HEIDI RUBY MILLER

Fire Study by Maria V. Snyder Ahhh...the publishing story. Gather round and make yourself comfortable. It all started because of boredom (if you don't want the "how I started writing bit" - skip to the next paragraph) Fresh out of Penn State with a meteorology degree I landed a job doing environmental consulting (air quality). Consulting work is either feast or famine and during slow times I started writing science fiction and fantasy short stories. Most unpublishable and none sold - but a guest speaker at a local writer's con thought I had potential. So I continued to write short stories. After my son was born, I had the idea for Poison Study and thought, Why not? Maybe short fiction isn't my thing. So I joined a local critique group and started submitting a chapter a month - meanwhile I had my daughter - and all that goes with a newborn. Five years after I started the novel, it was finished and went through two years of revisions. Poison Study (PS

#1: Two Seton Hill Writers made it to the final ballot for the Nebulas . Congratulations to Tobias Buckell , author of Ragamuffin and Nalo Hopkinson , author The New Moon's Arms . #2: Michael Mehalek has a new flash story Tissue of Biblical Proportions up at The Write Way . #3: Maria V. Snyder has posted her appearance schedule for the release of the third book in the Study Series , Fire Study . #4: Congratulations to the 2006-2007 staff of Eye Contact , the literary-art magazine of Seton Hill University . They won a an ASPA Award for the Fall '06 - Spring '07 issue . Contributors included: Michael A. Arnzen , Jessica Braccio, Dante Ciolfi, Amanda Cochran, Lisa Cooper, Michael B. Diezmos, Melissa James Doll, Laura Fleming, Siena Frank, Shu-Hsin Kao, Karissa J. Kilgore, Marie Manski, Jason Jack Miller , Erin Mitchell, Rochelle Moore, Kim Pennesi, Adrea Peters , Juliann Picklo, Stephan Puff, Moira Richardson, Mike Rubino, Nora Thompson, and Erin Waite Seton Hill

A new website by Doug Good is featuring our outdoor guide MOON Pennsylvania Camping . MOON Pennsylvania Camping PA Waypoints is compiling a database of waterfalls , overlooks , covered bridges , historical ruins , and geological formations within the beautiful state of Pennsylvania . PA Waypoints , Heidi Ruby Miller , Jason Jack Miller , Doug Good , MOON Pennsylvania Camping , waterfalls , Pennsylvania , covered bridges , overlooks , Seton Hill Writers

My joined haiku 'Robot Knows' is in Issue 19 (February 2008) of SCIFAIKUEST . Scifaikuest 19 SCIFAIKUEST , Heidi Ruby Miller , writing , poetry , Robot Knows , Seton Hill Writers

#1: Three Seton Hill Writers have made it to the final ballot for the 2007 Bram Stoker Awards : FIRST NOVEL - THE HOLLOWER by Mary SanGiovanni ( Leisure Books ) LONG FICTION - AFTERWARD,THERE WILL BE A HALLWAY by Gary Braunbeck ( Five Strokes to Midnight ) ANTHOLOGY - FIVE STROKES TO MIDNIGHT edited by Gary Braunbeck and Hank Schwaeble ( Haunted Pelican Press ) COLLECTION - PROVERBS FOR MONSTERS by Michael A. Arnzen ( Dark Regions Press ) #2: Alum Rachael Pruitt 's poem "Merlin" will be in Issue #12 of The Magazine of Historical and Speculative Fiction . #3: Alums Natalie and Matt Duvall have a new writers website The Write Way . There is also an accompanying MySpace . #4: Alum Penny Dawn 's story "The Bridge to Brighton" received a great review at Two Lips Review . The story is part of her newly released collection from Amber Quill titled The Long Run . #5: Alum Lee Allen Howard has a new website. #6: Current student Glenn Garrabran

I was excited to see physicist Lisa Randall on The Colbert Report a few days ago discussing her book about hidden dimensions . Corey S. Powell's interview with Lisa in Discover magazine inspired me to write a poem called Misplaced My Keys , which is coming out soon in Star*Line . I loved that she had brains and beauty, showing it doesn't have to be one or the other. Lisa Randall , Heidi Ruby Miller , The Colbert Report , Misplaced My Keys , Star*Line , poetry , hidden dimensions , writing

MacBeth's Niece by Peg Herring Once upon a time I was a high school English teacher. Somewhere in the 90's I took over the drama program at the school and had problems finding plays to perform that worked for us. We had HUGE casts, lots of girls, and no interest in anything serious. On a whim I wrote a play, then another, and another. When the second one was received with comments of "You should publish," I thought, "Why not?" and sent it off to three publishers. Two of them wanted it, and I concluded that this publishing thing was easy. HAH! The next two plays took four years to find a home, and though there's been a fourth since then, I realized that my real love was writing novels. With my husband's blessing I took early retirement and began the quest for fame. (I'd already figured out that fortune is a very dim longshot.) I usually write mysteries, but a romance called MacBeth's Niece is what first caught an agent's eye. Luckily f

My sister-in-law ( Crystal Miller ), who took some of the photos for our travel guide , has entered her photos of their two dogs Acadia (1003108831)and Timber (1003109070) in The Humane Society's Spay Day Photo Contest. You can vote for your favorite pet(s) at the site. Guess which ones I voted for. ;) ~Heidi Crystal Miller , Heidi Ruby Miller , Acadia , Timber , The Humane Society , photography

Crown of Zeus by Christine Norris I think by now most people know how I started writing 'seriously'. It was 2001, late summer, and I'd JUST gotten into the whole Harry Potter phenomenon. By then, I think Goblet of Fire was already out, so I had four books to read. As much as I loved the stories, I loved the story of J.K. Rowling more. I loved that she wasn't a writer by trade, that she wrote the book based on an idea she had while riding the subway. I thought that if she could, why couldn't I? So I started writing Talisman of Zandria in mid-September. It was a strange time, right after 9-11, and I think writing helped me. I wasn't looking at publication then, just writing a story. I knew NOTHING about publishing, except for the bits and pieces that most people know, like advances and book signings and all that 'stuff' they show in movies. Three years later, the book was done. By then I had left a profession and had my son! I had found Critters ,

Say Goodbye by E. J. Rand A business career was expected, though the writer inside fought back. My compromise: to make the lonely walk from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School and my Industrial Management major, across campus to my Creative Writing minor. I bounced around for two years after graduation — literally — in the USN, as a destroyer officer on the USS Wadleigh (DD—689) . One day I may turn to the partial murder mystery I drafted while in motion, if my stomach can take it. Afterward, in suits as senior VP of a NYSE management consulting company and then senior VP at a public relations company, where I represented a national top-ten homebuilder, I still found a way. Color it quarterly earnings statements, corporate annual reports, consulting proposals, and thousands of newspaper and magazine stories — not in my name, of course. Handling crisis-consulting work became great fun: the script was mine to create and then to make happen. Along the way, blessed by

Long Run by Penny Dawn You can also read HEIDI'S PICK SIX with Penny Dawn . I'd been querying unsuccessfully for five or six years by the time I opted to obtain a Masters Degree in writing. At Seton Hill University , I learned that knowing how to write a good story doesn't mean much, if there is no market for what you're writing. It was during my time at SHU that I not only began to write for the market, but met invaluable resources who helped me to do so.( Leslie Davis Guccione is brilliant with romance markets.) I partnered with Alayne Adams (a.k.a. Jacki King ,) who had won an erotica contest and was publishing eBooks. She sent her editor to my website, and within a few months, Amber Quill Press offered me a contract for my master's thesis, Measuring Up . From there, I shopped Rolling In Clover , and subsequently received a contract for it, all the while writing novellas and shorts for Amber Heat , the erotic imprint of Amber Quill Press . Soon after, a

Ian Rogers' "Inheritor" in Cemetery Dance #58 Hi there, I'm Ian Rogers , a writer from Peterborough, Ontario (that's in Canada). I write in every genre, but I stick pretty close to horror. I grew up watching horror movies, classics like Jaws and Poltergeist , and crap like The House on Sorority Row and the Friday the 13th movies. Then I moved onto horror novels — Stephen King , Dean Koontz , Clive Barker — and eventually decided that's what I wanted to do for a living. I'm not quite there yet, but I'm working on it. My first major sale was to Dark Wisdom for a story called "The Tattletail." It's about a boy who acquires a demon in order to win his school's pet talent show. Since then I've sold several other stories to the likes of All Hallows , Bare Bone , and Not One of Us . But the one seems to impress people most is my sale to Cemetery Dance . The story they bought, "Inheritor," is actually one of the first

#1: The "In Your Write Mind" Conference sponsored by the Seton Hill WPF Alumni has its two Keynote Speakers - Ginjer Buchanan , Editor in Chief at Penguin Group USA and best-selling mystery and speculative fiction author J. A. Konrath . (Here's last year's PICK SIX with J. A. Konrath .) The conference will be June 27 - 29, 2008. More details as they come in. #2: Horror Mall is streaming the "Psycho Hunter" track from Michael A. Arnzen's cd AUDIOVILE . #3: Tammy Swoish's YA Novel Hot Scots, Castles, and Kilts was just released from Random House . #4: The following Seton Hill horror writers made it on the 2007 Stoker Preliminary Ballot : Michael A. Arnzen , Gary Braunbeck , and Mary SanGiovanni Seton Hill Writers , Heidi Ruby Miller , In Your Write Mind , Michael A. Arnzen , Gary Braunbeck , Mary SanGiovanni , Tammy Swoish , writing , J. A. Konrath , Ginjer Buchanan , Seton Hill University

My new author series over at Heidi Ruby Miller (a.k.a. ambasadora) is called Paths to Publication and will bring back favorite writers with upcoming releases and showcase newer authors and their works. Here's the premise: Every writer follows her own path within the publishing industry, which makes for entertaining and inspiring stories off the page. Paths to Publication offers some of those unique perspectives. I hope it also gives us all comfort knowing that our journey as writers is not just the breaks we get, but also the opportunities we take. First up is Ian Rogers with the release of his short story "Inheritor" in Issue #58 of Cemetery Dance , the Charles L. Grant Tribute Issue. Look for Ian on Wednesday, February 6. Ian Rogers' "Inheritor" in Cemetery Dance #58 PATHS TO PUBLICATION , Heidi Ruby Miller , Ian Rogers , Cemetery Dance , Inheritors , publication , horror , writing , author interviews

Christopher Fulbright HEIDI'S PICK SIX 1. Which of your characters is your favorite? 2. Tell me about your travels. 3. Coffee, tea, or milk? 4. What else can you do besides write? I can play guitar. I can cook. I can build web sites. I can shoot a can off a fencepost at 50 yards with a .45 caliber pistol. I can fix the bloodied knees of crying little girls and soothe grieving hearts. I can learn from my mistakes. I can make a damn good cup of coffee. I can solve systems of linear equations. In my car, I can sing like James Hetfield . 5. Who are you reading right now? Scott Lynch, The Lies of Locke Lamora 6. Pop culture or academia? 7. What is the toughest scene you ever wrote? 8. Where do you find your inspirations to write? 9. Food you could eat everyday. Oatmeal and yogurt; I pretty much do eat them every day. And, as much as I love chocolate chip cookies, I have to try *not* to eat them every day. 10. Are you into sports or other physical activities? My wife and I lov