Today is the last day that you can show your support for Delilah and the Women in the West adventure series. Tomorrow is the last day of the campaign, and it doesn’t look as if it will reach my $500 funding goal. The project is currently only (63%) funded, but there’s still time for you to show your support and get some of the cool rewards and add-ons offered. With your support, we could still fund the project. So please, back my Kickstarter for Delilah, if you will.
When the campaign ends, you will still be able to pre-order the book, for a higher price, and get it on its March 21st release date, but if you support the Kickstarter campaign, you can get an early digital copy, a signed print copy, and even a chance to name a character in Sarah: Book 2. There’s also short stories, audio stories and an interview with Delilah available as add-ons. So click on the link below and drop in to see what you can get, and support me and Delilah.
Thanks to those who are already backing the campaign. Thanks to all of you who maybe couldn’t back the campaign, but still shared the link around on social media in an effort to help. All support is greatly appreciated.
If you miss the Kickstarter, you can still pre-order the book from your favorite book distributor here: https://books2read.com/DelilahWIW
Open submissions call
2023 WordCrafter Short Fiction Contest is open to submissions with an April 30 deadline. The theme is scary stuff in paranormal, dark fantasy or horror, and the winning story will have a guaranteed spot in this year’s anthology, alongside all the stories by invitation. You can find the full submission guidelines here.
Poetry Treasures 3 in 2023
The edition of Poetry Treasures 3 is currently in the works. We will be aiming for an April release date. It will feature the author/post guests from the 2022 Treasuring Poetry blog series and it will be compiled and edited by Robbie Cheadle and myself. The 2023 theme will be Passions, and I think it will turn out to be an impressive volume.
Want exclusive content? Join Kaye Lynne Booth & WordCrafter Press Readers’ Group for WordCrafter Press book & event news, including the awesome releases of author Kaye Lynne Booth. She won’t flood your inbox, she NEVER will sells her list, and you might get a freebie occasionally. Get a free digital copy of her short story collection, Last Call and Other Short Fiction, just for joining.
I want your scariest paranormal, dark fiction and horror stories for the 2023 WordCrafter Short Fiction Contest. Make my skin crawl, my spine tingle, and my heart race. Keep me up at night. Make me leave the light on, just in case. Show mw your deepest, darkest fears. See submissions guidelines below.
Submission Entry Fee
Please submit entry fee here for your 2023 WordCrafter Short Fiction Contest submission here.
$5.00
Submission Guidelines
Genres: Paranormal, Dark Fantasy, Horror or any combination there of.
Length: up to 5000 words
Submission Deadline: April 30, 2023
Pay: Royalty share
Rights: First Anthology Rights and audio rights as part of the anthology; rights revert to author one month after publication; publisher retains non-exclusive right to include in the anthology as a whole.
Open to submissions from January 1 through April 30, 2023.
Submit: A Microsoft Word or RTF file in standard manuscript format to KLBWordCrafter@gmail.com.
Join Kaye Lynne Booth & WordCrafter Press Readers’ Group for WordCrafter Press book & event news, including the awesome releases of author Kaye Lynne Booth. Get a free digital copy of her short story collection, Last Call and Other Short Fiction, as a sampling of her works just for joining
Thanks to contributing author Joseph Carrabis giving us a taste of the stories in the new Visions anthology from WordCrafter Press. Follow the link to learn more.
A deathbed curse in 1793. A murderous charlatan in 1888. A town profiting from its legendary past in 2022. Residents of Chatham Hollow may not survive the evil they’re about to unleash.
I think I may have mentioned that I’m a sucker for a good ghost story. The Haunting of Chatham Hollow by Mae Claire and Staci Troilo is an engaging dual timeline story which fullfills that description and more. This story is exquistely crafted to weave not two, but three mysterious tales into one. Filled with mystery and intrigue, this tale offers up a variety of questions which compell the reader to keep turning pages.
It’s time for the yearly Founder’s Day Festival in Chatham Hollow and this year’s celebrations will have a television crew as their special guests, in an attempt to raisethe spirit of the founding father, Ward Chatham and learn the location of his rumored treasure. But as the story unfolds we learn that the founding father may not have been the upstanding citizen one might think, previous attempts have ended in disaster, and not everyone in town is who they seem to be. An evil curse, and age-old fued, a hidden treasure, and banished spirits who refuse to stay gone. Who could ask for more in a spooky, ghostly tale.
I couldn’t wait to reach the end and have all mysteries explained and questions answered. The tension was palpable and kept me turning pages. I give The Haunting of Chatham Hollow five quills.
Kaye Lynne Booth does honest book reviews on Writing to be Read in exchange for ARCs. Have a book you’d like reviewed? Contact Kaye at kayebooth(at)yahoo(dot)com.
When I picked up Canadian Werewolf in New York, by Mark Leslie, I must admit, I had visions of one of my favorite werewolf movies. But Leslie’s wolf isn’t one plagued by the spirits of his victims, as are the American versions. It was a pleasant surprise to find that I was wrong on that note.
Mark Leslie’s werewolf uses his more beastly senses like superpowers to come to the aid of the damsel in distress, making this story a cross between a pulp story and a werewolf cozy, as his writer turned wolf character goes about solving mysterious disappearances for the woman he loves, and fighting crime in a classic hero’s journey. Quite entertaining.
A Canadian Werewolf in New York
His main character, Michael, is a Canadian writer, trying to make it in the big apple, but of course he’s also a werewolf. The appearance of his old flame asking for his help finding out what her fiance is up to throws him into a mystery, calling his sleuthing skills into play. At the same time, there’s another wolf in town, and he must use all of his heightened wolf senses to sniff out his rival and protect the girl.
As an author, I know it can be very effective to use the senses to help put the reader in the story, but I also know it can be tricky writing in details of the senses other than those we use and think about most. But, Leslie has managed to skillfully craft in and use the sense of smell throughout this tale, taking the reader on an olfactory adventure like none I’ve had before. Brilliant!
I listened to this tale in the audio book form, and I must say that the narrator, Scott Overton, does a fantastic job, never once stumbling on difficult character nicknames like “Mr. Hyper-halitosis”. He also did a fabulous job with a Yorkshire accent and the female voice.
I truly enjoyed listening to Canadian Werewolf in New York. I found it fresh and entertaining, and I give it five quills.
Kaye Lynne Booth does honest book reviews on Writing to be Read in exchange for ARCs. Have a book you’d like reviewed? Contact Kaye at kayebooth(at)yahoo(dot)com.
The deadline to enter the 2022 WordCrafter Short Fiction Contest, May 31st. There’s still time to get your submission in for a chance to have your story included in the Visions anthology alongside other esteemed authors, but don’t delay. You can find the full submission guidelines and entry here.
The deadline is fast approaching and will be here before you know it. The winner will receive a $25 Amazon gift card in addition to being featured in the anthology, but you can’t win if you don’t enter. If you write fantasy, science fiction, horror or paranormal short fiction, I want to read your story!
Thank you for joining us for Day #5 of the WordCrafter Lingering Spirits Whisper Book Blog Tour. In case you missed any of the posts from earlier in the week, you can find them all right here on Writing to be Read, and you can visit the author interviews on Un dawnted , but you can only leave comments on Writing to be Read.
Today we have a guest post by author Christa Planko about the inspiration behind her winning story, “Olde-Tyme Village”, which is featured in Where Spirits Linger.
“Where Spirits Inspire: The Inspiration Behind ‘Olde-Tyme Village’”
By Christa Planko
A stroll through a Victorian shore town during off-season leaves enough to the imagination to raise goosebumps and stir the creative mind. The brightly painted homes with their steeply pitched roofs and ornate gables give the sensation of having stepped into a time machine. With summer’s tourists packed and gone, the streets lie practically barren. The exception is the few living beings taking in the autumn air and architecture—and the spirits who may be joining them unseen.
That was the inspiration behind my story, “The Olde-Tyme Village.” It was an October trip to historic Cape May, NJ that fed my imagination. Wandering through the quiet town, I marveled at the elaborate homes, many of them vacant. I couldn’t help but fancy I saw a curtain move in a window or a grey face peering through a dusty pane. A shift of wind carried a moan that could have been the spirit of a woman watching from a widow’s peak for her husband to return from sea. Mind trick or imagination?
Certainly, many of the homes have a long-standing history. The peninsula was originally inhabited by the Lenni-Lenape tribe before Cornelius Mey purchased the land in 1621. It soon developed into a prosperous fishing and whaling industry for English colonists. Later in the 18th century, Cape May began its development as a resort town for enjoying the ocean and fresh seafood. The town saw its share of pleasure, prosperity, and promiscuity over the years. It saw an equal share of tragedy. Surviving wars and devastating fires, residents’ emotions must have run deep. The wealth of books and oral accounts of Cape May’s ghostly occupants suggest that many tormented souls were left to linger.
Was “Olde-Tyme Village” based on any researched history? The answer is yes and no. Like my October stroll through Cape May, the story was fueled by pure imagination. It takes place at a fictional resort remote from modern society. The “historic residents” and guests of the village are made up as well. The research I did do was to learn about Victorian architecture and industries that prospered during this era in order to ground the descriptions and backgrounds in historic fact. The story’s mood and time-warp occurrences were exaggerations of my own experiences in Cape May.
A final question may be: Do I believe in ghosts? While I enjoy a spooky story around a campfire or during Halloween season, I can’t say that I ever truly believed in ghosts. I did have an unexplained experience at a historic site near my hometown a few years ago. That experience—or possible encounter—has since opened my mind to the possibility. I’ll spare the details until I have the chance to do some further research on the area and possible tragedies. I sense a future story on the horizon!
To see my bio and a list of published works, please visit:
Christa is a professional writer with a passion for creative expression. She has had her poetry and short stories featured in several publications, including River Poets Journal, Wingless Dreamer, Tanka and Haiku Journals, Rune Bear, Jitter Press, and Every Day Fiction. When she’s not writing, she is likely bicycling, kayaking, or dancing. She currently resides in South Jersey with her 4 feline muses.
Lingering Spirit Whispers paranormal anthology set
Thanks for joining us on the WordCrafter Lingering Spirit Whispers Book Blog Tour! I hope that you’ve enjoyed Christa’s guest post here on Writing to be Read, and the Un dawnted author interviews earlier in the week. If you missed any, the links can be found at the top of this post to go back and catch them all.
As a reminder, tomorrow will be Sonoran Dawn’s Autumn Wonders Book Event on Facebook, so be sure to drop in. Contact the host, D.L. Mullen and Sonoran Dawn Studios, if you’d like to reserve an author slot for promotion of your work. WordCrafter has a slot in the event, so you can find more about this anthology set, as well as other WordCrafter Press books there. Come and join in the fun.
Welcome to Day #4 of the WordCrafter Lingering Spirit Whispers Book Blog Tour, where we’re celebrating the release of the Lingering Spirit Whispers paranormal anthology set. This unique paranormal set combines three paranormal anthologies into a single set for ghosties galore, and you can get your copy here.
Lingering Spirit Whispers
Today we’re over at Un dawnted, where D.L. Mullen interviews contributing author, Roberta Eaton Cheadle, the only author beside myself to contribute stories to all three anthologies.
Roberta Eaton Cheadle is writer of young adult and adult fiction in the supernatural fantasy, historical horror, and historical supernatural genres.To date, Roberta has published two novels, Through the Nethergate and A Ghost and His Gold, and several short stories in various anthologies including Whispers of the Past and Spirits of the West, and Where Spirits Linger edited and compiled by Kaye Lynne Booth, and Spellbound, compiled by Dan Alatorre.Roberta has a historical supernatural novel set during the Second Anglo Boer War in South Africa coming out in early 2021.When she is not writing, Roberta enjoys working in the garden and creating fondant and cake artworks.
Her stories of chilling encounters, “The Last of the Lavender” and “Missed Signs”, were featured in Whispers of the Past.
Cheadle also has two stories of paranormal encounters on treks through the South African bush are featured in Spirits of the West – “The Thirstyland Journey” and “The Ghost in the Mound”.
And her tale of the completion of business left unfinished, “Listen to Instructions” is featured in Where Spirits Linger.
Welcome to Day #2 of the WordCrafter Lingering Spirit Whispers Book Blog Tour, where we are celebrating the December 1st release of the Lingering Spirit Whispers paranormal anthology set. This unique collection of ghosties galore is a must read for all lovers of paranormal fiction. Available for pre-order now.
Lingering Spirit Whispers
We’re hanging out over at Un dawnted, where D.L. Mullen is interviewing contributing authors from the anthologies included in this set, and today’s author guest is… um… me! Kaye Lynne Booth. I have one story featured in each anthology. Un dawnted has no commenting capabilities, so please leave any comments you might have about the interview here, on Writing to be Read.
Kaye Lynne Booth lives, works, and plays in the mountains of Colorado. With a dual emphasis M.F.A. in Creative Writing, writing is more than a passion. It’s a way of life. She’s a multi-genre author, who finds inspiration from the nature around her, and her love of the old west, and other odd and quirky things which might surprise you.
She has short stories featured in the following anthologies: The Collapsar Directive (“If You’re Happy and You Know It”); Relationship Add Vice (“The Devil Made Her Do It”); Nightmareland (“The Haunting in Carol’s Woods”); Whispers of the Past (“The Woman in the Water”); Spirits of the West (“Don’t Eat the Pickled Eggs”) and Where Spirits Linger (“The People Upstairs”). Her western, Delilah, her paranormal mystery novella, Hidden Secrets, and her short story collection, Last Call, are all available in both digital and print editions.
In her spare time, she keeps up her author’s blog, Writing to be Read, where she posts reflections on her own writing, author interviews and book reviews, along with writing tips and inspirational posts from fellow writers. She’s also the founder of WordCrafterEnterprises. In addition to creating her own imprint in WordCrafter Press, she offers quality author services, such as editing, social media & book promotion.
In Whispers of the Past, my story is “The Woman in the Water”.
In Spirits of the West, my story is “Don’t Eat the Pickled Eggs”.
In Where Spirits Linger, my story is “The People Upstairs”.
Thank you for joining us for Day #1 of the WordCrafter Lingering Spirit Whispers Book Blog Tour. This tour celebrates not one, but three different anthologies offered together in one anthology set. This unique paranormal set combines three paranormal anthologies into a single set for ghosties galore. A must have for lovers of paranormal fiction.
Whispers of the Past
As you may know, every year WordCrafter Press runs a short fiction contest, and each year there is a resulting anthology. For 2019, it was Whispers of the Past, with paranormal stories from contributing authors including myself, Roberta Eaton Cheadle, Stevie Turner, Laurel McHargue, Julie Goodswen and author of the winning story, Jeff Bowles.
Spirits of the West
For 2020, it was Spirits of the West, with western paranormal stories from contributing authors including myself, Roberta Eaton Cheadle, Jeff Bowles, Arthur Rosch, Tom Johnson, and author of the winning story, Enid Holden.
Where Spirits Linger
For 2021, it was Where Spirits Linger, with paranormal tales from contributing authors including myself, Roberta Eaton Cheadle, Stevie Turner, Enid Holden, S.L. Kretschmer, and author of the winning story, Christa Planko.
You can get all three in one anthology set, Linger Spirit Whispers, to be released on December 1 and available for pre-order now.
Lingering Spirit Whispers
And join us for the tour to learn more about the stories contained within these three paranormal anthologies and their authors. D.L. Mullen will be doing interviews on her Un dawnted blog site Monday through Thursday and we will finish up her with a guest post from 2021 contest winner, Christa Planko discussing the inspiration behind her winning story, “Olde-Tyme Village”, featured in Where Spirits Linger. Un dawnted does not have comments enabled, but feel free to post any comments you have on the interviews here. Interviews with authors Roberta Eaton Cheadle, Kaye Lynne Booth, Stevie Turner and Jeff Bowles will be featured. I hope you will join us today and follow us through the rest of the tour.
Today’s author guest is contributing author Stevie Turner, who has stories in two out of three anthologies included in this set.
Stevie Turner is a British author of suspense, paranormal, women’s fiction family dramas and darkly humorous novels, and likes to find subjects to write about that are not often covered. Stevie is married and lives in the wilds of East Anglia, England, and enjoys cycling about the countryside when she is not busy writing.
Her story “Partners in Time” is featured in Whispers of the Past – a paranormal romance where past and present cross.
And her story “David’s Revenge” is featured in Where Spirits Linger – a tale of revenge from the grave.
Writing to be Read 