Starsongs Magazine

Title: Starsongs Magazine
Publisher: Written World Communications

Cover blurb: Although Written World Communications is a Christian publisher, Starsongs Magazine is a general market quarterly magazine for kids by kids ages 9-19. Starsongs accepts original short stories, poetry, essays, articles, photography and art work by young people in the above mentioned age group. Each issue of Starsongs contains a mentoring article about writing or photography by an adult writer. We also feature an interview with an extraordinary young person. These interviews to date include author Kayla Woodhouse, Olympic skater Rachael Flatt, manager and first violinist for the New World String Quartet Rebecca Phillips, and mulit-published teen author Riley Carney.

1) How did the idea for this magazine come to you? This magazine came into existence to inspire young people to express their creative talent through original writing, photography, and artwork. Our tag line is “voices of the future” and our goal is to inspire youth.

2) Tell us about the journey to getting the magazine in circulation.
The first issue of Starsongs became available in September of 2010. Starsongs staff is proud to have published over thirty young writers and photographers, many for the first time. Our publication is available in downloadable and print format. We will be celebrating our one year anniversary with our next issue, due to release in late August, so watch for some neat contests!

3) Tell me three things about yourself that would surprise your readers.
1) I have a son and daughter-in-law who live in the United Kingdom
2) I have an awesome granddaughter who was nominated for the softball all-star team
3) Even though I live in Colorado, I was born and raised in New York (not New York City!)

4) What are you working on now and what's next for you?
Lots! Starsongs will be launching a book imprint, general market YA books, for which we are currently soliciting manuscripts. As Vice President of Written World Communications, I also supervise our other two children’s publications, each of which have their own book imprints, which we plan to launch within the next few months. Untapped is a Christian YA magazine and book imprint. Patchwork is a Christian children’s magazine and book imprint.

5) Parting comments?
If you are or know a young person who likes to write, please get in touch with me. I am always looking for submissions and I love to work with and mentor young writers. Always be open to God’s plan for your writing life. My original goal was to write westerns! Even though that dream still lingers in the back of my mind, publishing young people brings me much more satisfaction than seeing my own book in print (if that ever happens) probably would.

6) Where can fans find you on the internet?
Starsongs is available at www.magcloud.com/browse/magazine/113497. Our Written World Communications web site is under construction but we can be reached at http://www.written-world.com/. Send Starsongs submissions to Patti Shene at starsongs.mag@gmail.com.

Kim Watters' "Home Sweet Home"

Title: Home Sweet Home
Publisher: Harlequin’s Love Inspired

Cover blurb: Somewhere to belong....
Finally ready to settle down, Abby Bancroft has just inherited a place to put down roots. But her hopes for a successful bed-and breakfast are placed on hold when she learns that her grandparents’ run-down inn is in serious need of TLC. So is Cole Preston, the handsome contractor who offers to help make her dream a reality. His past mistakes won’t let him consider settling in the close knit town. Yet as he and Abby work together to repair the house, they also begin to mend each other’s hearts. And they just may find that consulting their hearts is what creating a home is all about.

1) How did this story come to you?
After I finished my first Love Inspired On Wings of Love, I wanted to write a story that was a little lighter and had nothing to do with a medical profession. I’ve always been intrigued by old Victorian houses and the idea of running a bed & breakfast. Since those are very remote possibilities, I lived it vicariously through my characters.

2) Tell us about the journey to getting this book published.
My editor passed on another proposal so I sat back down at the proverbial drawing board and hashed out a few ideas with my critique group. Voila. Home Sweet Home was born.

3) Tell me three things about yourself that would surprise your readers.
I’ve lived in two foreign countries; South Africa and France . I work at a golf course during the day but don’t play golf. I’m claustrophobic so don’t be standing next to me in a crowded elevator.

4) What are you working on now and what's next for you?
My next Love Inspired tentatively called A Father’s Love, which ironically visits the medical community again.

5) Parting comments?
Thanks for allowing me to be a part of your community for the day. I hope everyone enjoys reading Home Sweet Home as much as I enjoyed writing it.

6) Where can fans find you on the internet?
www.kimwatters.com www.facebook.com/kimwatters
www.myspace.com/kimwatters
www.twitter.com/kimwattersaz
http://www.muchcheaperthantherapy.blogspot.com/

Linda Rohrbough's "The Prophetess One: At Risk"

Title: The Prophetess One: At Risk
Publisher: High Hill Inspiration, a division of High Hill Press, St Charles, Missouri.

Cover blurb:
Front cover: A nation in peril. Only one woman can save it.
Back cover: "This is fast-paced, thrilling, edge-of-the-seat reading. The Prophetess One: At Risk had me flipping the pages and holding my breath." - Debbie Macomber, #1 New York Times bestseller

It’s a very different kind of war.
Why would God choose a pregnant computer programmer to fight it?
All Anna McClintock wants is a peaceful stretch of beach she can walk to with her new husband, Jack, and her soon-to-be-born child. Jack is finishing his engineering degree this semester and the two plan to leave his Kansas home to build their new lives together.
But when Anna finds herself in jail for the murder of a preschool child she tried to save, she realizes she is alone, except for God. She has to rely on new-found spiritual gifts as well as her wits and skills in order to save herself, her unborn son, and her marriage.
And she has another decision to make. This one affects the entire nation.

1) How did this story come to you?
For me, real events formed the background for The Prophetess One: At Risk.
It all started after an extreme tragedy. My husband’s nephew, Daniel Rohrbough, was a casualty in the Columbine shooting. The entire family was in shock, but even so I started noticing strange events. For example, as family at the Columbine memorial service, I was down front far enough to see General Colin Powell on the platform in full military dress between musicians Amy Grant and Phil Driscoll. But he was never mentioned or introduced, and he never spoke. It didn’t take much research on my part to discover Powell is the military’s go to guy when it comes to problems with the Middle East.
As I followed the Columbine shooting, I discovered the shooters bragged theirs would be the first of many such events. And they were right. Plus the officials investigating Columbine looked unsuccessfully for months for third-party involvement in the year-long planning of the shooting.
I started researching other school shootings as they occurred. There were numerous reports of school shooters, including the Columbine shooters, doing a low-level format of the hard disk drives of their computers. This is an extreme measure that takes hours to perform, as it meticulously zeros out the hard disk drive. I only did a low-level format when a computer was so virus-ridden, there was no other way to salvage it. Since most of the shooters, including those at Columbine, posted their plans on the Internet, I wondered what they didn’t want found.
In two cases, the low-level format was stopped before it was complete. Once in a school shooting in Paris and once when a kid in Florida flew his Dad’s plane into a building. In both cases, the authorities found emails they traced back to Al Qaeda operatives.
As I investigated other shootings, I uncovered much more information that led me to believe this sort of thing could be prevented on a grass roots level. This led me to the theme of the book - men are important in the lives of children.
I wrote in more detail about the events and my process on my website on my Books page.

2) Tell us about the journey to getting this book published.
It took me twelve years. Most of that time I spent figuring out how to write fiction, which is very different than doing nonfiction. Every time I thought I should give up on this book, and write something else, someone I respected would read it and encourage me to keep trying. I got my fiction agent about three years ago and he’s been a great advocate for the book. And my publisher, a small press in St. Charles, Missouri, loved the book, thought it was important, and wanted to see it out there. So now we’re on that journey.

3) Tell me three things about yourself that would surprise your readers.
As a child, I wanted to be an entomologist (someone who studies insects). I don’t know if readers will be surprised by this, but I am still surprised I won a national award for a short story I wrote in 7th grade. But readers might be surprised to know I have also produced an iPhone App of a workshop I do to help writers learn to talk about their books to an editor or agent called “Pitch Your Book.” It’s available for the iPhone, iTouch, or iPad at the iTunes store.

4) What are you working on now and what's next for you?
I’m working on The Prophetess Two. And I’m doing a new App for writers. Plus my fiction agent is shopping my women-in-technology suspense series - five books each with a strong, smart gal trained in a technical field who sees evidence of God as creator in the everyday science she works with. Plus she has a sticky problem that’s got her in trouble. The first one is about a foreign object debris (FOD) expert at Denver International Airport. (A FOD expert is someone whose job it is to help prevent objects from getting sucked into jet engines, including animals, like those geese that forced a commercial airliner into the Hudson River a couple of years back.) The other books feature an astronomer, a chemist, an astronaut, and a physicist.

5) Parting comments?
I’m grateful to be here. Thanks for joining me.

6) Where can fans find you on the internet?
I have a website where I keep readers posted at http://www.lindarohrbough.com/. And I’m on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/LindaRohrboughAuthor.