Off The Chain

Open mic night with Author Robert Thompson and Designer James Karlson.

Jennifer S. Alderson (1972) worked as a journalist and website developer in Seattle, Washington, USA, before trading her financial security for a backpack. After traveling extensively around Asia and Central America, she moved to Darwin, Australia, before finally settling in the Netherlands. There she earned degrees in art history and museum studies. Home is now Amsterdam, where she lives with her Dutch husband and young son. Jennifer’s travels and experiences color and inform her internationally oriented fiction. Her first novel, Down and Out in Kathmandu: A Backpacker Mystery, is a travel fiction adventure through Nepal and Thailand. The Lover’s Portrait: An Art Mystery, her second book, is a suspenseful “whodunit?” that transports readers to wartime and present-day Amsterdam. Both are part of an ongoing yet stand-alone series following the adventures of traveler and culture lover Zelda Richardson. The third installment, another art-related travel thriller entitled Rituals of the Dead: An Artifact Mystery, will be released in March 2018. Her travelogue, Notes of a Naive Traveler: Nepal and Thailand, is a must-read for those interested in learning more about, or wishing to travel to Nepal and Thailand.

I have been reading for entertainment since I was a child. When I was much younger I was often an impertinent child deserving of punishment (according to my parents). One of the favored forms of punishment (after the obligatory spanking) was to take away my television watching privileges. There was a 3 year span where I was not allowed to watch television at all. The best thing to come out of all this was that I needed to find other ways to entertain myself. I escaped into books. Not the type that would further me in school mind you but anything that would spark my imagination.

December 15th should be fine! I’ll put it on my calendar.   Here’s the bio: Violet Howe is the author of the Tales Behind the Veils series and the Cedar Creek Series. Violet enjoys writing romantic suspense, romantic women’s fiction, and chick lit. She and her knight in shining armor live in Central Florida with their three adorable but spoiled dogs. When she’s not writing, Violet is usually watching movies, reading, or planning her next travel adventure. She is a member of the Florida Writer’s Association and the Romance Writers of America.   You can follow Violet’s ramblings on her blog, The Goddess Howe, or sign up for her newsletter on her website, www.violethowe.com, to get the latest updates on new releases, upcoming appearances, contests and more.

Wayne Zurl grew up on Long Island and retired after twenty years with the Suffolk County Police Department, one of the largest municipal law enforcement agencies in New York and the nation. For thirteen of those years he served as a section commander supervising investigators. He is a graduate of SUNY, Empire State College and served on active duty in the US Army during the Vietnam War and later in the reserves. Zurl left New York to live in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee with his wife, Barbara. Twenty-seven (27) of his Sam Jenkins novelette mysteries have been published as eBooks and many produced as audio books. His full-length novels are: A NEW PROSPECT, A LEPRECHAUN’S LAMENT, HEROES & LOVERS, PIGEON RIVER BLUES, A TOUCH OF MORNING CALM, A CAN OF WORMS and HONOR AMONG THIEVES. Three anthologies that will put eighteen (18) novelettes in print for the first time are coming up in 2017 and a new novel, ABLEAK PROSPECT, is on tap for 2018. Zurl has won Eric Hoffer and Indie Book Awards, and was named a finalist for a Montaigne Medal and First Horizon Book Award. He is a full member of the International Thriller Writers and a board member of the Author’s Guild of Tennessee. For more information on Wayne’s Sam Jenkins mystery series see www.waynezurlbooks.net. You can read excerpts, reviews and endorsements, interviews, coming events, and see photos of the area where the stories take place. .

I have written all of my life. As an only child for the first fifteen years of my life, I learned story telling could keep me and my friends entertained. All through my nursing career stories continued to pop in my head.  I have dozens of story ideas filed away for later use.  But it was only near the end of my nursing career and retirement was on the horizon that I picked up my writing again and began to devote my time and energy onto this new adventure.  And an adventure it has been.

Diane Moat is an author, nurse, attorney and dog rescuer. Born a Yankee, she travelled to Nashville as a tourist, and loved it so much she didn’t leave. She has now been “down south” for long enough that she uses “y’all” and “you guys” interchangeably. For her 50th birthday, she decided to venture into writing. What started as a small project produced her first dramatic novel, “Dog Gone”. The story combines her love of animals with her fantasy of being able to stop animal abusers. After “Dog Gone”, came a young adult novel, “Guardian of the Way”. Thoroughly bitten by the writing bug, Diane next began her middle grade series: “The Supernatural Pet Sitter”. This award winning children’s series follows the adventures of a young gnome as she pet-sits magical animals. A family series for all ages, the third installment in the series is scheduled for release in February.

James Swain is the nationally bestselling author of seventeen mystery novels. His books have been named Publishers Weekly and Kirkus Reviews Best Mystery Books of the Year, and he has received three Barry Award nominations and a Florida Book Award for fiction. In 2006, he was awarded France’s prestigious Prix Calibre .38 for Best American Crime Writing. Born in Huntington, New York, he graduated from New York University and worked as a magazine editor and screenwriter before moving ?to Florida to run a successful advertising firm. When he isn’t writing, he enjoys researching casino scams and cons, ?a subject on which he’s considered an expert.

LK Shaw is a physical therapist assistant by day and writer/social media addict by night. She resides in South Carolina with her high maintenance beagle mix dog, Miss P, who should probably just have her own Instagram account. An avid reader since childhood, she became hooked on historical romance novels in high school. It wasn’t until within the last seven or eight years she tried her hand at contemporary romances. While historical romance remains one of her favorite go-to genres, romantic suspense, especially with a little kink thrown in, have become a first pick from her TBR list.   She initially began writing in November 2015 as part of National Novel Writing Month, when, suddenly, the story became something more than just a “sure, I’ll try to put some words together”. The vision for the story snowballed and, before she knew it, she began taking steps toward publishing. Each book in her first series feature Romantic Suspense and BDSM combined.   LK loves to interact with readers. You can follow her on any of her social media:   Website: http://lkshawauthor.wixsite.com Author Page: www.facebook.com/LKShawAuthor Author Profile: www.facebook.com/AuthorLKShaw Twitter: www.twitter.com/LKShaw_Author Blog: lkshawauthor.blogspot.com Amazon: amazon.com/author/lkshaw Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/lk-shaw

Timothy W. Carroll began writing prose and poetry during his early teenage years. Timothy's writings began as something very private and very personal. It was a form ofjournaling for him. From a very early age Timothy secretly began to suffer from serious bouts of anxiety and depression; emotions that he simply did not understand. He discovered early on that reading and writing were a healthy escape from these up and down, unexplained emotions. As Timothy reached his mid-teens, his secret battle with anxiety and depression only deepened. Like so many people, he began masking those negative feelings with getting high, drunk and engaging in other negative behaviors. Thus, the nomadic journey that is NOMAD began. Today, Timothy lives in Sunny Florida with his wife, Tina. They have six adult children and enjoy being grandparents to several grandchildren. Timothy continues to seek out his life passion: To teach others how to avoid the unhealthy nomad life. And to teach those who have found themselves trapped in that solitary place, how to find new hope and meaning for their lives, through Christ.