Not Quite As You Were Told

Contributors

Meet the authors of our debut anthology Not Quite as You Were Told.

Mark Bruce is an attorney practicing family law and criminal law in San Bernardino, California. He won the 2018 Black Orchid Novella Award with the first of the Minerva James stories, “Minerva James and the Goddess of Justice.” That story was published in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. AHMM has just accepted another Minerva story. Mr. Bruce created the character of Minerva James because he was disappointed by the shabby treatment women lawyers receive in mystery literature. “l wanted to create a woman lawyer who was always the smartest person in the room, sort of a Sherlock Holmes,” he says. At the time he wrote the story, he worked in the Sacramento area, the location for the Minerva stories.

Natalya Bucuy is a journalist, a non-fiction explorer, and an inspiring short story fiction writer. When she’s not writing she is probably dancing, painting, hanging out with her two children, hiking, traveling, or daydreaming about any and all of those things. Natalya lives in Doylestown, in the heart of beautiful Bucks County, where history meets modern day adventures. She believes inspiration is anywhere and everywhere and  open hearts and minds can make dreams come true, even if only in the words of a story.

Ashini J. Desai is a co-founder of Dandelion Revolution Press and balances creative writing with family and a technology management career. Her poems, essays and short stories, have been published in various literary journals and anthologies, and has written columns for South Asian-centric websites. Her personal website with selected poems is ashinipoetry.blogspot.com. While she doesn’t write for a living, she writes to live! She believes that to live your best life, all you need are books to open your mind and art to inspire.

Hayley E. Frerichs writes fantasy and historical romance in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. After graduating from Penn State with degrees in English and education, she fled adulthood and taught in southern Spain for a year. She loves to travel but is also content to stay at home with her sewing machine, tea kettle, and books. She is the co-founder, editor, and graphic designer of Dandelion Revolution Press. You can visit her website hayleyefrerichs.com where she blogs about zero waste and her many creative hobbies.

Paige Gardner is a lover of all things fiction. She enjoys writing novels, flash fiction, and short stories. Paige grew up in a small town outside Pittsburgh, studied at Penn State University, and moved to Bucks County to pursue a career in nonprofit. She is the co-founder of Dandelion Revolution Press, and a member of the Bucks County Writers Group. Her work can be found in the horror anthology, “Creaky Stairs: A Book of Dark Truths: Volume 1” and the literary magazine “Crepe & Penn.” You can follow her writing journey on twitter at @JPaigeGardner.

Natasha M. Heck grew up in a small North Dakota town. She graduated from Minnesota State University Moorhead (she’s a Dragon!) with a BA in English with an emphasis in Creative Writing. She is a San Diego-based Gryffindor married to Spider-Man, active mom, and cat person who loves to travel by car, plane, foot, or book.

Kat Korpi is a television producer turned author who calls Los Angeles her home. An adventurer to her core, she is preparing to take a 12-month trip around the world. When she isn’t working on a new short story or novel, she runs her website copywriting business dedicated to helping entrepreneurs craft websites that feel like them. She knows every word to Hamilton and Legally Blonde the Musical, has a freakily good sense of direction, and loves to go to the beach on her days off. If you want to see her adventures or hear her yell about stories she loves, you can connect with her on Instagram and Twitter @katkorpi.

Melissa Jean Langer is a 32 year old woman from the Pacific Northwest living with Stage IV cancer. As a writer, she is heavily influenced by magical realism and gothic fiction, from Bram Stoker to Shirley Jackson. She works as a library professional, primarily engaged with teens and children, who are usually the most inspiring folks around.

Joy Overbrook is a writer based out of Hatboro, PA. She is  Managing Editor of the online literary magazine, Wax Seal, and spends her weekdays analyzing fraud patterns in the banking industry. She is also a beloved handful of a wife, and an imperfect mother to a cute-as-a-button kindergartener. For more information on her publications of short stories and poetry, visit her on Twitter.

Samuel B. Sharpe comes from a disintegrated family and he was left to fend for himself on the streets when he was fifteen. One special night during the Seattle winter, while inside a coffee house, he met a middle aged intellectual who had a Masters in Philosophy and Psychology, and who was an exceptionally kind and grace-filled man. The man took Samuel in, and Samuel lived with him in slumlord rooming houses for twenty years until the man died. Samuel’s stories are about the grace that man imparted, the tragic humanity, and the heartbreaking distress he witnessed during those years. He tries to express the beauty in all of it, and the beauty of failure.

Ohio born and raised, Kerry Trautman is a founder of ToledoPoet.com and the “Toledo Poetry Museum” page on Facebook where she helps promote local poetry events. She is a poetry editor for the online journal “Red Fez,” and her poetry and short fiction have appeared in various anthologies and journals such as “Midwestern Gothic,” “Gasconade Review,” “Alimentum,” “The Coe Review,” and “The Fourth River.” Her chapbooks are “Things That Come in Boxes” (King Craft Press, 2012,) “To Have Hoped” (Finishing Line Press, 2015,) and “Artifacts” (NightBallet Press, 2017.) Her first full-length poetry collection, To Be Nonchalantly Alive is forthcoming in 2020 from Kelsay Books.

Scarlet Wyvern is part poet, part girl, and part dragon. Since she was a young hatchling Scarlet has reveled in the written word. Wyvern is fascinated by mythology, especially that which concerns the fair folk and is utterly obsessed with the original Grimm fairy tales. When she is not busy writing or soaring through the sky lighting villages on fire, Wyvern delights in reading, taking photographs, playing video games, singing karaoke, and making snarky comments while sipping the blood of her enemies out of a crystal chalice. Her debut poetry anthology “Massacre My Heart” is currently available for purchase on amazon.com.