We had a terrific time at the 2024 Creep I.E. Con with several readers purchasing books from us after having purchased books at last year's Creep I.E. Con. Check out the pictures posted under past events. We are looking forward to Creep I.E. Con Aftermath 2024 in September. 

American Book Fest has announced the winners and finalists of The 2023 American Fiction Awards and I'm so excited to report that my latest novel, The Haunting of Peter Ashton, is a finalist in the Horror: Paranormal/Supernatural genre.
Winners and finalists were announced in over 70 genre specific categories. Awards were presented for titles published in 2021-2023. All finalists are listed alphabetically and have equal merit.
Here is a link to the full list of winners/finalists and a link to my book.
https://www.americanbookfest.com/2023afafullresults.html
https://www.amazon.com/Haunting-Peter-Ashton-Roberta-Smith/dp/B0BZF7M36K/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

The Haunting of Peter Ashton was released on March 26th 2023.  Roberta ran a giveaway on Goodreads and 4163 people entered for a chance to win one of 15 print copies! Congratulations to the winners!

Mike and Roberta have been busy. Both had successful sales at Midsummer Scream and Season's Screamings.  In February they will be at Creep I.E. Con in Ontario. Mike has had two of his short stories published by Dragon Press. Both are busy writing new books.  More on that soon.

Roberta Smith's new book of short stories is now available on Amazon.  She is doing a Kindle e-book giveaway beginning May 11, 2022 to June 1, 2022.  Enter to win. There are eight stories that explore the weird, the ironic, the horrific, and the paranormal. Events that take place within in these eight tales are the result of human emotions and actions gone awry where moral conflict reigns supreme.

• Dreams come true at a shocking price
• The number 255 holds significant meaning for a dying woman
• Greed leads to a lesson learned, but then again, some people never learn
• Longing for another time, another place makes up for feeling unfulfilled
• Someone thinks revenge done right is poetry in action

 

I hope to have my next book out by mid-June. It's a non-horror anthology, (except for one story), complete with 16 stories, some of them award-winning. They vary from fiction to nonfiction, fantasy to supernatural, from sad to humorous. Here are some descriptive blurbs:

• To save himself, a writer must intrigue Death with a story
• Saint Michael’s reunion conjures up dubious memories
• Three men escape an assisted living facility hoping to fulfill their destinies
• With a price on his head, mobster Lee Vaughn orders his last meal
• Maggie Addison pays dearly for her former husband’s abuse
• Suffering from PTSD, Edward Wilson returns to Pearl Harbor
• Chris Graham escapes death possessing healing powers he cannot control

Today was a real treat. The writers club (High Desert Branch of the California Writers Club or HDCWC) Mike and I belong to hosted New York Times Best Selling Author, Jonathan Maberry as its guest speaker.  What a wonderful, inspiring man. I think he lit a fire under all of us writers to get cracking and write, write, write. Jonathan Maberry is a success story. He makes a good living as a successful author and doesn't need the stipend our club paid or the money club members spent buying his books. Because of this, all of the money he made today he will donate to a charity that is providing for Ukranian children whose lives have been disrupted and devastated by the war.