The Florida Writer Podcast

After 35+ years of operations for various businesses (including her own), Melody pursued her dream of someday writing a novel. Having written for business publications, local magazines and even publishing a poem, Chemo's not for Sissies, during treatment after her first cancer diagnosis, it was time to finish the novel that was started many years ago. When she started writing "Facade: Things Aren't Always as they Appear," she had no idea where her characters were going to take her. "The Unbroken Series" was born.

Melody lives with her husband in her native home state Florida. She's blessed to be alive today after two cancer diagnoses and enjoys watching her grandchildren grow up something she doesn't take for granted.

John W. Bateman was the first person in his family to leave the fly-over states in more than 200 years. It didn't last. John writes and looks for stories in the Deep South. His work has appeared in The Santa Fe Writer's Project Quarterly, OneNewEngland, Glitterwolf Magazine, Huffington Post, TIMBER, Nately's, as well as on the silver screen. He has a secret addiction to glitter and, contrary to his southern roots, does NOT like sweet tea.

John is a recipient of a 2018 Emerging Filmmaker Grant from the Mississippi Film Alliance. His first novel, Who Killed Buster Sparkle?, was released June 12, 2019, by Unsolicited Press and has appeared on the weekly Top 10 Mississippi Reads list nearly a dozen times. He'd really like for you to buy a copy so that his mother isn't his only fan.

@JohnWBateman

Pop Culture Poets Wilnona and Jade are considered one of the 20 Iconic Authors according to Every Writer's Resource. They are the founders of The Inspirational Women in Literature Media and Journalism Awards, the Thoughtful Book Festival and Thoughtful Book Awards, the magazine 25 Hottest Indie Authors, Artist & Advocates, and the And I Thought Literary Magazine.

Together, they have written 11 books and participated in over 700 interviews around the world.

Visit them at andwethought.com

Al Pessin is an award-winning journalist, author and playwright. Kensington will publish his first novel, Sandblast, on March 31, 2020. The first of the Task Force Epsilon thrillers, Sandblast was a top-five finisher in the Unpublished Book of the Year competition at the 2018 Royal Palm Literary Awards and a shortlist selection for the 2017 Bosque Fiction Prize.

Sandblast is the story of an Afghan-American U.S. Army lieutenant who goes undercover inside the Taliban to find the new global terrorism mastermind, and his boss, a woman at the Pentagon with West Point and two combat tours behind her, who has to fight the top brass and even the president to keep her agent alive and his mission on track. The first sequel, Blowback, will be published in the spring of 2021, with a second sequel scheduled for a year later.

New York Times Bestselling author Tom Straw (Richard Castle) said, "Al Pessin escorts you through thrills and chaos, writing with the sure hand of authority. This guy knows his stuff."

He lives in Delray Beach, FL with his wife Audrey and their precocious Labrador Rory. Contact Al through www.alpessin.com.

Award-winning author Bria Burton lives in St. Petersburg with her husband, her son, and two pets. Her fiction has appeared in over twenty anthologies and magazines. She has independently published two inspirational novellas: Little Angel Helper, a 2016 Royal Palm Literary Award winner, and The Running Girls. In 2019, Her Midnight Ride won an RPLA in the published novelette category. While she writes, her dog and cat do their best to distract her, which is why they star in her family-friendly short story collection and podcast, Lance & Ringo Tails. At St. Pete Running Company, she's a blogger and customer service manager. She's also a member of the Alvarium Experiment, a by-invitation-only consortium of outstanding authors who collaborated on The Prometheus Saga, The Prometheus Saga 2, Return to Earth, and The Masters Reimagined anthologies.

Jeremy A. Harper spent much of his youth traveling up and down the east coast of the United States with his family before settling in Delaware. There he served in the Delaware Army National Guard and attended Wesley College, where he met his fiancée, Sky West. He later graduated and received a B.A. in Media Arts. His debut novel Mourning Sky: Evan's Story was self-published in the summer of 2019 and pulls from his various experiences with love and loss. He currently resides in Florida, living with his fiancée and Trixie the cat.

Racquel Henry is a Trinidadian writer and editor with an MFA from Fairleigh Dickinson University. She is also a part-time English Professor, a founding editor at Black Fox Literary Magazine, and owns the writing studio, Writer's Atelier, in Winter Park, Florida.

The mission of Writer's Atelier is to encourage writers to have the confidence to believe in their writing while they also work to improve it. #FloridaWriters #HallmarkChannel #WritersAtelier

After receiving a BA in Writing, Literature, and Publishing from Emerson College, Kaitlyn refused to leave the concept of nightly homework behind. As well as being an associate agent for Corvisiero Literary Agency, she is also a freelance editor at her own company, K. Johnson Editorial, and has worked as a copyeditor for academic publisher codeMantra, a YA editor for Accent Press, and a Conference Assistant for GrubStreet, Boston. She has written various articles for Writer's Digest and has had a flash fiction story published in the anthology A Box of Stars Beneath the Bed. For #mswl listings and writerly life thoughts, feel free to check out her MSWL profile or Twitter or take a look at her visual #MSWL Pinterest.

J.W. Garrett has been writing in one form or another since she was a teenager. She currently lives in Florida with her family but loves the mountains of Virginia where she was born. Her writings include YA fantasy as well as short stories. Since completing Remeon's Quest-Earth Year 1930, the prequel in her YA fantasy series, Realms of Chaos, she has been hard at work on the next in the series, scheduled to release June 2020. When she's not hanging out with her characters, her favorite activities are reading, running and spending time with family.

Website: www.jwgarrett.com