, Mississippi, and the entire Mississippi Gulf Coast were still reeling from the double murder in August of '87 of a distinguished Judge and his wife, when a week before Christmas of the same year, the newlywed couple of recently elected DA Wendell Matthew Holmes, Jr. of Warren County, MS, and his wife Emma, are discovered dead in a refrigerator car in the Lafouchfeye County railroad yard.

          Percy (Teaspoon) Dinwiddle was found guilty of the Holmes' murders and sentenced to thirty years in prison. The first case went unsolved, Sheriff Travis died of a heart attack and after the first of the year, his son, Jim Travis was elected Sheriff on January 6, 1988.

          Twenty years later a young lawyer named Taylor L. Lipton, was researching both sets of homicides. New evidence through DNA was introduced concerning Percy Dinwiddle and Percy was set free 02/01/09. Greed, revenge, and deception erupt like a volcano, throwing Jim, Bea and Aunt Jewels into a whirlwind of chaos.

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Five thousand antique cars and trucks have descended upon Lafouchfeye County Township and the entire Mississippi Gulf Coast for The Cruisin' Recipe Jamboree. To sweeten the pot, Bea Winslow, Private Investigator and her Aunt Julia McKenna, whom she fondly calls Aunt Jewels, have penned a Cruisin' Cookbook, Cozy Little Murder Mystery Style. However, both ladies are unaware several of the recipes hold a hidden treasure. A map to where fifteen gold bars are buried.

          Fifty years ago, the MS Lafouchfeye Bank had a daring morning bank heist, which netted the culprits a lumber payroll of $500,000.00 dollars and fifteen Gold bars that were slated to be shipped to Fort Knox, Kentucky. There were four men and a woman involved. Within hours, three of the bandits were apprehended and the money recovered, but not the gold bars.

Aunt Jewels falls prey to the thieves and their quest for the gold. Bea and her fiancé the Sheriff of Lafouchfeye Cty, Jim Travis, have to rescue her from the clutches of certain death!

          Terry I Miles lives on the MS Gulf Coast and is a ‘97 graduate of JDCC and a ‘99 alumni of USM with a BA in English and History. She is retired from the Education/Psychology Dept. of USM as a Receptionist. Her creative writing talents have garnered her numerous awards in poetry, short stories and presently twelve Cozy Little Murder Mysteries which she began in ‘04. Since then she published two children's books. Her Cruisin' Cookbook, Cozy Little Murder Mystery Style and 12^th murder mystery will be a joy to read and a culinary treasure to own!

Laura Hildick Burge

www.singingriverstory.com

In the quaint New England town of Pemsley, Vermont, a young girl’s supernatural gift has come to light. Sally Jane Brody, Lauren Rayburn’s second cousin, is seeing and hearing unexplained phenomena in the house her father is remolding. Sylvie Meyers, Sally Jane’s great-aunt, is well aware of the mysterious series of events. After having had her own spirit encounters for almost seventy years, Sylvie continues to help Sally Jane, and ultimately, they solve a one hundred and fifty year-old mystery.

          Meanwhile, nearly fifteen hundred miles away on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, Lauren Rayburn and her fiancé, Toba Bronson, have traced their family’s bloodlines back to ancient times. They have proven that they do have ancestral links to the extinct Pascagoula Tribe.

          Back in the 17th century, White Deer, a Pascagoula chief and medicine man, has gone on a spirit walk with his grandson Altama. They have traveled to Lauren’s time and asked her for help. White Deer is determined to eradicate a vile spirit from their midst. Therefore, he must have help from several people in the past, present and future.

          The Ancestral Chosen is the fourth book in the Singing River Story series… Chapters alternate between the past and the present, in true Singing River Story form. The story focuses on the Singing River legends and tells of the spirits who travel through the time corridors that open up in and around the Pascagoula River. It reveals the depths of the mystical gifts this incredible family has and shows how love created a bond that nothing… not even time… could break.

          Author-Musician, Laura Hildick Burge, had an afterlife experience as a teenager. The experience opened up a channel of creativity through dreams. After a severe allergic reaction to penicillin, her heart stopped, and she entered a tunnel to another realm. She was revived, but the images and experience remained etched into her soul. Later in life she began to receive visions through dreams, which she would write down in her journals. These dreams developed into the Singing River Story series. Elements from this traumatic event, and her fascination with the science of time travel, are woven into these stories. Laura continues to draw strength and guidance from stories passed to her from her late Native American grandmother.

Thomas E. Simmons

During World War II, merchant marine tankers plied the frozen North Atlantic through the flaming wreckage of torpedoed ships. Working to keep sea lanes open, valiant merchant seamen supplied food, fuel, ammunition and weapons to the Allies.

          Escape from Archangel acknowledges that the merchant marines, all volunteers, are among the unsung heroes of the war. One of these was Jack Smith from Biloxi, Mississippi, an ordinary seaman on the Cedar Creek, a new civilian T-2 tanker lend-leased to the USSR in the merchant convoy running from Scotland to Murmansk. Smith's riveting adventures at sea and in the frozen taigas and tundra form a story of valor.

          This gripping narrative tells of a cruel blow that fate dealt Smith when after volunteering to serve on the tanker, he headed on the most dangerous convoy route of the war—Scotland to Murmansk. He is arrested by the Russian NKVD and interned in a Soviet work camp near Archangel where Russian political prisoners were worked to death.

          Author Thomas E. Simmons recounts how this American managed his escape, an arduous 900 mile trek to freedom helped by Laplanders and the Norwegian resistance fighters. Escape from Archangel is an extraordinarily story of human bravery and endurance, which not only captures the emotional sprit of World War II, but also its desperation.

Patricia Lorenz

www.PatriciaLorenz.com

The 5 Things We Need to be Happy. Looking for happiness? Try counting to five and then look again!

          What do you think will make you happy? A higher-paying job? A longer vacation? A Caribbean cruise? Better health? A slimmer, trimmer you?

          “Think again,” says Patricia Lorenz. As a single mother of four children, struggling to make ends meet, Lorenz discovered that happiness was all around her, just waiting to be enjoyed: sharing laughs and potato chips, or turning a stay-at-home-subzero day into a surprise formal tea party or a bike ride into a prayer service on the go. Lorenz knows the things that make her happy, and she’ll share how they can make you happy, too. This how-to of happiness will show you how love, laughter, a passion for what you do, a can-do spirit and a heart full of faith can put you on the road to living your dreams. And money has nothing to do with it!

          Patricia Lorenz, a longtime contributor to Guideposts magazine and the devotional book Daily Guideposts, is one of the most prolific writers for “Chicken Soup for the Soul,” and in Life’s Too Short to Fold Your Underwear she entertains you with her own and other people’s tales about how to prioritize the truly important things in life.

          Patricia doesn’t fold her underwear. One woman doesn’t sort her silverware, but tosses all of the knives, forks and spoons together. Another friend doesn’t match her socks, set her hair or play around with make-up. A forty-something-year-old man says life’s too short to dedicate himself to corporate America, so he started his own business.

          A gifted storyteller, Patricia Lorenz shares funny anecdotes about her own family: wayward pets, early-morning paper routes, mail-order gifts and more. She shares her secret for turning negatives into positives and provides real-life examples about becoming happier and more fulfilled. Her new book is sure to grab each reader’s funny bone and shake her out of the rut of wrong priorities, self-pity and perfectionism! Combining common sense with good humor and a generous heart, Patricia Lorenz will inspire readers to a life that bubbles with creative solutions and contagious joy.

          True Pilot Stories is a collection of stories by veteran writer Patricia Lorenz and over 50 commercial, cargo, military, private, experimental helicopter, hot-air balloon and blimp pilot pilots from all over the country. Male, female, young, old, these true stories will give you a whole new feel and understanding of the world of aviation. From hilarious stories and pranks they pull on each other and their crews to white-knuckle, hair-raising adventure stories, air travel will suddenly take on a whole new meaning. Fasten your seat belt. You’re in for the ride of your life.

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