More Book Updates for May

As the month of May draws to a close, want to report some nice book things that happened, starting with the Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers Conference which, sadly, I wasn’t able to attend. I learned a few weeks beforehand that both of my 2012 novels, The Discovery and The Reunion had been named finalists for the Selah Award in the Historical and Contemporary fiction categories.

The awards banquet also happened to take place on my birthday. Sadly, we weren’t able to attend this year, but they streamed it live over the internet so we watched things unfold from home. It was thrilling and totally unexpected when they announced my books had one the Selah Award in both categories! We were even more surprised a few minutes later when the host, best-selling author Eva Marie Everson, announced that a few of the winners had received perfect scores from all the judges. Then she named both of my books had made that distinguish list.

Both of these novels, The Discovery and The Reunion, are being judged right now along with hundreds of other books for another big writing contest, the Carol Awards, which will be announced this September at the ACFW conference. I will be attending that one, God willing. We should hear any day now whether either book has been named a finalist in their category.

Teaching Moments

I’ve been involved in two speaking situations this month. In our home church in the Daytona Beach area, my wife and I are leading a small group that meets in our home. We’re taking five couples through an interactive discussion using my novel, The Dance, co-authored with Gary Smalley. As we make our way through, I’m creating a study guide which we’ll make available online.

I was also asked to be part of an author’s panel at the central Florida ACFW chapter, teaching new authors about how to write an effective synopsis.

On the Radio

Just this past week, on Thursday, I was interviewed on the radio show, Amish Wisdom,hosted by best-selling Amish author (and fellow Revell author and friend), Suzanne Woods Fisher. This is a pretty popular show with thousands of listeners every week.

We talked about my new novel, The Dance, the Restoration series, and all about how this writing project with Gary Smalley began. It was lots of fun. Suzanne is a great interviewer and easy to be with.

Click Here, if you’d like to hear the interview. Just scroll to the show listed as “Thursday 30th of May 2013.”