Welcome to Novel Spaces!

Thanks for joining us at our new place in the universe! There are 11 of us here, drawn together by our love of writing and a desire to share our musings and foresight, challenges and successes with readers and writers alike. We'll blog on craft, the writers life, upcoming projects, and the world as we see it. We invite you to drop in often -- subscribe or follow -- to hear the varied voices we bring as Novel Spaces.

Who are we?

Jewel Amethyst
Jewel Amethyst was born and raised on the lovely island of St. Kitts in the Caribbean. Her first full length novel, A Marriage of Convenience comes out August 2009. Her holiday romance story, From SKB with Love is part of an anthology of romance stories Holiday Brides: Gifts of love which includes stories by Farrah Rochon and Stefanie Worth due to be released in October 2009. Jewel lives with her husband and kids in Maryland where she enjoys writing fiction. She also has a passion for writing poetry and short stories emphasizing Kittitian culture and language.

Devon Vaughn Archer
Devon Vaughn Archer is the bestselling author of romance, urban, and mainstream fiction. His latest novel is a tale of seduction, passion, betrayal, revenge, and danger, titled The Secrets of Paradise Bay (Urban Books, 2010). Devon has written a number of contemporary romances for Harlequin's Kimani Press, including Kissing the Man Next Door and Christmas Diamonds. He has the distinction of being the first male to write for Harlequin's Arabesque line with the 2006 hit mainstream romance, Love Once Again. Archer also writes mystery and thriller fiction under the name R. Barri Flowers. Upcoming novels from Devon Vaughn Archer include The Hitman's Woman (Urban Books, Summer 2011) and Pleasure Me in Hawaii (Kimani, June 2011).

K.S. Augustin
Do you like passion with your fiction? Hi everyone, I'm Kaz Augustin and I write mostly science-fiction romance, although I also write fantasy and it appears that the contemporary romance bug has recently jumped on my back too! I'm in Malaysia, so you'll probably read my posts and comments twelve hours after everybody else. LOL I'm proud to be part of this dynamic and diverse group and hope you enjoy our posts and our work.

Phyllis Bourne
A native of Chicago’s Southside, Phyllis Bourne began her writing career as a crime reporter for the Ft. Wayne News-Sentinel and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. After years of chasing cops and criminals, she left reporting to write about life’s sweeter side.

Her books are about true love and happily-ever-afters. She blogs about looking and feeling great – even on deadline.

Charles Gramlich
Charles reads, writes, and blogs from his home in the woods of southern Louisiana. He’s written fantasy, horror, westerns, and a lot of other strange things. One of his weirdest works is a chapbook of vampire haiku called Wanting the Mouth of a Lover. He also has a nonfiction book out called Write With Fire, which is a collection of essays and how-to articles on writing. Charles’s wife, Lana, is a talented artist in her own right.

KeVin Killiany
KeVin Killiany has been married to Valerie for nearly three decades and the father of Alethea, Anson, & Daya for various shorter periods of time. In addition to being a writer, KeVin has been a teacher, photographer, at-risk intervention counselor, warehouse grunt, associate pastor, paperboy, and is currently a mental health case manager. KeVin has published two novels set in the MechWarrior universe and two volumes of the Star Trek: Starfleet Corps of Engineers series. He has published short fiction in Star Trek, Doctor Who, BattleTech, and Shadowrun universes. KeVin also writes web content and players' source book materials for several role-playing, video, and tabletop games including Shadowrun, Nanover, and BattleTech. Though all of his published works to date have been science fiction, KeVin also writes mystery and romance. He and Valerie live in Wilmington, NC.

Carol Mitchell
In 2008, after a career in business and information technology, Carol married two of her passions, reading and children. Inspired by the historic Brimstone Hill in St. Kitts, she began the Caribbean Adventure Series, the first children's adventure series based in the Caribbean. The first book, Adventure at Brimstone Hill, was closely followed by Pirates at Port Royal, based in Jamaica. Since then, Carol's life has taken her from St. Kitts to Ghana, West Africa where she lives with her husband and two children and continues to write about her experiences.

Marissa Monteilh
Formerly self-published, Marissa Monteilh (Mon-tay) signed a two-book deal with HarperCollins in 2001, and since then has gone on to write seven mainstream and two erotica titles. Currently with Hachette Books, she is a strong advocate of self-publishing, and mentors writers who choose to publish their own titles. Writing erotica books under her pseudonym, Pynk, Marissa focuses on subjects that promote “guilt free,” responsible sex for liberated women, and encourages readers to be “Sex-See,” which is a regular segment included in her erotica books, along with a sex dictionary and lead character commentary. Most of Marissa’s blog posts will focus on writing and on sex-related issues for women.

Shauna S. Roberts
Shauna Roberts’ first novel, Like Mayflies in a Stream, will debut in October 2009. In this historical novel set in ancient Mesopotamia, a priestess of Inanna struggles to keep the precarious flame of civilization burning in the world's first city.

Roberts has also published fantasy, science fiction, and romance short stories and is attending the 2009 Clarion Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers' Workshop.

She has been a freelance biomedical writer and copy editor since 1990. Her consumer-health columns and book have won several awards.

Roberts grew up in Beavercreek, Ohio, and currently lives in Southern California. She enjoys herb gardening, quilting, playing medieval and Renaissance music, and bellydancing.

Farrah Rochon
Farrah Rochon, award-winning author of the popular Holmes Brothers series, hails from a small town just west of New Orleans. Currently residing in Austin, Texas, Farrah is the author of three contemporary romances, Deliver Me, Release Me, and Rescue Me, and two holiday novellas, A Change of Heart in The Holiday Inn anthology, and the upcoming No Ordinary Gift in the Holiday Brides anthology, all published under Dorchester Publishing’s Leisure Imprint.

Farrah recently signed a two-book deal with Harlequin’s Kimani Romance. Playing With Fire, the first book in her new series centered around the fictional New York Sabers professional football team, is slated for release in September 2010.

Liane Spicer
Liane, who hails from Trinidad, used to teach high school but ran away from all that in 2000. The years since have been more adventurous than she bargained for but through it all writing has been her anchor. She regularly gets into arguments with her foreign friends: "They think I live in paradise, and I always have to set them right on that score. But you know what? They're right. I do. I live in a 'space' where beauty jumps out at me at every turn, and this setting played a major role in my first novel, Café au Lait. Landscape, seascape, flora, fauna – I’m beset by them in my fiction and in my life, as evidenced just last week by our latest serpent visitor!"

Terence Taylor
Terence Taylor is an award-winning children's television writer, whose work has appeared on PBS, Nickelodeon, and Disney, among many others. After a career of comforting young kids, he's now equally dedicated to scaring their parents. His short horror stories have been published in all three Dark Dreams anthologies. He lives quietly in Brooklyn and laughs a lot between acts of literary carnage.

Karen White-Owens
Karen Owens is the author of six romance novels and one novella. In addition to writing, Karen works as a reference librarian at the Mount Clemens Public Library and teaches freshman essay writing at Wayne State University. Her 2004 novel, Circles of Love received a 4-1/2 Gold review from Romantic Times Book Club, the highest honor an author can receive and was nominated Best Multicultural Novel for 2004. She also received a nomination for Best Hero from the Romantic Slam Jam Emma Awards. Love Changes Everything received 4-1/2 stars from Romantic Times Book Club and was top pick for November 2005.

Currently she works as a part time instructor at Wayne State University's Interdisciplinary Studies Program, teaching writing communications skills to undergraduate students. As a devoted supporter of the Detroit Writers Guild Annual Conferences, she conducts workshops on characterization and rejection letters and provides manuscript critiquing. Gary her husband of 20 years is her biggest fan.

Stefanie Worth
As soon as she put fingers to keyboard to crank out her first novel, award-winning author, writer and former journalist, Stefanie Worth realized that normalcy didn’t fit into her plot. Contemporary, yes. Passionate, moreso. But ready yourself for twists and turns that whisk you from ordinary to otherworldy, from “what if” to “why not?”

Stefanie’s debut novel, Where Souls Collide, won the Science Fiction category of the 2008 African American Literary Awards. Her follow-up work, a novella titled Can You Believe, appeared in The Holiday Inn anthology, and another novella, HeavenSent.com is slated to appear in the Holiday Brides anthology (October 2008). She is currently at work on her next novel, to be released in 2011.