Congrats to Pocono Liars Club member Kelly Jensen on her latest release!

Dillon Lee’s grandfather was a conspiracy theorist. Every summer he’d take Dillon on a tour of New York City while entertaining him with tales of aliens. Fifteen years later, after a phone call from a lawyer, Dillon is carrying his grandfather’s ashes from landmark to landmark, paying a sort of tribute, and trying to figure out what to do with his unexpected legacy. When someone tries to steal the ashes, a guy Dillon has barely met leaps to the rescue, saving the urn and the day.

Steilang Skovgaard is a reclusive billionaire—and not human. He’s been living in Manhattan for over twenty years, working on a long-term plan to establish a safe haven for his people. For seven years, his reports have gone unanswered, however, and he is the only surviving member of his interstellar team. The connection he forms with Dillon soon after meeting him is something he’s missed, something he craves.

But after someone keeps trying to steal the ashes, it looks as though Dillon’s grandfather was involved in more than theories—and might not have been exactly who everyone thought he was. Steilang doesn’t know how close he can get to the truth without revealing himself, and Dillon is running out of people to trust. Can these two work out what’s going on before the thieves set their sights higher?

Order it today on Amazon!

Pocono Writer Mary Anne Moore‘s latest book is now available!

Take a tour of southern Africa where no one is simply who they claim to be. Amy Mohr is a physicist with spy craft as a sideline. Mike Stone is a former intelligence agent who now runs tours of southern Africa. Under cover, she plays the role of a tourist whose mission begins as a search for a lost cousin and evolves into a desperate effort to thwart plans that threaten to wreck further havoc on a land already on the precipice of war. Collecting allies along the way, they face betrayal, political intrigue, gun runners, and rhino poachers. Both must confront issues of their past before they can effectively face the future. They discover they are stronger together than apart.

You can order this on Amazon.

What if Sherlock Holmes was born in a different body in a different time and place? In this new series, Pocono Writer Michael A. Ventrella teams up with New York Times Bestselling Author Jonathan Maberry to edit a series of short stories twisting Sherlock. The game is afoot!

Contributors include Maberry as well as NY Times Bestselling Author Heidi McLaughlin, Hugo and Nebula Award Winning Author David Gerrold, and many other well-known and popular science fiction and fantasy authors, including Keith R.A. DeCandido, Jody Lynn Nye, Gail Z. Martin and Ryk Spoor.

It is published by Diversion Books and is available in paperback, ebook, and audio book.

Here’s what Kirkus Reviews says:

When has Sherlock Holmes changed so much that he’s no longer Sherlock Holmes? In this aptly titled collection, 13 new adventures of Holmes and Watson, more or less, push the envelope far beyond Baker Street.

Not surprisingly, fantasy mavens Ventrella and Maberry (who alone published Kill Switch, 2016, etc.) have one and a half eyes out for outlandish, often futuristic incarnations of Holmes, and so do their contributors. Jody Lynn Nye’s Holmes is a doglike alien “a bit addicted to shag”—carpet, that is. Jim Avelli posits a dystopian world in which Holmes is arrested for shooting his ex-wife, Irene Adler. Martin Rose presents a robotic Holmes, a failure as a medical surgeon, who gets a new lease on nonlife as a nosy detective. Editor Maberry’s reimagining of Holmes as Mother Frey, who investigates miracles for the church, drives perhaps the deepest into fantasy territory. Meanwhile, back in the past, Austin Farmer puts Holmes and Watson to work as violinists in Beethoven’s orchestra. In the present, Gail Z. Martin reinvents Sherlock as Shelley Holmes, a transgender Charleston sleuth who works for store credit at an antiques shop; Hildy Silverman reveals that Holmes and Watson (and Irene and Godfrey Norton) are vampires; Heidi McLaughlin makes Holmes an insecure college coed whose first case leads to her first kiss; Mike Strauss imagines Holmes as a particularly annoying reality show host; and Ryk Spoor dramatizes Holmes and Watson’s painful awakening to their status as fictional characters. In the three most successful stories, Beth W. Patterson makes Holmes an unusually reflective parrot, David Gerrold festoons his cyber-Holmes and -Watson with some hilarious acronyms, and Keith R.A. DeCandido scores with a surprisingly faithful update of one of Conan Doyle’s most treasured tales.

Less notable as independent creations than as provocations to think about Holmes and the Sacred Canon in innovative ways bound to lead to next year’s anthologies.

We’re proud to announce our 2017 Liars Club Workshop for New Writers:  A free, informative gathering for fiction writers who wish to become published authors, but don’t necessarily know where to begin.

This will be held on September 23rd at the Hughes Library. You must reserve a spot. To sign up, click here.

Here’s the schedule:

9:00: Registration

9:30: Meet Greet Introduction

10:00: Workshop: A1: Character Development OR A2: Start Writing/Finish Draft

11:00: Break

11:15: Workshop B1: Hooking Your Reader OR B2: Self-Publishing

12:15: Lunch [Please bring a bag lunch and drink; there is a grocery store next door and other fast food places nearby, however ]

1:30: Workshop C1: Writing Dialogue OR C2: Plot Development

2:30: Break

2:45: Question & Answer Panel

4:00: Closing remarks/cleanup

NOTE: When you sign up, be careful not to reserve two panels at the same time. Choose A or B, C or D, and E or F.

PRESENTERS:

A: Character Development: Aleksej T. Wilczek

B: Start Writing/Finish First Draft (Organizing and Planning Your Work): Sahar Abdulaziz

C: Conflict and Suspense (Hooking Your Reader): Michael A. Ventrella

D: Self-publishing (Knowing If Indie Publishing is Right for You): Belinda M. Gordon

E: Writing Dialogue: Kelly Jensen

F: Plot Development: Laurel Wilczek

Announcing our upcoming free conferences, to be held at the Hughes Library in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania:

The Liars Club Workshop (September 23, 2017):  As our annual conference evolves and becomes geared toward the more experienced writer, we felt that it would be appropriate to have a workshop geared toward the starting writer. Members of the Liars Club will hold smaller group sessions to go over specific issues geared toward those who have not yet been published, with plenty of question-and-answer sessions.  More details will be forthcoming, but place this on your calendar now!

The 5th Pocono Writers Conference (January 20, 2018): We are working on obtaining our speakers for this event and will announce them shortly. As usual, the conference will be free but you will also be able to sign up for inexpensive critique sessions with our panelists. Details will be coming, but make sure you keep that weekend open.