New Year in July

While most of the world celebrates New Years on January 1st, here at Novel Spaces we celebrate it on July 1st.  It is the time we look back at how far we’ve come, and look to the future directions.  It’s the time we shake things up a bit, change schedules, add new members, and we see members graduate and go on to bigger better things.

Lots of things have been happening with our members for the past year.  We’ve seen new published stories, we’ve seen members expand into publishing or extend their reach to new genres, and others have received advanced degrees and awards.  Not only was Liane’s literary short story, “Magic Island published” in St. Somewhere Literary Journal and her new romantic suspense, “Give me the Night” released, but she was awarded the 2012-2013 creative writing prize by University of West Indies, St. Augustine Campus and her short story “Miss Annie cooks Fish” was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize.  Add to that, her debut novel, "Café au Lait" became a Kindle top 100 seller in the Amazon UK store, and reached #1 in three categories.

Last July Marissa Monteilh Published “You've Got It Bad”, followed by her release of “The Six-Letter Word/Turnabout Is Fair Play” in October.  This year Pynk has seen some action with the release of “Insignificant Others 2” and “Erotic City: Las Vegas” by Insatiable Press.

Dayton Ward has had a very busy year, first with “Star Trek: The Original Series - From History's Shadow” published August 2013 by Pocket Books and nominated for a Scribe Award from the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers (winners to be announced July 25th at San Diego Comic-Con).  We saw his creation of a new science fiction series, inspired by the old-time radio serials: The Adventures of Space Marshal Dylan McCade.  His first story, "The Terror of Entropia's Ice Cannon!" was adapted for audio drama and released in 6 installments during August 2013 and was the winner of two 2013 Audio Verse Awards.  In January he released “Star Trek: The Fall - Peaceable Kingdoms” which debuted at #13 on the New York Times Bestseller List (Mass Market Paperback Fiction) and the short story "Stop-Loss," published in the anthology Zombiefied by Sky Warrior Books.

Sunny has been taking it easy lecturing at a junior college on how to win short story contests.  Her 3rd Christy Bristol Astrology Mystery will be coming out soon.

Carol has been as busy as a bee with her expansion into young adult fiction when she published, “Another Day” in August 2013.  Since then she’s embraced even younger readers with “Chee Chee Fights back” (January 2014).  Carol was also nominated for Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award 2014.

 We’ve seen Jewel Amethyst trend younger first  with her release of “Indiscretion” a YA novella in the Pretty Little Liars Kindle Universe, and finally with her pending release of “Zapped! Danger in the cell” with her eleven-year-old daughter and co-author, Lynelle Martin.

Finally we’ve seen KeVin Killiany become master and commander as he accomplished his lifelong dream of attaining an MFA in creative writing.  Now he can couple his passion for writing with his passion for teaching at a college level.

This new year we’ve made some exciting changes to Novel Spaces.  We’ve had to say goodbye to a John Brantingham, and William Doonan had to take a much needed sabbatical.  We’ve shifted schedules.  Now we’re welcoming two new members to Novel Spaces: author Velda Brotherton and our first illustrator, Che Gilson.

We’ve also begun a new Novel Spaces Facebook  page where we can share our blog posts with our Facebook followers.  We’ve included some themed months and are trying to get our followers involved in choosing the topics they would like to see addressed.  We’ve arranged several interviews on Blog Talk Radio for our members.  Most of all we’ve given our Novel Spaces page a facelift.

Like year end when we look forward to welcoming the New Year, we at Novel Spaces are looking forward to this new exciting year. So raise your imaginary (or real) champagne glasses  and join me in in wishing all our members old and new a, "HAPPY NEW YEAR NOVEL SPACES!!!"