I've Been Published!
We like to celebrate when our members have been published. This is where you'll find announcements of novels, short stories, articles, interviews and blogs being published in local, regional and national publications and outlets. Online publication counts too!
  • 2021
  • 2020
  • 2019
  • 2017
  • 2016
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Now, There Was A Story
Contributors: Jackie R. Flaum and Joseph S. Walker
Available: September 2021

Uncle B Publications announces an anthology of short stories based on the songs on the Johnny Cash album Now, There Was a Song! Stories will delve more toward the crime side of things. Malice members Jackie R. Flaum and Joseph S. Walker have stories in this anthology.

Jackie's story story, "Time Changes Everything," features Madeline Sterling and Socrates Gray from her novel "Justice Tomorrow." Joseph's story is "I Feel Better All Over"—although his main character doesn't seem to.

Long Ago
​Mystery, Crime and Mayhem | Book 7
Author: Lynn Maples
Available: Aug. 15, 2021

Crime has always been with us, throughout history. And with crime comes the people who resolve that chaos.Explore lawlessness from distant Egypt to Twentieth Century America. Discover the many ways that crimes occur...and get resolved. This issue feature "Sundown" the story of a young Lillie Mae Pickens who discovers friendship isn't colorblind in 1936 Dyess, Arkansas.

Silence Speaks | A Sonny & Brianne Mystery #4
Author: Jim Paavola
 Available: July 12, 2021

Eighth graders Sonny and Breanne look nothing alike—a short black boy, a tall white girl. Their special friendship developed after they discovered they both had psychic powers: they can read minds, and ghosts talk to them. Their ghost friends help them deal with bullies and solve mysteries. In Book 4, dreams provide clues to solving two different mysteries. And when Sonny and Breanne are locked in a burning room, their only hope of getting out is the ghost of a five-year-old boy who is deaf.

Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine
Author:  Joseph S. Walker
Available: July/August 2021

​The July/August issue of ELLERY QUEEN'S MYSTERY MAGAZINE, hitting shelves and mailboxes next week, includes my story "The Last Man in Lafarge." This is the story that won the inaugural Bill Crider Prize for Short Fiction at the 2019 Bouchercon.


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Die Laughing: An Anthology of Humorous Mysteries
​Author:  Joseph S. Walker
Available: July 2021

The only anthology of its kind, this large and comprehensive volume presents forty-five original funny mysteries by the world's best comedy and mystery writers: cozies, parodies, pastiches, capers, madcap crimes, denouments, whodunnits, investigations, heists and unexpected noirs.
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Gabba Gabba Hey
An Anthology Inspired by the Ramones
​Author:  Joseph S. Walker
Available: July 2021

"Main Man" will be included in this anthology of stories inspired by the music of the Ramones published by Fahrenheit Press!
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Moonlight & Misadventure
Author:  Joseph S. Walker
 Available: June 2021

Whether it’s vintage Hollywood, the Florida everglades, the Atlantic City boardwalk, or a farmhouse in Western Canada, the twenty authors represented in this collection of mystery and suspense interpret the overarching theme of “moonlight and misadventure” in their own inimitable style where only one thing is assured: Waxing, waning, gibbous, or full, the moon is always there, illuminating things better left in the dark.

A Bullet for the Shooter
Hit World: Book 2
Author: Larry Hoy and William Alan Webb
Available: Feb. 27

When the 9-11 attacks wiped out America’s government, and the timid remnants refused to commit the US military, patriotic mercenaries went abroad to hunt down those responsible. They were the LifeEnders, who executed the responsible terrorists on live pay-TV.

Seeking to lessen the crime rate back home, the government allowed them to form LifeEnders, Inc., to perform contract killings for anyone who could afford to hire them. But only licensed Shooters could accept a contract, which ensured the government got their cut. 

Luther Sweetwater, a former Marine Corps sniper, was on the cusp of getting his LifeEnders badge, which would open the door to life-changing amounts of money. Enough to get him out of the trailer he lived in and to allow him to lead the lifestyle he’d always envisioned himself living.

There was just one problem—getting the badge required an assassination under evaluation, and, when it came down to it, Sweetwater found it was hard for him to achieve the dispassion required to kill someone for money.

Then, before he can decide if the lifestyle is for him, someone begins killing LifeEnders, and Sweetwater is put on the case to hunt down the killer. Unfortunately for Sweetwater, though, the killer already has him in his sights…

Crime in the Countryside
Mystery, Crime and Mayhem | Book 5
Author: Lynn Maples
Available: Feb. 15

Loretta Jean was enjoying retirement until a phone call brings her back to Granite Cove Manor to oversee the estate's dedication ceremony after the caterer calls it quits. Within 24 hours she has everything under control—until her former employer is found dead, face down in a lily pond.

​A heart attack? Or murder? Something just doesn't seem right. And Loretta's mystical antique radio thinks so too!
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Read the debut novella "The Name of that Tune Is...Murder!" included in the Mystery, Crime and Mayhem Anthology 5.

Sins of the Fathers
Jergen County | Book 6
Author: Richard Powell
Available: Jan. 30

A gruesome crucifixion on the courthouse lawn kicks off chaos in Jergen County. As Jordan and his team discover four similar killings in the United States, the FBI steps in. The Federal case links the killings to a notorious civil rights worker’s murder in the 1960s. For these killing, the motive? Revenge. The suspects? Iconic figures in the Black community. Described as a slam dunk for the prosecution, the case proceeds, threatening to ignite violence in this small rural community similar to riots in major US cities.

While the federal case proceeds, doubts about the case emerge in Jordan’s mind. Except for one minor flaw, the case appears too perfect. In his own words, “Did these criminal masterminds commit murder across the country and all of a sudden become stupid in Jergen County?” While he pokes at this flaw, more loose strings emerge, leading him on his own chase for the truth. While moving Urich to lead on the Federal case, he and Murphy set out on a hunt of their own.

Justice Tomorrow
Author: Jackie Ross Flaum
Date Available: Aug.15

Radcliffe College history major Madeline Sterling always wanted to be a crime investigator--and in 1963 a civil rights group called Justice Tomorrow gives her the chance. Two years later she's suffering traumatic, debilitating flashbacks. Her partner Socrates Gray knows how much trouble she's in. He's shocked to see her in Crossville, Georgia with the biracial team investigating Henry Johnson's death. 

​Pretty little Crossville is no place for someone who doesn't have her head on straight. The town seethes with rage--church burning, beatings, marches through Crossville. Undercover work has never been more dangerous for the Justice Tomorrow team.

Both the black and white communities lash out at each other, Sterling and Gray face betrayals and compromises from their own team members, their own lives. Sterling turns to a man she doesn't trust for comfort. Gray, the man she trusts with her life, shuts her out. As Sterling and Gray fight to keep the investigation and their lives from falling apart, they learn some people would rather accept ruin over racial harmony. The escalating violence in town is deeply rooted in Crossville history. 
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The truth about the murder of forbidden lovers a hundred years ago might be bring justice for Henry Johnson--and a future for Sterling and Gray. 

To So Few
Author: Richard Powell
Date Available: July 11

In the dark opening days of the Second World War, Japan marches unhindered through China and Southeast Asia. They decimate the American Fleet at Pearl Harbor. Grind the Philippines and the remaining American territories in the South Pacific beneath their bootheels. Not even the North American continent is immune as the Japanese conquer Alaskan Islands.

Four young Americans, three men and a woman, travel to China to assist in the embattled Chinese. The woman works in her father’s mission hospital bombed relentlessly by the Japanese, while the men join the American Volunteer group. These men, flying in support of the Chinese, become the only threat to the brutal conqueror’s ambitions. For a shining moment, this band of young people, who become known as the Flying Tigers, stands alone, thwarting the death that rains down on Rangoon.

While struggling against these impossible odds, personal challenges threaten to tear these young people’s lives apart. Can they prevail where others have failed?
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While Americans cheer their efforts, Winston Churchill compares them to the brave airmen who defended the United Kingdom during the Battle of Britain. Of those, he said: Never in the field of human conflict have so many owed so much TO SO FEW!

Low Down Dirty Vote: Volume 2
Contributing Author: Jackie Ross Flaum
Date Available: July 4

Jackie Ross Flaum is one of twenty-two authors —both new voices and award-wining authors — with a forward by Scott Turow, author of "First Trial". Each author contributed short crime fiction stories on the theme "Every stolen vote is a crime." In Jackie's story "Two Dead, Two Wounded", politics is a blood sport in 1910 Kentucky. A young man casts his first ballot and winds up in a gunfight.

All the money earned from sales is contributed to the Southern Poverty Law Center's programs to fight voter suppression and defend voting rights.

Praline Dreams
Author: Annette Miller
Date Available: July 1

As the summer season ends, Daria Drake and her father prepare to close their ice cream shop on the Atlantic City boardwalk. After Labor Day, they'll return to the mer-city of Tor, their home under the ocean. When a handsome man enters one day and kicks out a trio of troublemakers, Daria's captivated but won't chance loving a human.
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Zale Monroe is the captain of the palace guard in Tor, but the queen has forced him to take a vacation. He didn't expect to find a beautiful girl and her father being harassed in their ice cream shop. These men are trouble, but how can he convince Daria of this without giving away his merman secret?

Blinded Sight
Author: Barbara Lipe
Date Available: June 17

Homicide Detective Lacie Wingate escapes from the relentless demands of the St. Louis Police Force for the peace and solitude of her hometown. Soon the brutal murder of an old friend shatters her perfect world. Determined to find who and why. She is pulled into the dark, twisted mind of a psychopath. Is Lacie the hunter? Or is she the prey?

The Garden Sprites
Author: Zack Orsborn
Date Available: May 28

THE GUTTER SPRITES  is an interactive process that explores the concept of the sketchbook into its reckoning as a chapbook—the QR Codes within the chapbook allow the reader many avenues of virtual exploration moving from video art to augmented reality to Instagram Effects to music. This is the 22nd-century escapism you’ve been waiting for. Use your phone’s camera as a QR Code reader to jump from the page into the digital with hidden delights of high camp and fantastical horror.
Available on

Astrobia: A Sonny and Breanne Mystery | Book 3
Author: James Paavola
Date Available: May 1

Eighth graders Sonny and Breanne look nothing alike—a short black boy, a tall white girl. Both very intelligent and academically focused, they are easy targets for bullies. Their special friendship develops when they discover they both have psychic powers: they can read minds, and ghosts communicate with them. Their spirit friends help them solve mysteries and deal with bullies.

​In Book 3 of the series, Sonny is contacted by the ghost of a former student who had been abducted by aliens from the planet of Astrobia. It is not long before Sonny and Breanne are both targeted by those same aliens.

Pact With The Devil
(Devil's Playground | Book 1)
​Author: Richard Powell
Date Available: April 28

EVER WONDER HOW THE COLD WAR STARTED?  In the Second World War's last days, Capt. James Ross commands a rifle company. While Justine Rothstein leads a band of partisans hunting Nazis. They join forces to liberate a Nazi death camp in Austria. Once they succeed, each go their separate ways.

With the Second World War drawing to a close, a second conflict between superpowers emerge. With millions displaced and homeless, dirty deals and deceit run rampant as the Americans and Russians jockey for advantage in this chaos.

In this climate, Justine and Ross meet again at the Nuremburg War Crimcs Commission. Justine searches desperately for her family deported by the Nazis, while Ross investigates the Holocaust's perpetrators. Together, they uncover a plot to supply a Nazi super weapon to the Russians — a bomber that can deliver a nuclear weapon from space.

The Yellow Fever Revenge
​Author: Jackie Ross Flaum
Date Available: April 1

​In the summer of 1878, Elizabeth McAlister lives in Memphis as yellow fever marches up the Mississippi River from New Orleans. She survived an outbreak years ago that killed most of her family. In the midst of this rumored epidemic she learns her rapist, the father of her toddler son, is in Memphis with his wife and son. Before yellow fever can get him, Elizabeth plans to kill the beast.
 
The story of the Memphis epidemic, which killed 5,000 people and emptied the city of more than half its population, is one for our Coronavirus  outbreak times. For Memphis, the plague was its defining moment—a tragedy which, one can argue, it has yet to recover from.

Journey to Destiney: Tigers on the Road | Book 1
​Author: Richard Powell
Date Available: March 5

In early 1941, a brutal Japanese invasion sweeps through China. America has yet to enter the Second World War, but aids the embattled Chinese. Four young American - three men and a woman - travel to China to join the effort — all for their own personal reasons. The mean join the Flying Tigers. The young woman works in her father's mission hospital that is regularly targeted by Japanese bombers.

Angel in Shadow
Angel Haven | Book 4
​Author: Annette Miller
Date Available: Nov. 13

When Kristin Mentor's friend never gets off the plane from England, she knows something is terribly wrong. A stranger confirms her fears Jack McClennan has been kidnapped. Reluctantly agreeing to let the stranger help her, she knows he's dangerous, not only to the bad guys, but maybe to her as well.

Grayson Styles is given the assignment to find Jack, but he doesn't want it. To take the job will bring him face to face with his past and the painful secret he keeps. When he meets Kristin, he has a feeling this woman will challenge his past and possibly, his heart.

Colorado Rancher
​Author: Patricia Potter
Available: Sept. 2019

Colorado Cowboy
​Author: Patricia Potter
Available: May 2019
Lauren MacInnes’s life has been up in the air for over a year—in a very different way from her flying days. The former fighter pilot is completely focused on her teen daughter after a devastating accident. An equine therapy program for children of veterans in Colorado offers new hope. And Lauren would give anything to see Julie smile again.

Rancher Reese Howard fascinates Lauren with his passion for helping wounded children and wild mustangs. He’s the first man to stir her interest since losing her husband. The gruff rancher is also her complete opposite—dedicated to the land, while Lauren longs to fly again. Julie still comes first, but is it time for Lauren to find happiness of her own…even love?​
Life as a traveling physical therapist suits former army medic Ross Taylor. Two weeks in Covenant Falls, Colorado, helping out at an equine therapy program won’t change his desire for freedom. So why does it feel like the whole town is trying to get him to stay—from the veterans at New Beginnings Ranch to the scruffy little dog who adopts him? And then there’s Susan Wall, the beautiful innkeeper he can’t stop thinking about.

For Susan, Covenant Falls is home, a safe place. Falling for a wandering man is a bad idea, no matter how much she’s drawn to him. But Ross wandered into her town. If he needs what she’s found here, she’ll try to help him find it, too…including love.

Tennessee Reunion
​Author: Carolyn McSparren
Available: March 2019

Can one determined trainer teach a vet how to love?
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Horse trainer Anne MacDonald is adamant she can turn a group of rescued miniature horses into helper animals for people with disabilities. But she’s not sure which is harder—training the minis or working with Dr. Vince Peterson, Williamston’s newest and most arrogant veterinarian. Can her Tennessee charm work on the horses…and on the commitment-shy Vince?
August 2017
Paavola's 6th Murder in Memphis Available
Novel: The Unspeakable (Book 6 of the Murder in Memphis series)

The body of a young Mexican girl is found—a throwaway child. For Memphis police Lieutenant Julia Todd, this investigation is personal. She discovers two underground networks: one protects illegal aliens, the other sells girls into a gang-run sex trafficking operation.
July 2017
Debut Novel for Powell; Jergen County series
Novel: Murder Club (Book 1 of Jergen County series)

A prominent author dies while attending a special retreat for a local crime writers' group. Detectives soon discover that all attending had strong motives to kill the victim. Are the writers interested in watching the police at work -- or is one or more of them a killer covering their trail while pretending to cooperate?

Recently promoted to investigations, Deputy Sheriff Christine Urich is anxious to succeed. Show that she is not just a pretty face promoted to make the Department look fair. Lead Detective Robert Jordan struggles with demons of his own. Struggling to establish a working relationship, the two work to solve the crime and bring the killer to justice.
June 2017
Meece Releases Latest Romantic Suspense
Novel: Turbulence

The past haunts her, but the future may kill her.

​Cynthia Reynolds, CEO of Zurtel, has one love in her life—her career. At a young age, she learned the pain of romance. Now her father has hired Tristen Conners as a pilot, the very man who taught her that painful lesson. A sinister plot of industrial espionage to steal MX7, a new product that will revolutionize the aerospace industry, throws Cynthia and Tristen together in a deadly adventure. 
 May 2017
Potter's 4th Covenant Falls novel available
Novel: The SEAL's Return (Book 4 in Covenant Falls series)

​This is the home he never expected… 
With a terrifying ordeal behind him, former navy SEAL Jubal Pierce was supposed to stay in Covenant Falls, Colorado, for only a day or two. That's it. He's not prepared to put down roots here—no matter how intriguing the town's new doctor happens to be. Not to mention Dr. Lisa Redding's teen brother is on a troubled path that's all too familiar. Suddenly Jubal finds himself entangled in the community and with deep, unfamiliar feelings for Lisa. But maybe a little detour is just what a warrior needs to find his true purpose…and true love.
March 2017
Miller Releases Newest Book in Series
Novel: An Angel's Heart

Angel Haven team member, Rachael McCafferty, is losing control of her superpowers, and it started benignly when an old man shook her hand. Now, she's being followed by a shadow man who terrifies her, but she's also tempted by the whispers of untold power he plants in her mind.

Joseph Caine is called in to help Rachael understand what is happening with her. As an earth wizard, he feels an affinity to her, believing he can hep because they both have the same connection to the earth.

But as evil grows around them and Joseph begins having visions of death and destruction, he knows Rachael isn't the dark warlock's only target.
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March 2017
Malice in Memphis Featured in CA
​Novel: Ghost Stories

Malice in Memphis was recently spotlighted in the Memphis Commercial Appeal announcing the publication of the second anthology.
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What do get when you put a group of writers together at a dinner table? If it were Malice in Memphis, a local mystery writers group, the answer would unarguably be, “criminal minds.”

Each writer brings their own unique style to the table and consists of approximately 25 members, men and women, from across the Mid-South. Nine members of the Malice crew gathered at Book Stop Plus in Bartlett on Feb. 25 for book signings.

Nearly every writer in the group, if not all, are published authors. Many have several books and recognizable names. More than half the group are responsible for a collaboration of three Malice in Memphis Anthologies published by Dark Oak Press. Book one, “Malice in Memphis: Bluff City Mysteries,” is filled with short mystery stories. Book two, “Malice in Memphis: Ghost Stories,” features short ghost stories. In both books, each story is written by a MIM mystery writer.

​>>Read the story
The Malice in Memphis crew gathered around the table to take turns signing their first two books of the Malice in Memphis book series, “Bluff City Mysteries,” and “Ghost Stories.” Pictured (front, left to right): Editor, Carolyn McSparren, and MIM president, Kristi Bradley; (back, from left) Richard Powell of Germantown, Angelyn Sherrod of Memphis, Jim Paavola of Memphis, Juanita Houston of Munford, Barbara Christopher of Eads, Susan Wooten of Jonesboro, and Larry Hoy of Collierville.(Photo: Kim Odom/Special to The Weekly)
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November 2016
Elaine Meece Newest Book Released!
​Novel: Love In The Shadows

Two FBI Agents. One Promotion. 

Special Agents Ellen Bennett and  Garrett Emerson detest one another especially after learning they’re both after the same promotion. He sees her as rigid and difficult. She considers him an arrogant charmer, but his charm is wasted on her. When they go undercover as newlyweds to expose a sex trafficking ring, they have to live under the same roof and make it work.

Not only do their careers depend on it, the lives of others do as well. 
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October 2016
Larry Hoy has been published!
Short Story: The Road Trip to Lynchburg
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In Potters Field 6 – My story “The Road Trip to Lynchburg” Tells the story of what happened to me over a weekend trip to the home of Jack Daniels Whiskey.  Strangers and paupers, the homeless and derelict, murder victims and victims of wrecks and crashes in seas and trackless wilderness, soldiers and plague victims heaped in mass graves. All have tales untold. Their families and friends, their classmates and neighbors think of them from time to time, sometimes wondering if they are alive or dead. Their fates are guessed, surmised, possibly correctly.

Resign yourself to the same fate as all others, take comfort in commiserating while you can, and hope for that blessed more beyond. Welcome to the Potter’s Field.