CWD Highlights April-October 2023

 

Christian Writers Downunder is a diverse group of writers, editors, bloggers, illustrators. As a group we support each other through our Facebook page and blog.


Today's blog will highlight some of the achievements of our members from April-October 2023

New Releases & Launches

Elizabeth Klein

Dreamscape: Saving Mermaid Lagoon Book 3 

Dreamscape: Saving Mermaid Lagoon Book 3 on August 31st, 2023. Paperback on September 9th 2023.

Against his will, Sam Flynn is sent on a crazy mission by a bumbling fairy godmother to save a colony of mermaids. Instead, a group of pirates capture him and force him to become a member of their crew. To top off his bad luck, he’s snatched away in the middle of the night by a hideous Beast and carried off to its castle.

It’s a story that sounds all too familiar to Sam, except for the part where the daughter of a rose thief promised to the Beast falls in love with him instead. Will he survive the Beast’s wrath long enough to save the mermaids?

Buy Link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CH393GDR

Short story, The Invitation

Short story, The Invitation, was published in Short Tales 9 on 5th of May, 2023 by Storm Cloud Publishing.

Miriam accepts a mysterious invitation to a strange tea party in a meadow, along with white rabbits, a ginger cat with a huge smile on its face, an odd, long-necked bird and a man with orange hair and eyebrows that stick out and wiggle as he talks.

FREE!

Short story, The Time-Keeper

Short story, The Time-Keeper, was published in Open House 7 on Wednesday, 16th August, 2023 by Storm Cloud Publishing.

Blurb: Lara is a Time-Keeper and her services are for hire, that is, if you can afford her. She locates people's traumas and then alters them for a different outcome. But if the government finds her, it's over for Lara.

FREE!

Elizabeh Klein: Besides having written many short stories, articles, plays and poems, she's also authored YA and junior fiction books, as well as four educational books and has over 70 published works to date.

A Glimmer of Uncommon Fairy Tales anthology

A Glimmer of Uncommon Fairy Tales on April, the 26th 2023 and paperback on May 4th, 2023.

Edited by Elizabeth Klein - and with stories from Elizabeth and ten other authors, including CWD members Ann Hamilton, Linsey Painter, Sally Odgers, Debra Williams, Jean Saxby, and Jeanette O'Hagan

A collection of unknown, untold and retold stories that will stir the souls of fairy tale lovers everywhere. Each tale is carefully woven together with a silver thread of starlight and a sprinkle of magic, along with the golden melody from the Boy with the Nightingale’s Voice.

Buy Link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C3QNLP44

Ian Blight

Book details: non-fiction, title: 'Singleness, Marriage & being God's Family', release date: 17 October 2023

This non-fiction book looks into the contemporary church, at a marriage and family focused culture, with the intent of working toward a better biblical understanding of where singleness belongs in God's family.

Ian Blight is from Adelaide, and has written this book drawing from a lifetime of experience as a single person and motivated by an acute sense of the need to delve into the topic of singleness within the church in Australia.

Dienece Darling

In Freeing Defeat will be available in December. 

In Freeing Defeat (available in December), a socialite and a poor clergyman wrestle with God over the inconvenient appearing of each other in perfectly ordered their lives.

In Pursuing Prayer (available now), a sister grapples with unanswered prayer.

Sign up here to get both of these books for free! Free Story | Dienece Darling

Dienece Darling, an inspirational historical author, is running a 2 for 1 deal. Sign up to Dienece's blog and receive a short historical story now and a historical romance novelette in December. Both set in England.

Accepted for publication

Stories of Life

The Stories of Life anthology is a ollection of true stories of faith will be launched on Thursday evening, 16 November 2023, at Tabor College, Adelaide. At the launch, prize winners in the Open and Short category will also be announced. The event will be live-streamed on Facebook. 

Congratulations on the CWD members whose stories weere among those accepeeted to be published in the 2023 Stories of Life anthology, inclulding:

Jeanette Grant-Thomson Piercing the Silence

Jenny Woolsey Dad and Jesse

Jo Wanmer Dagger in the Heart

Jo-Anne Berthelsen Dear friend

June Hopkins A God-Given glitch & Kisses for Me

Steph Penny Kindling

Hazel Barker Help from Heaven

RJ Rodda Praying for Princess

DJ Blackmore Home Remedy

Karen Roper The Voice

Barbara McKay Out of the ashes

Cherie Love ‘Let the Children Come to Me’ and God is Our Provider

Esther Cremona The Heart of a Midwife

Kylie Gardiner People Matter

Liisa Grace-Baun No More Tuna Mornay

Roslyn Bradshaw Learning to Ride a Bike and Classic Road Trip

Ruth C Hall Solo with God and Along for the Ride

CONGRATULATIONS on all who have had their story accepted. For a full list of stories check out the Stories of Life website. 

RWR Retreat antholoyg - A Spash of Love. 

A number of CWD members have had their stories accepted for the RWR anthology - including Raelene Purtill, Jenny Woolsey and Jeanette O'Hagan - the anthology will be released next year with the 2024 Rainforest Writers Retreat.

Awards

CALEB Awards

Congratulations to the winners of the CALEB Award announced last Saturday.  This year was the unpublished prize, as well as the Barnabus and Encouragment awards

Unpublished Young Adult fiction

The Winner is Julia Archer with  The Drone Guy Project

Unpublished Adult fiction

The Winner is Kate Mackereth with  Tradings Wings

 

Barnabus Award

The Barnabas Award recognises writers who give selflessly to support and encourage other writers in the writing journey. This award celebrates the invaluable impact of such encouragement and acknowledges the often unseen work these writers do to lift others up.

The winner this year was Jo-Anne Berthelsen for her "For for “showing an unserving commitment to encouraging other Christian writers."

Encouragement Award

Encouragement Awards are opportunities to celebrate emerging writers who Omega Members believe are worthy of encouragement and recognition for their commitment, attitude and development of their writing craft.

The joint winners were Jo Wanmer "who is always encouraging others. Keep writing!" and Carolyn Bourke "as she finishes her debut novel."

For the full list and statements about the winners and prizes check out the Omega Writers Website.

CALEB 2024

Entries for the Published CALEB Awards will open in the first half of 2024. Check the Omega Writers Website for or 2024 entry dates in 2024

Events

May Retereat  5-7 May 2023

Toowoomba Omega Writers Chapter Retreat was held in May at Somerset Dam, South-east Queensland, with Guest speaker: Best-selling Australian Author, Meredith Resce, and publisher Rochelle Stephens practical workshops, time to referesh, write and/or network. Thanks for the Toowoomba chapters - Nola Passmore, Adele Jones, Kirsten Hart, Mazzy Adams and others who made this a inspiration time. 

Brisbane Omega Showcase  6-7 October 2023

Omega Showcase was two days of non-stop inspiration and fun with Judy Rogers as compere, a full program on a range of subjects plus some interesting workshops culminating with a dinner on the second day. A great way to network and to get the creative juices going. Big thanks to presenters including Simon Kennedy, Mazzy Adams, Rebekah Robinson, Nola Passmore, Rendered Realms (Lynne Stringer, Adele Jones and Jeanette O'Hagan), Raelene Purtill and especially to the organisers, especially Anne Hamilton, Judy Rogers and Ruth Bonetti.

Ruth Bonetti presented Anne Hamilton At Brisbane Omega Showcase the inaugural Founder’s Award to honour Anne Hamilton for her many decades’ faithful service. She shares my vision and ethos to support fellow authors in sharing Christ through our words.

Omega Writers Zoom Conference 6-7 Oct 2023

Omega Writers Zoom Conference was held online from Friday 6 Oct - Saturady 7 Oct , including the Omega Writers AGM and culminating in the CALEB awards. 

The next Omega Writers conference will be held in 20-22 September, 2024 in Sydney.

Margie Lawson Immersion on the Gold Coast

A number of CWD members including Andrea Grigg, Elaine Frazer, Jeanette O'Hagan, Kate Mackereth, joined in on the Margie Lawson Immersion at the Gold Coast last week. A fantastic of intensive learning and practice on powering up prose hosted by the wonderful host Andrea Grigg. Margie Lawson is awesome with a stack of resources and courses to help improve writing power.

Rendered Realms

Rendered Realms is a trio of Sepc Fic authors  - Lynne Stringer, Adele Jones and Jeannette O'Hagan. This year we've been to Gold Coast Supanova (April), Oz Comic Con (September) and, for the first time, Frazer Pop (July) at Maryborough.

Rendered Realms were invited to present a session at the Omega Showcase. We had fun talking about taking our books to pop-festivals and connecting with potential readers, including cosplaying as characters in our own books. 

Our next event as a team is at Brisbane Supanova on 11-12 November at the Brisbane Convention Centre.

Did you have a new release or event or brag point that didn't make it to the Highlights Post? Keep an eye out for the next call for information from members - the next Highlights post will be in end of December 2023.

Congratulations to all our members for your milestones and achievements.

Jeanette O'Hagan

CWD Highlights - October-December 2022

Christian Writers Downunder is a diverse group of writers, editors, bloggers, illustrators. As a group we support each other through our Facebook page and blog.

Today's blog will highlight some of the achievements of our members from October-December 2022

New Releases

Core Values: Love by Rebekah Robinson & Anne Hamilton

Rebekah Robinson & Anne Hamilton released Core Values: Love on 28 November 2022

The DNA of God Series, book 1: Galatians 5 describes the growing DNA of God in our lives as a list of attributes, or fruit, emanating from His Spirit. This first volume explores the love aspect of God’s nature, and its outworking in the hearts of believers respective to His other flavours.

Buy link:
https://www.bookdepository.com/Core-Values-Rebekah-Robinson/9780645609004


Rebekah Robinson lives in Brisbane, Australia and loves God and people.
Anne Hamilton is an accomplished, multi-award-winning author of over 20 books.

Lady in Irons by Sara Powter

Sara Powter released book 3, A Lady in Irons in her Unlikely Convict Ladies series was released on November 6th.

Katy is mourning the death of her husband after he dies in a shooting accident. Barely coping, she awaits the birth of their child. If it’s a girl, she must hand the family home over to her husband’s brother. The day after giving birth to a daughter, she and her daughter are literally left on the side of a road. She collapses and is found by someone whom she thought had died in a fire ten years before. Perry, badly scarred himself, nurses her back to health. They marry and move in with her widowed friend, Mary.

After some years, she discovers her husband and friend in each other’s arms. Now living in a love triangle, she flees. Grasping the only straw available, she intentionally gets arrested so that she can be sent to a colony far away. By doing this, her marriage can be annulled. What happens in the Colony is not what she expects. Governor Macquarie comes to her rescue. But what of Perry and her children?

You can find it here

Pursuing Prayer by Dienece Darling 

Melbournian Dienece Darling writes inspirational fiction to encourage and entertain Christians and has released her first reader's magnet to subscribers of her blog.

Pursuing Prayer

Everything should have been Catherine’s and hers alone.


In London 1733, Catherine Fox expects to inherit everything from her father until he remarries just before passing away. With a possible heir jeopardizing their future, Catherine’s husband is furious. Not even the possibility of the babe being a girl soothes him, but surely, sharing her inheritance with a sister must be better than losing everything to a little brother. Perhaps prayer will help. Only, can she trust God to give the right answer?

As time passes, Catherine begins to wonder if the pursuit of prayer ever results in anything more than bruised knuckles against the closed doors of Heaven.

Pursuing Prayer is free to subscribers of Dienece's blog. Sign up via Free Short Story | Dienece Darling

Max Nutt's New Book by Elizabeth Klein

Elizabeth Klein has a short story published Thursday, 1st December 2022 called Max Nutt's New Book in Christmas Tales 7 on  by Storm Cloud Publishing. 

Elizabeth's story is about a mouse who is pressured into writing his second book but has writer's block. When the juices get flowing again, his book turns out to be another best seller.

Awards

CALEB Awards 

The winners of the CALEB awards was announced at the CALEB Awards Dinner at the Omega Writers Conference Kingscliffe.

Unpublished Nonfiction

Stephanie Walters won the Unpublished Adult Nonfiction manuscript prize. She received a Manuscript Review and Feedback from Nicole Partridge, Journalist, Writer and Literary Agent to the value of $400

Published Nonfiction

Emily Maurits won the Published Nonfiction award with Two Sisters and Brain Tumour.

Published Young Adult Fiction

Kristen Young won the Published Young Adult Prize with Elite, the second book in her Collective Underground series

Published Adult Fiction

Meredith Resce won the Published Adult Prize with In Want of a Wife, the second book in her Luella Linley Licence to Meddle series.

Congratulations to Stephanie, Emily, Kristen and Meredith

Historical Novel Awards

In the middle of December, Book 1 of Sara Powter's Unlikely Convict Ladies trilogy has been long-listed for the Historical Novel Awards while Dancing to Her Own Tune is a finalist. The awards are announced on 31 December 2022

Congratulations Sara

Competitions

The Rhiza Edge Short Story Competition for 2022 is now open!

Rhiza is looking for stories for Diverging Worlds: Short stories in dystopian and steampunk worlds, a collection of short stories in steampunk or dystopian worlds. The anthology will be edited by Lynne Stringer and Emily Larkin

Stories (up to 5000 words) need to be clean and 12+ friendly as we sell these books into schools.

Stories need to be in a Dystopian or a Steampunk world.

Entries can be submitted up to May 2023

Interested? Read more here.

Events

Rendered Realms at Supanova

Lynne Stringer, Adele Jones and Jeanette O'Hagan (or the Rendered Realms team) once again had a table at Supanova Brisbane in early November.  It was good to see the crowds back and fun as always to enact with avid Spec Fic fans, especially the book lovers.

Next year, Rendered Realms may explore other events as well as Supanova and Oz Comic Con. 

Sara Powter at Sydney Book Fair

At the end of November, I had a stall at the inaugural Book Fair in Sydney, which she found  eye-opening, having never done anything like this before.

Sara Powter also participated in the NaNoWriMo competition. She completed 50k words done in 2 weeks and the full book completed ( a shade under 90K words). I was so early in submitting my words that they were not even ready for me.

Omega Writers Conference 2022 Kingscliff

One of the highlights of the year was the Omega Writers Conference 2022 Kingscliff. Writers from across Australia and New Zealand attended the three day event in at the Peppers Resort at Kingscliffe. The keynote speaker Stephen James kept the attendees entertained and inspired with his flare for storytelling and games and I can attest to the value of his worships. Lystra gave a challenging and much needed session on the need for respect, consultation, patience and listening when writing about First Australians. With different streams and also connect groups, the long-awaited conference was a great way to refresh, renew and connect with other like-minded writers. 

The next in-person conference will be held from 20 to 22 September 2024. We will hold an online event in 2023.


Did you have a new release or event or brag point that didn't make it to the Highlights Post? Keep an eye out for the next call for information from members - the next Highlights post will be in end of March 2023.

Congratulations to all our members for your milestones and achievements.

Jeanette O'Hagan