Lauren Scott
- Our youngest member, 10-year-old Lauren Scott, has just published a book about her adventures raising two newborn fawns. In this uniquely crafted memoir, Lauren shares a genuine, heartfelt account of her experiences taking care of two fawns that appeared in her backyard during the unprecedented challenges of a global pandemic. As Lauren learns to care for her newfound friends, readers of all ages will be touched by the authenticity of her perspective. Lauren’s tale is a poignant exploration of life's profound lessons of hard work, compassion, resilience, and responsibility. The Tale of Two Fawns offers tender moments that define her connection with the animal kingdom and the broader lessons that life has to offer, allowing readers to witness the world through the eyes of a young nature enthusiast. You can find the book at Amazon. Update: Lauren recently received a review of her book by an independent agency and it was awarded 5 out of 5 stars!
Congratulations!
For the Historical Novel Society’s inaugural First Chapters Competition, over 400 writers from 23 countries entered in nine different categories. On May 6th, the Category Shortlists announcement revealed four of the Shortlist Winners to be WNBA Nashville members! Congratulations to:
Alana White (shortlisted in the Historical Crime/Mystery Category)
Kim Teter (shortlisted in the Children and Young Adult Historical Fiction Category)
Genetta Adair (shortlisted in the Children and Young Adult Historical Fiction Category)
Erin Cox (shortlisted in the Historical Adventure Category)
On June 10th, the Category Winners and Overall Shortlist were announced with the Overall Winner announcement to take place at the HNS UK 2024 Conference in September.
EXCITING UPDATE! Of the 4 WNBA Nashville members who were shortlist winners, Kim Teter was announced as the 1st place Gold Medal winner of her category (Children & YA Category) and Genetta Adair is the 3rd place Bronze Medal winner in that same category. In addition, Alana White is the 2nd place Silver Medal winner in the Historical Crime/Mystery Category.
As a 1st place Gold Medal winner, Kim Teter is invited to attend the HNS UK 2024 Conference in September.
Congratulations to all of these WNBA Nashville members!
Alana White (shortlisted in the Historical Crime/Mystery Category)
Kim Teter (shortlisted in the Children and Young Adult Historical Fiction Category)
Genetta Adair (shortlisted in the Children and Young Adult Historical Fiction Category)
Erin Cox (shortlisted in the Historical Adventure Category)
On June 10th, the Category Winners and Overall Shortlist were announced with the Overall Winner announcement to take place at the HNS UK 2024 Conference in September.
EXCITING UPDATE! Of the 4 WNBA Nashville members who were shortlist winners, Kim Teter was announced as the 1st place Gold Medal winner of her category (Children & YA Category) and Genetta Adair is the 3rd place Bronze Medal winner in that same category. In addition, Alana White is the 2nd place Silver Medal winner in the Historical Crime/Mystery Category.
As a 1st place Gold Medal winner, Kim Teter is invited to attend the HNS UK 2024 Conference in September.
Congratulations to all of these WNBA Nashville members!
Meredith Lyons
Meredith R. Lyons' Ghost Tamer is now a 2024 IPPY Award Gold Winner for Best First Book and a Top Pick for the Killer Nashville Silver Falchion Awards for Best Supernatural. Ghost Tamer released in September 2023 and will receive a paperback release September 17, 2024. It's also an Amazon Editors' Pick for Best SciFi Fantasy.
Purchase links: CamCat Books, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Parnassus (signed copies available in store)
Purchase links: CamCat Books, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Parnassus (signed copies available in store)
Phyllis Gobbell
Phyllis Gobbell’s new mystery, Notorious in Nashville, is a “Top Pick” for Best Cozy in Killer Nashville’s Silver Falchion awards. A list of finalists in each category will be chosen, and the winners will be announced at Killer Nashville in August.
Paul Rowney
Paul Rowney is continuing to plan the Book, Authors, and Publishers Fair at the Nashville Fairgrounds. The date has been announced as March 1, 2025. Paul, born in England, is a retired event organizer and magazine publisher, now living near Nashville. Since 2020 he has published four books. His latest book that made it into Amazon's Top 20 for Historical Fiction, is about a Medieval House (built 1485) Paul lived in whilst a teenager in England. He often wondered about the stories people who lived in the house over the centuries could tell. So he told them, using fictional characters woven into real life historical events that happened in the town (Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk). From the Black Death, to the English Civil War, the Dissolution of the Monasteries to the Witchfinder General trials. Called The Crown Post, it was published in December...a sequel is in the works. Paul is also planning a Books, Authors, and Publishers Fair for next year here in Nashville.
A Little Boost
Some of our members launched books during the Pandemic when people just weren't getting out to bookstores very much. So we would like to give their books a little boost and feature them here on the website. Let us know if you also had a pandemic book!
Margaret Thomson is the author of The World Looks Different Now: A Memoir of Suicide, Faith, and Family. Margaret received the IBPA (Independent Book Publishers Association) Benjamin Franklin Award. The back copy for Margaret and the book reads: The World Looks Different Now takes readers behind the statistics and into the private world of a family whose lives are forever changed following the suicide of the family’s older son less than three months before he was due to deploy to Afghanistan. A journalist as well as a grieving mother, author Margaret Thomson instinctively turned to writing during the weeks, months, and even years following her son’s death in an effort to make sense out of a seemingly senseless act that she never dreamed could happen. In The World Looks Different Now, Thomson chronicles the difficult journey that she and her husband, along with their surviving son, are forced to embark upon as they move toward eventual – if only partial – healing.
Janet Lee is the illustrator for the Trot & Cap'n Bill Adventure series by Amy Chu.
Sea Sirens
9780451480170
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/573447/sea-sirens-by-amy-chu-illustrated-by-janet-k-lee/
Sky Island
9780451480248
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/573450/sky-island-by-amy-chu-illustrated-by-janet-k-lee/
She is currently writing (as well as illustrating) a graphic novel for Roaring Brook, so more on that presently!
Sea Sirens
9780451480170
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/573447/sea-sirens-by-amy-chu-illustrated-by-janet-k-lee/
Sky Island
9780451480248
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/573450/sky-island-by-amy-chu-illustrated-by-janet-k-lee/
She is currently writing (as well as illustrating) a graphic novel for Roaring Brook, so more on that presently!
Melissa Hogan's first book, "Afraid of the Doctor: Every Parent’s Guide to Preventing and Managing Medical Trauma,” released in July 2021 during COVID, so I would love for it to be shared in whatever way possible! After living with my son’s experiences of medical trauma (think of PTSD from medical conditions and experiences) for many years and researching and writing about how we had learned to address it, I approached one of the leading specialists in medical trauma, Dr. Meghan Marsac, a pediatric psychologist at the University of Kentucky, to write this book together to help parents, families, and healthcare providers.
Afraid of the Doctor educates readers about what is (and isn’t) medical trauma, discusses the important role that caregivers can play within their loved one’s medical team, and shares specific strategies for preventing and managing medical trauma. It illustrates how to adjust those strategies for special populations such as very young children or individuals who are nonverbal or have cognitive impairment, and also addresses potential medical trauma in caregivers themselves. The book has been endorsed by leaders in the medical field such as the Child Neurology Foundation, the chair of pediatrics at Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital, the Director of the Center for Pediatric Traumatic Stress at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and the heads of various rare disease organizations.
Readers can find more information at afraidofthedoctor.com and the hardback book can be purchased on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other venues. The paperback edition is expected to release on July 2, 2024!
Afraid of the Doctor educates readers about what is (and isn’t) medical trauma, discusses the important role that caregivers can play within their loved one’s medical team, and shares specific strategies for preventing and managing medical trauma. It illustrates how to adjust those strategies for special populations such as very young children or individuals who are nonverbal or have cognitive impairment, and also addresses potential medical trauma in caregivers themselves. The book has been endorsed by leaders in the medical field such as the Child Neurology Foundation, the chair of pediatrics at Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital, the Director of the Center for Pediatric Traumatic Stress at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and the heads of various rare disease organizations.
Readers can find more information at afraidofthedoctor.com and the hardback book can be purchased on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other venues. The paperback edition is expected to release on July 2, 2024!
Etta Wilson
Long-time WNBA Nashville member Etta Wilson has been associated with the world of books for her entire career. She has just published her first book of poetry entitled Sustenance. Regarding her book, Etta says, "Observing life and writing about what I see, think, and feel are almost as life-giving to me as food. You will find poems based on nature, poems about relationships and marriage, and poems derived simply from the day-to-day events in life. I've learned that writing poetry can be self-revealing, and that good poetry provides an opportunity for readers to recognize some aspect of their own lives. I hope you enjoy reading what I have written."
Lauren Thoman
Lauren Thoman is excited to announce that the launch party for her next book, YOU SHOULDN'T BE HERE, will be at Parnassus Books at 6:30 pm on Wednesday, July 24. She is running a preorder campaign for the book, where everyone who orders in advance gets a set of original vinyl stickers inspired by the book. You can register for the Parnassus event here.
Melissa Collings
Melissa Collings launched her debut bittersweet love story The False Flat at Parnassus Books on June 11 at 6:30pm in conversation with local Nashville author Lauren Kung Jessen (author of Red String Theory). In addition to the author interview, there were giveaways, live music (from the book), and a book signing.
About the Book:
In this uplifting story about friendship, love, and growth, one woman must untangle herself from a past that's holding her back in order to move forward into the life that will set her free.
Penelope Auberge is at her breaking point. With an overbearing mother, a married boyfriend, and a boss who gives Pen's high-profile finance clients to male colleagues, it feels like nothing she's accomplished in her thirty-two years belongs to her.
Determined to build a life entirely her own, Pen moves from Minnesota to Tennessee to open a solo financial business. There, she meets siblings Deanna and Grant, who attempt to coax Pen out of her socially anxious shell. Hesitant to open up so she doesn't get hurt (again), Pen is slow to develop a friendship with Deanna, and she's determined to ignore her feelings for Grant, which is difficult given she's joined his cycling group and a clear something begins blossoming between them.
Pen's path in Nashville appears to be smoothing out, but she soon learns that packing up her past isn't quite that easy. If she wants to start fresh, she'll have to decide what she really wants--even if that means riding away from her old life for good.
Links to preorder: Amazon, Parnassus, Target, and Barnes & Noble
About the Book:
In this uplifting story about friendship, love, and growth, one woman must untangle herself from a past that's holding her back in order to move forward into the life that will set her free.
Penelope Auberge is at her breaking point. With an overbearing mother, a married boyfriend, and a boss who gives Pen's high-profile finance clients to male colleagues, it feels like nothing she's accomplished in her thirty-two years belongs to her.
Determined to build a life entirely her own, Pen moves from Minnesota to Tennessee to open a solo financial business. There, she meets siblings Deanna and Grant, who attempt to coax Pen out of her socially anxious shell. Hesitant to open up so she doesn't get hurt (again), Pen is slow to develop a friendship with Deanna, and she's determined to ignore her feelings for Grant, which is difficult given she's joined his cycling group and a clear something begins blossoming between them.
Pen's path in Nashville appears to be smoothing out, but she soon learns that packing up her past isn't quite that easy. If she wants to start fresh, she'll have to decide what she really wants--even if that means riding away from her old life for good.
Links to preorder: Amazon, Parnassus, Target, and Barnes & Noble
Kim Green
WNBANashville member Kim Green is co-author of a memoir (out 2.20.24) titled: SLOW NOODLES: A Cambodian Memoir of Love, Loss, and Family Recipes. Kim and her dear friend Chantha Nguon have been working on this together for 10+ years. It’s her life story as a Cambodian refugee who lost her home and everyone she loved to war and genocide, but used her memories of her mother’s cooking as the seeds to regrow a new life — and built a social enterprise in rural Cambodia. The memoir is a culinary love letter from Chantha to her mother; and Chantha’s daughter Clara helped develop recipes, wrote the epilogue, and narrated the audiobook — so this represents three generations of culinary heritage, passed down from mothers to daughters.
Becky Grando
Becky Grando (publishes under R.A. Grando) placed an Honorable Mention in the 92nd Annual Writer's Digest competition in the Mainstream/Literary fiction category for her short story "The Symphony". Her name and title are mentioned on the WD website (https://www.writersdigest.com/wd-competitions/announcing-the-winners-of-the-92nd-annual-writers-digest-writing-competition) and for those interested in reading the story, you can now find it posted on her website (https://ragrando.com/2023/10/18/honorable-mention). Enjoy!
Sallie Bissell
After eight novels in the acclaimed Mary Crow mystery series, Sallie Bissell is pleased to announce her first stand-alone novel, “The Cassandra Curse” (Atmosphere,2023). Set in Charleston, South Carolina and Brooklyn, New York, the story is about Augusta Delaney and her desperate search for her missing twin brother. It’s been well-received by critics, with the Midwest Book Review writing “Sallie Bissell creates a compelling story that centers on dreams, recovered memories and truths…Bissell’s ability to unlock key moments of realization and transformation…creates an engrossing story of intrigue and psychological discovery” It’s available on Amazon, and at salliebissell.com. Sallie is soon travelling to Scotland to research the sequel, with the working title of “Cassandra’s Revenge”.
Want to buy any of these books? Support our local indie bookstore and friend to WNBA, Parnassus Books!
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