Deborah Vogts's Blog, page 78

Called to Write Conference 2015

 APRIL 9-11, 2015
Lamplighter Inn 4020 Parkview Drive  Pittsburg, KS 
Featured Presenters - 

Kathleen Y'Barbo, Ramona Tucker, Jean Wynn, and Jane Landreth

Kathleen Y’Barbo is the best-selling, award-winning author of more than forty novels, novellas, and young adult books. In all, more than one million copies of her books are currently in print in the US and abroad, and her books have been translated into Dutch, German, and Spanish, to name a few. A tenth-generation Texan, Kathleen Y’Barbo has four children of her own as well as seven bonus kids she gladly inherited when she married her own hero in combat boots (read about their real-life romance here!). Kathleen is proud to be a military wife, even if it did mean giving up her Texas drivers license.


Ramona Cramer Tucker, Editorial Director of OakTara (www.oaktara.com), has been on the cutting-edge of mainstream and inspirational publishing for over 30 years in a wide variety of positions, including: Senior Editor, Tyndale House Publishers; Editor, Today’s Christian Woman magazine and Executive Editor,Virtue magazine (Christianity Today, International); Editorial Director, Harold Shaw Publishers (now WaterBrook/Random House); as a freelance writer, editor, and/or editorial strategist for Simon & Schuster, Random House, Viking-Penguin, Zondervan, Nelson, Baker/Revell, InterVarsity, Howard, David C. Cook, Barbour, HarperCollins, Summerside/Guideposts, Wiley, Chosen, and other publishers. 

Jeane Wynn of Wynn-Wynn Media was launched in 2001 to provide strategically targeted publicity services, thus leveraging media relationships and maximizing forward momentum for our clients. Yeah, not so much. We’d like to say there was a giant master formula with well-thought-out steps, start-up capital, and a killer business plan. But that just isn’t what went down.
What happened is that Jeane thought it would be fun to work on publicity for a few books on a freelance basis. She’d been in Christian publishing since 1989, when she started in sales at NavPress. So, we took a leap, Jeane quit her job, and Wynn-Wynn Media was born. Things didn’t take off right away—and Jeane began to think she might need to do some substitute teaching—but then we were hired for a five-book contract, and the rest is the proverbial history. While we work very hard for our clients and invest significant time and effort on strategy, the success we’ve enjoyed at Wynn-Wynn Media is due not to any expert “strategery” on our parts but to the grace and mercy of our God who has blessed us in spite of ourselves. For that we are greatly appreciative.


Jane Landreth has been a Christian freelance writer for thirty-five years with over 2000 stories, articles, games, puzzles and various manuscripts published in religious magazines. She has also written several children’s Bible curriculums, a newspaper column, edited a Christian school first grade reading program and co-authored seven creative idea books. She has published six children’s books with Barbour Publishers and will soon have another children’s book out. Some of her material has been translated into various languages such as Russian, Romanian, Haitian, Creole and Spanish. She taught writing at Ozark Technical College in Springfield, MO, and at the present teaches “Writing Your Memoirs” at NCCC. For ten years, Jane taught three college level writing classes for the Institute of Children’s Literature, a distance-learning school. Jane was asked in 1995 to travel to Belarus (a break-off country of the Soviet Union) to teach Sunday school teachers how to write and prepare Bible material for their children’s class. She went again the next year and taught teachers/leaders in the Bible Institute in Minks, Belarus.

This year, special services will also be offered for Website/Blog and Social Media Help; Author photographs, and for encouragement. There is also a writing contest (deadline March 1). See more about the conference HERE. 

Book Preview ~ The Story Keeper

The Story Keeper, by Lisa Wingate

When successful New York editor Jen Gibbs discovers a decaying slush-pile manuscript on her desk, she has no idea that the story of Sarra, a young mixed-race woman trapped in Appalachia at the turn of the twentieth century, will both take her on a journey and change her forever. Happy with her life in the city, and at the top of her career with a new job at Vida House Publishing, Jen has left her Appalachian past and twisted family ties far behind. But the search for the rest of the manuscript, and Jen’s suspicions about the identity of its unnamed author, will draw her into a mystery that leads back to the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains . . . and quite possibly through the doors she thought she had closed forever. Buy the book HERE.

Selected among BOOKLIST'S Top 10 of 2012 and Top 10 of 2013, Lisa Wingate skillfully weaves lyrical writing and unforgettable Southern settings with elements of women's fiction, history, and mystery to create stories that Publisher's Weekly calls "Masterful" and ForeWord Magazine refers to as "Filled with lyrical prose, hope, and healing.” Lisa is a journalist, an inspirational speaker, a reviewer for the New York Journal of Books, and the author of over over twenty novels and countless magazine pieces.

Her books have held positions on many bestseller lists, both in the U.S. and internationally. She is a seven-time ACFW Carol award nominee, a Christy Award nominee, an Oklahoma Book Award finalist, a Christianity Today Book Award nominee, an Inspy Award nominee, a two-time Carol Award winner, a LORIES Best Fiction Award winner, and a Utah Library Award winner. Recently, the group Americans for More Civility, a kindness watchdog organization, selected Lisa along with Bill Ford, Camille Cosby, and six others, as recipients of the National Civies Award, which celebrates public figures who work to promote greater kindness and civility in American life. Visit Lisa at her website: www.LisaWingate.com

This Week's Recipes

Here are this week's new additions at Country at Heart Recipes. Enjoy your weekend! 
Venison Jerky
Honey Bun Cake
Cookbook Preview ~ The Soup Club Cookbook

Favorite Books 2014

Last year I read 22 books--the same number as the previous year, which means I'm not a fast reader, but I'm a steady one. 

Here are my Five Star picks from 2014 (not necessarily published in 2014, and in no certain order). 
Mine is the Night, by Liz Curtis HiggsGone South, by Meg MoseleyDear Mr. Knightly, by Katherine ReayPrincess Ever After, by Rachel HauckEcho in the Darkness, by Francine RiversA Beauty so Rare, by Tamera AlexanderCaptured by Love, by Jody Hedlund
What books did you read in 2014? Do you have any favorites? Please share in the comments below! 

Book Preview ~ The Bracelet

The Bracelet, by Dorothy Love

The mystery surrounding Celia's home in Savannah threatens her family reputation . . . and her very life. Celia Browning is counting the days until her childhood sweetheart Sutton Mackay returns to Savannah after two years in Jamaica looking after his family's shipping interests. She's certain he will propose marriage, thus joining two of the city's most prominent families. But just as Sutton returns, an unsavory newspaper reporter arrives in town, determined to revive interest in the secret tragedies that occurred in the Browning mansion on Madison Square when Celia was a child.

A series of mysterious notes arrives at the house, followed by an anonymous gift-a bracelet imbued with a sinister message. Is it merely a coincidence, or is someone out to harm her? Buy the book HERE.

Born in the middle of the twentieth century, Dorothy Love is certain she arrived on Planet Earth a hundred years too late. An avid scholar of 19th century American history, she spends most of her time poking through museums, reading dusty books, and studying the journals of the Victorian-era women whose lives inspire her Southern historical novels.

She prefers a fountain pen to a computer keyboard, print books to digital downloads, and face to face conversations to 140 character tweets. Though she admits that modern technology makes it easier to stay in touch with her readers, whenever possible she avoids automated phone systems, online banking, and booking her own airline tickets. When she’s not busy researching or writing books or avoiding technology, she enjoys teaching at writers conferences. She is a former associate writer in residence at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in New Smyrna Beach, FL. She has taught at dozens of writers conferences nationwide including the Florida First Coast Writers Conference, the Columbus Ohio Writers Conference, the South Carolina Writers Workshop, and the graduate program at Hollins University in Roanoke, VA, and was a featured author on the Writer to Writer series for Florida Public Television.

Dorothy enjoys traveling with her husband, collecting antique ephemera, and playing Frisbee with Jake, the couple’s golden retriever. A native Southerner, she currently lives in the Texas hill country. Learn more about Dorothy and her writing HERE.

This Week's Recipes

Here are this week's new additions at Country at Heart Recipes. Wishing you a Happy New Year and many blessings in 2015! 
Spinach Dip
Shrimp and Grits
New Year's Eve Recipe Ideas

Grandfather Time

It's hard to believe another year is almost over. We've had such blessings this past year, and I can only imagine what 2015 has in store for us. This holiday season, we've had the pleasure of spending precious time with our family and friends. You can never take such moments for granted.

The picture above is of our Waterbury Kitchen Clock. My Grandpa Swiler collected clocks and after he passed away all of the children and grandchildren were given one of his clocks. Ours is displayed in our living room and each Christmas season, I make a point of keeping it wound each week so that it will chime on the hour--and for the most part it keeps excellent time. 

This habit usually dies down sometime in February, but during the months of December and January, the tick-tock tick-tock of that clock soothes our hearts and minds . . . and when I hear it, I think of Grandpa. Our little granddaughter likes to hear it chime on the hour and calls it Tick-Tock...

Thank you for following along on this blog, and may God bless you in 2015. 
Happy New Year!

Book Preview ~ At Bluebonnet Lake

At Bluebonnet Lake by Amanda Cabot

The last thing Kate Sherwood needs is a man, so why is she so drawn to the handsome handyman at the Rainbow’s End resort?

Marketing maven Kate Sherwood’s world is fast-paced, challenging, and always changing. The last thing she wants to do is slow down to a crawl at Rainbow’s End, a dilapidated resort in the Texas Hill Country. But she cannot deny her ailing grandmother’s request to visit the place where she and her deceased husband spent one glorious week (albeit fifty years ago). There Kate meets Greg Vange, the resort’s handyman. But there’s more to Greg than meets the eye—billions more, in fact, as he recently sold his successful software company and is at the resort in search of what’s next for his life.

Kate didn’t come to Rainbow’s End looking for romance, but she can’t deny the sparks of attraction that fly every time she and Greg are together. She even starts to see potential in the rundown resort. Could there be a future there? Or will Kate’s long-sought promotion take her back to the big city? Buy the book HERE. 

With both parents avid readers, it's no surprise that Amanda Cabot learned to read at an
early age. From there it was only a small step to deciding to become a writer. Of course, deciding and becoming are two different things, as she soon discovered. Fortunately for the world, her first attempts at fiction, which included a play for her fifth grade class entitled "All About Thermometers," were not published, but she did meet her goal of selling a novel by her thirtieth birthday. Since then she's sold more than thirty novels under a variety of pseudonyms. When she's not writing, Amanda enjoys sewing, cooking and - of course - reading. Learn more about Amanda and her books HERE. 

This Week's Recipes

Here are this week's new additions at Country at Heart Recipes. I hope you had a Very, Merry Christmas and wish you a Happy New Year! 
Raspberry Chocolate Shortbread
Orange Nut Bread
Featured Author, Cindy Loven shares her recipe for Trail Magic Hot Chicken Noodle Soup

Merry Christmas

Wishing you God's blessings this Christmas Eve. 

"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peacegoodwill toward men."Luke 2:14