Virginia-Makes Stories Come Alive

Maggie King Shares Richmond, A Mecca for Writers:

If you’re a writer, Richmond, Virginia is the place for you! The city is a mecca for writers of all stripes, offering all you need to jumpstart your creative process: plenty of art and architecture to admire; wonderful coffee from local roasters; parks; great watering holes; schools like Virginia Commonwealth University, University of Richmond, and community colleges; world-class museums; and libraries. There are even affordable places to live!

Richmond boasts great indy bookstores like Fountain Bookstore, Chop Suey Books, and Book People. The owners are always ready to host author signings and events.

History abounds in Virginia’s capital city. And, if your interest is down-and-dirty politics, visit the General Assembly during their session each winter. You’ll get a wealth of writing material at the GA.

The Library of Virginia’s collection is the most comprehensive resource in the world for the study of Virginia history, culture, and government.

In Richmond, you will also have the company of other writers: David Baldacci, Mary Burton, Patricia Cornwell, Dean King, Mary Miley, Howard Owen, Virginia Pye, and David L. Robbins, to name a few.

Tom Wolfe, the renowned author and journalist who died earlier this year, was born and raised in Richmond.

Edgar Allan Poe spent much of his life in Richmond. The Poe Museum is in the heart of Richmond's historic Shockoe Bottom district. The museum documents Poe’s accomplishments with pictures, relics, and verse. Here you will find the world's largest collection of his original manuscripts, letters, first editions, memorabilia and personal belongings. The museum also provides an overview of early 19th century Richmond.

Ellen Glasgow, the novelist and Pulitzer prize winner who wrote about the changing world of the South, was a lifelong resident of Richmond. A place to visit is the Ellen Glasgow House, where the author lived from the age of 13 and did much of her writing. Unfortunately, you can only view the house, as it isn’t open to the public.

As a writer, you will find in Richmond opportunities for networking, education, support, and improving your craft.

James River Writers offers literary salons and writing contests. Their annual conference is first-class. At their monthly Writing Show, authors and other literary professionals share their experiences with the craft and business of writing. Writers get to network, learn, and expand their writing horizons.

Sisters in Crime is an organization that has 3,600 members in 48 countries worldwide. The Central Virginia chapter is a good place for crime writers to network and get advice. At chapter meetings, you can learn from experts on such subjects as terrorism, forensics, and private investigation. A few years ago, we toured the city jail (quite an eye opener).

The chapter has published many anthologies, giving opportunities to its members.

Virginia Romance Writers is a chapter of Romance Writers of America. VRW offers networking opportunities, as well as programs and workshops on craft. The organization has a wealth of information about the ever-evolving publishing world.

At Richmond Young Writers, boys and girls aged 9-17 can take after-school workshops in fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, journalism, comics, and other topics. In the summer, young writers can attend week-long creative writing camps.

Writers can take classes at Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Studio School; Visual Arts Center; Lifelong Learning Center; and J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College.

Agile Writers, Hanover Writers Club, Richmond Christians Who Write, Virginia Writers Club, and various Writers Meetups are available.

Convinced that Richmond, Virginia is a great place to be a writer? Of course, lots of places in Virginia can make the same claim, especially Fredericksburg and Charlottesville. I started writing when I lived in Charlottesville. When I moved to Richmond in 2002, I continued to hone my craft. Richmond is where I first published and continue to publish. I call this city my lucky charm!

Leave a comment on this post for a chance to win an e-copy of Murder at the Moonshine Inn. Leave a form of contact so we can find you.

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Maggie King is the author of the Hazel Rose Book Group mysteries, including Murder at the Book Group and Murder at the Moonshine Inn. She has contributed stories to the Virginia is for Mysteries anthologies and to the 50 Shades of Cabernet anthology.

Maggie is a member of Sisters in Crime, James River Writers, and the American Association of University Women. She has worked as a software developer, retail sales manager, and customer service supervisor. Maggie graduated from Elizabeth Seton College and earned a B.S. degree in Business Administration from Rochester Institute of Technology. She has called New Jersey, Massachusetts, and California home. These days she lives in Richmond, Virginia with her husband, Glen, and cats, Morris and Olive. She enjoys reading, walking, movies, traveling, theatre, and

museums.

Website: http://www.maggieking.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MaggieKingAuthor

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MaggieKingAuthr

Instagram: authormaggieking

Amazon author page: http://amzn.to/2Bj4uIL

(Images by Gamma Man and dgladfelter of VisualHunt; and Wikipedia All info provided by Author)

And John Rosenman’s Virginia:

Hi, I’m John B. Rosenman, a retired English professor. In 1982 I was out of work in North Carolina. Luckily, I found a job available at Norfolk State University fifty miles away (check out the administration building to the left). I called four days before the deadline, miraculously got the job, and moved there promptly with my wife and two children.

Virginia Beach was like a rocket boost to my creativity. To date I’ve published about 300 short stories and two dozen books, most in the SciFi, Fantasy, and Horror areas. What is there about coastal Virginia that jump-started my writing?  Part of it was that about this time, I discovered the small and independent press which encouraged writers. I also discovered the Ocean Front Writers Group. I was a member for 20 years and sold many stories and novels thanks to the critiques of my new friends. Then there’s the excitement and freedom of the Tidewater area with the Virginia Beach coastline and annual Neptune Festival, featured below.  Watch out for those waves!      

                                              

I am the author of the ongoing Inspector of the Cross science-fiction / adventure series, featuring an elite agent who fights for over 4000 years to save humanity from aliens. Below to the left is the cover for The Turtan Trilogy, the first three books in the series. If you want a condensed power pack of the kinds of things I write, The Amazing Worlds of John B. Rosenman is featured to the right. It’s a kind of boastful title, but don’t hold it against me.  My publisher picked it.                                                   

  

Click to Buy: Amazing Worlds

               

Click to Buy: Trilogy

Virginia has so much to offer.  Thomas Jefferson, our third president, founded the University of Virginia, and Jane and I visited his stately home at Monticello. We’ve toured such scenic and historic places as Jamestown, Shenandoah National Park, and Skyline Drive. One of my favorite places is Woodstock Park. It’s just a mile from our home, and below is a photo of Jane and me at Woodstock to celebrate our 50^th wedding anniversary. We also like Luray Caverns, just west of Luray.  This cavern system is magnificent, especially if you like stalactites and stalagmites. 

I think Virginia’s variety has contributed to the variety of my fiction. For example, I worked at an historically black university for 29 years, and partly because of the school’s influence, I wrote an African SciFi novel, A Senseless Act of Beauty. I got the title off a car bumper! My young adult novel, The Merry-Go-Round Man is semi-autobiographical and features three boys growing up in the 1950s. One of them is me.            

Click to Buy: A Senseless Act of Beauty

            

      Click to Buy: The Merry-Go-Round Man

Click to Buy: Steam Heat

In case you think I’m a solemn and stuffy English professor, one of my novels was very controversial and cost me two jobs. I also write all kinds of weird humor as well as erotic horror.  Here’s the cover for Steam Heat, which is more than a little steamy.

Thanks for reading!  Here are some of my links. If you have any questions, e-mail me at jroseman@cox.net.

Visit his website at http://www.johnrosenman.com

Facebook Author Page: https://www.facebook.com/JohnBRosenman?ref=hl   

Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/John-B.-Rosenman/e/B001KMN69E

Check out one of his interviews at http://www.milscifi.com/files/inter-JBR-BS.htm

JOHN B. ROSENMAN is a retired English professor from Norfolk State University. He has published three hundred stories in Weird Tales, Whitley Strieber's Aliens, Galaxy and elsewhere.  He has also published two dozen books, including SF novels such as Alien Dreams and A Senseless Act of Beauty (Crossroad Press) and The Merry-Go-Round Man, YA (also with Crossroad Press).  Other SF novels include Speaker of the Shakk and Beyond Those Distant Stars (Mundania Press), and the Inspector of the Cross series with MuseItUp Publishing. John’s time-travel story “Killers” received Musa Publishing’s 2013 Editor’s Top Pick award, and “The Blue of Her Hair, The Gold of Her Eyes” won Preditor’s and Editor’s Readers Poll award for SF/F short fiction in 2010. Some of John’s books are available as audio books from Audible.com. 

Two of John’s major themes are the endless, mind-stretching wonders of the universe and the limitless possibilities of transformation—sexual, cosmic, and otherwise, as portrayed in his short story “Dark Angel”. He is the former Chairman of the Board of the Horror Writers Association and the previous editor of The Rhetorician and Horror Magazine.

Want More?  I offer one of the books featured in my part of this post-- participant's choice-Just comment and leave a way of contact. 

And that’s not all:

Subscribe to my Newsletter & receive a free short story (click tab on my website & follow instructions: www.johnrosenman.com

(All info provided and released by authors)