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Sharan Newman is a medieval historian and author.  She took her Master’s degree in Medieval Literature at Michigan State University and then did her doctoral work at the University of California at Santa Barbara in Medieval Studies, specializing in twelfth-century France.  She is a member of the Medieval Academy and the Medieval Association of the Pacific. 

Newman has written a non-fiction book, The Real History Behind the Da Vince Code Berkley 2005.  It is in encyclopedia format and gives information on various topics mentioned in Dan Brown’s novel.  Following on that she has just completed a Real History Behind the Templars which will be published by Berkley in 2007. 

Sharan won the Macavity Award for best first mystery for “Death Comes As Epiphany” and the Herodotus Award for best historical mystery of 1998 for Cursed in the Blood.  The most recent book in the series The Witch in the Well won the Bruce Alexander award for best Historical mystery of 2004.  

The Shanghai Tunnel, set in 1868 Portland, OR, allowed Sharan to explore the history of the city she grew up in.  She found that the history she had been taught in school had been seriously whitewashed.  Doing research in the city archives as well as the collections at Reed College and the Oregon Historical society was exciting and eye-opening.  Many of the “founding fathers” of Portland turn out to have been unscrupulous financiers.  Chinese workers were subject to discrimination and there was an active red light district. 

She lives on a mountainside in Oregon.  http://www.sharannewman.com/

 

Sean McLachlan earned his master’s degree in archaeology, specializing in the medieval period, at the University of Missouri-Columbia. He has helped supervise excavations in Israel, Cyprus, Bulgaria and the United States. Now a full-time writer, Sean has published articles in dozens of publications, including Yoga Journal, The World and I, Ancient Egypt Magazine, Global Journalist, and Reuters Wire Service. Besides writing, his greatest passion is travel. He has spent several years on the road, visiting more than twenty five countries and exploring everything from the snow-capped mountains of Peru to the ancient monuments of Iran. When not making research trips to the United States, he lives in Madrid with his wife and best friend, Almudena. His greatest creation was their son Julián, who was born Sept. 21, 2005.

Sean's first book, Byzantium: An Illustrated History, was published Hippocrene Books in 2004. He is also the co-author, with Mary Paganelli, of the third and fourth editions of The Insiders' Guide to Phoenix (Globe Pequot). This year he published Moon Handbooks London (Avalon Travel Publishing, 2007), and two more of his books will come out later in the year, including Missouri: An Illustrated History (Hippocrene) and It Happened in Missouri (Globe Pequot)

 

When Mario Acevedo was four years old, his aunt asked what he wanted for Christmas. His answer: “I want a machine gun.” So even at that tender age, his expectations from life were a little different than most. Years later, he bought his first computer and decided to write a novel. Four computers later, and with six unpublished manuscripts gathering dust under his bed, he finally wrote a story good enough to get the interest of an agent and a publisher.

After graduating from New Mexico State University, Mario was commissioned into the Army to serve in the Infantry where he finally got to play with machine guns. Later he hoodwinked the Army into letting him fly attack helicopters. 

Subsequent life as a civilian has been like living in a pinball machine. He's worked as an engineer in corporate America and got downsized. Earned his masters’ in Information Systems from the University of Denver and found another corporate gig. Saw that job sail across the Pacific when he was outsourced and laid off again. Thankfully, he has "two bright and handsome sons in college who will take care of me as I grows older".

While sending out stories and collecting rejection slips, Mario ventured into the arts; he has served as the artist-in-residence for Arte Americas in Fresno, California, and was called from the Reserves to serve in Operation Desert Storm ("the easy war against Iraq") as a combat artist. He's also taught art to prisoners at the Avenal State Prison and organized art fundraisers for various pet rescue groups.

Mario credits joining the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers for introducing him to real authors and the advice needed to get published. Now he's busy writing the Felix the vampire detective novels. And he's decided that he no longer wants a machine gun for Christmas.

 

Award winning author, Vicki M. Taylor writes dramatic stories with strong women as her main characters. Her novel, “Not Without Anna” won 2nd place in the 2003 Florida Writers’ Association’s Royal Palm Literary Awards and was published in January 2004. She won an honorary award for her short story, “And Justice for All” in the Fire to Fly contest from Futures Mysterious Anthology Magazine.
 
A prolific writer of both novel length and short stories, she brings her characters to life in the real world. Her memberships include the National Association of Women Writers, Short Fiction Mystery Society, Romance Writers Association, and many more. She has had hundreds of articles published in electronic and print publications. She is one of the founders and past President of the Florida Writers Association, Inc. She speaks to local writing groups.

When she's not writing, you can find her lurking about the many writing boards and various forums dispensing and receiving little pearls of wisdom from her computer in Tampa, Florida where she lives with her husband their dog, Jack and their parrot, Bailey. To find out more about Vicki and her writing, visit her website at http://www.vickimtaylor.com.

 

Sara Reinke is the author of several books, including her debut fantasy, Book of Days, from Double Dragon Publishing, which was named one of the Top 10 Science Fiction/Fantasy Novels of 2005 in the annual Preditors & Editors Readers poll and a Finalist in the 2005 Dream Realm Awards competition. Other available or upcoming titles include Book of Thieves and the five-part epic Book of Dragons, all sequels to the award-winning Book of Days. 

Reinke made her bookstore debut in February, 2007 with the release of An Unexpected Engagement from Medallion Press -- which New York Times best-selling author Karen Robards declared, "historical romance the way it should be written" -- and Tethers, a science-fiction thriller available in ebook and trade paperback from Samhain Publishing. In July, 2007, the first in a new paranormal romance series, Dark Thirst, hits bookstore shelves worldwide from Kensington Publishing's Zebra imprint.

Reinke is the past recipient of an Artist Enrichment Grant for fiction writing from the Kentucky Foundation for Women and a member of the Louisville Romance Writers chapter of Romance Writers of America.

Visit her website at http://www.sarareinke.com/ 

 

 

Author and editor Lea Schizas says: I'm a very busy gal...and loving it!

Lea was born in Montreal, Canada and was writing as far back as she can remember. She didn't seriously start writing again until 2000, when she picked up a copy of  Writer's Digest magazine. Within three months she was back in the groove and had written her first screenplay.

~Author of the YA Fantasy Novel, The Rock of Realm,

Top Ten Winner in Book Art Work in P&E 2005 Polls 

~Editor in Chief and co-founder of Apollo's Lyre, (Preditors and Editors award-winning Zine and one of Writer's Digest 101 Best Writing Sites of 2005) 

First Place Winner in the P&E 2005 Voting Polls for Poetry Zine 

~Founder of The MuseItUp Club (Writer's Digest 101 Best Writing Sites of 2005 and Preditors and Editors Most Useful Site Award recipient) 

~Founder of The Muse Marquee  

TOP TEN WINNER IN THE P&E 2005 VOTING POLLS

~Founder of The Muse Book Reviews 

~Copy Editor for Double Dragon Publishing 

~Copy Editor for Four Girls Publishing 

~Reviewer for AllBooksReview 

~Co-Founder of  Coffee Cramp eZine 

~Instructor at The Long Story Short School of Writing 

Sponsored by Lea Schizas and Carolyn Howard-Johnson, THE MUSE ONLINE WRITERS CONFERENCE took place October 9 - 13, 2006. FREE registration, FREE workshops, FREE ebook for everyone at the end with loads of goodies.

- will be a judge for an upcoming EPIC contest.

- Newest Muse Anthology, "Aleatory's Junction", just received an e-book contract from Double Dragon Publishing. I edited and wrote a continuous part of the book. 

Author Barbara DeMarco-Barrett was born in Altoona, Pennsylvania, and at 11 moved to Lansdale, just outside Philadelphia. She attended Goddard College in Plainfield, Vermont, where she earned a bachelor's degree. She has published fiction, poetry, articles and essays in such journals as the Los Angeles Times, The Writer, Poets & Writers, Sunset, Westways, Orange Coast Magazine and the San Jose Mercury News . Her work has been anthologized in two books: The ASJA Guide to Freelance Writing (St. Martin's Press, 2003) and Conversations with Clarence Major (University Press of Mississippi, 2002). She is host of Writers on Writing, a weekly radio show that airs on KUCI-FM (88.9) and at www.kuci.org and teaches creative writing at the University of California, Irvine Extension and through Gotham Writers Workshop in NYC.

She lives in Corona del Mar, California, with her jazz and blues musician husband, her 11-year-old son, two tanks of fish and two cats. Her first book is Pen On Fire: A Busy Woman's Guide for Igniting the Writer Within (Harcourt/Harvest, October 2004), which was honored in New York City in April with the 2005 ASJA Outstanding Book Award, Self-help/Service.

 

Linda Rainwater was born in Anniston, Alabama.  She was a "closet writer" for much of her life while putting her love for books and learning out in the open.  She taught at Oxford High School, Jacksonville State University, and Auburn University, where she earned her Ph.D. 

 

A natural progression was to impart her love for literature to others.  As a professor of English for seventeen years, she taught everything from grammar to Shakespeare.  Leaving that profession, she traveled and gathered words and experiences needed for her next life, as a writer. 

The Second Milagro is her first novel.  It grew out of her travels in Mexico and her intrigue with the Mexican culture.  She has two other novels in the works, The Dream Changed and Framing the Truth.

 

Linda now lives in Virginia with her husband, Ray.  She has two sons, Jason, a minister, and Joey Thrower, an actor and videographer who once played on One Life to Live, and five grandsons. Plus there are four children she calls her own, since marrying their father, whom she calls her Knight in Shining Armor. 

 

The Mount Vernon Writers group has contributed to keeping her pen working while her cat keeps her company, making writing, she says, her best life yet.  Linda invites you to visit her at www.lindarainwater.com .

 

Raymond K. Wong  was born and raised in Hong Kong. He came to the US for college, fell in love with the country, and became a citizen in 1997.

Ray studied creative writing at UCLA, then edited at Scholastic. His work has been published in The Pittsburgh Post Gazette, the Asian-American Writers Anthology, and Writers Post Journal. He also writes a weekly column for Actors Ink.

Ray is the author of the novel, The Pacific Between, which won a 2006 IPPY Independent Publishers Book award. The nostalgic tale of love, death and betrayal "appeals to fans of mystery and literary fiction; a satisfying and memorable read" ( January Magazine). Ray also writes a weekly column for Actors Ink. Other publications include the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette , the Writers Post Journal, Asian-American Anthology, The Deepening, Mundania Press: Shorts, and the anthology Stories of Strength, which benefits Katrina disaster relief and features more than 100 writers including Orson Scott Card and Wil Wheaton.

When he's not writing, Ray is a professional actor. His credits include Roommates, South Pacific, Triumph of Love, and Sex and the City as well as regional and national commercials. Among his colleagues are Peter Falk, Julianne Moore, Ellen Burstyn, Sarah Jessica Parker, and director Rob Marshall. In January 2007, Ray was named one of the 25 most beautiful people by Pittsburgh Magazine.

 

Questions? Comments? Contact audrey at writerschatroom.com