Writing Mentorship Award 2023
Retired detective Ron Jackson is haunted by his failure six years ago, during the biggest case of his career, to find eight kidnapped children. Hoping for a second chance that never comes, his life is spiraling down into alcoholism, until one child unexpectedly reappears with a story to tell. His...
A nurse in her late 20s struggles to balance her mediumship abilities with the need to hide her gift. When she can finally live a life free of hiding, she meets the male lead who has some similar wounds. Together, the two will find healing through shared experiences, commitment, and community.
Lured into a relationship in which she unknowingly becomes the other woman, a high-flying career girl is forced to question everything she believed to be real, as she fights for love, sanity, and the truth.
Take an upbeat mother, an uptight husband and a monosyllabic teenager. Add one global pandemic, a daughter on the brink and a son in enemy hands overseas. Top with a generous dollop of humour and divide into bitesize chunks.
A mailman battles through floods, mechanical animals, and a jewel thief to save dozens of missing kids.
A friendship between two genuinely flawed women, with hints of sleuth & murder; Crystal & JK have been there for each other always, but something bad is about to test their friendship. Jakob Troy is a small town detective with problems & a pile of missing persons' cases with no leads to follow.
Remember those stories you were told when you were young you knew just couldn't be true? The Museum of Myth keeps things like that. But now there's a mythical serial killer to deal with, and they're going to need some help. Step forward Nic McCloud. Probationary Trainee Curator. And bait, bless her.
It is 1875. Two Wild West robbers steal the largest shipment of gold ever from the "Goldilocks" gold train in California. The characters are based on the 'Steam Punk' genre and are pure fiction, not science fiction.
A young woman must find inner strength to care for herself and others, and redefine what family means. She faces adversity and a new world as she loses those that care for her, and ultimately must decide whether she can depend on herself rather than family. Based on the true story of my grandmother.
When Agoraphobic food critic, Peter Potts, accidentally time travels 20 years into the future – he discovers he’s going to be famous. Back in ordinary time, will he work up the courage to leave the sanctuary he calls home?
Melanie discovers she is trapped in a marriage to a fascist revolutionary who promises every day to murder her and their daughter Chloe. Her only way out is to pretend to be Madam Commander. And count on her best friend to be Chloe's Other Mother.
Rebecca discovers that she can see the energy in all things, but when a dark energy force threatens to take over, Rebecca must join the Energy Keepers and find her inner strength to restore balance to the land she loves.
What happens when you meet the right person at the wrong time? When Belle and Tobi are thrown together, their feelings have to play second to his fame - and his family. As denial dominates their lives, both are led on journeys which will ultimately force them apart, and connect them forever.
Upmarket commercial fiction, this is an emotional thriller about a woman and man forced to fight the CEO who sexually attacked her and will go to any length to hide a pattern of sexual assault from investors. At the same time, each must overcome personal ghosts from their past to move forward. Sa
Revolutions: from La Habana to Harlem—A Novel is a work of literary fiction that combines historical drama with a coming-of-age story. When a young AfroCuban girl departs La Habana in the 1960s after the Castro-led Revolution with the beloved grandmother she calls Mamá, she arrives in a bitterly...
Truth mingled with fiction my novel (potential script) is a series of moving images entwined in the written word. It's his and hers, back and forth. The synopsis given has evolved. The woman on the cliff is the same woman vs he (Jakob) left on the beach...I have not worked out who will die for her...
For years Kemal has watched his father crying, alone, in front of a photograph of a woman that is not his mother. When Kemal finally confronts him, Baba reacts violently and forces him into a corner where Kemal makes a choice that ends up changing his life forever.
Lucia’s boyfriend died while they were having sex. Afterward she gave up romance, relationship and sex. Yet, three years later, she finds herself, begrudgingly, standing in front of 21 men on a famous reality dating show, hoping she can play the game and go home, alone, without killing anyone else.
When eleven-year-old William Jeffery’s grandfather dies does, he discovers he shares three things with his ancestors: a leap year birthday, magical money that returns every time it's spent, and Irish fairy magic that allows him to communicate with his dead relatives. However, The Gift of Seamus...
1906. Krakow's society loves gossip. When mysterious Rozalia gets poisoned, Bibi and her aunt investigate over teacups. But to discover which of Rozalia’s secrets costed her her life, Bibi needs courage to look behind the city’s prim façade. What will happen when she gets too close to the killer?
Brighton. Summer 1957. What possesses a kind but troubled man to kidnap a child a from a beach in broad daylight?
I am familiar with death. It surrounds me every day - my family owns a funeral service. Death didn't scare me until I almost died at 20 years-old following an appendectomy and a sepsis diagnosis. In the midst of this life-changing experience, I examine my own existence as malady possesses me.
How can Monkford get his uninvited visitor, the Humph, to go away? Will he be stuck with the Humph forever? Or will Momma help him to figure it out?
700BC. This is 9-year old Pater's year to transition from child to young man. His pater (father) will be teaching him a new life lesson every new moon beginning on the spring equinox. Pater shows Philo how to read the stars so he knows exactly how to do more than stay alive but to thrive.
A book of two parts. Part 1 - Wendy takes us on imaginary conversations with her recently deceased Mum, which led her to take an overdose during the Pandemic. Part 2 - Wendy, homeless and broken relocates to Somerset to find peace and learn to live well amongst the Level Lands of Somerset.
After more than a decade underground, the community in Daroway is failing, deepening long-standing divisions between the Upper and Lower Circles. As new threats emerge, loyalties shift and old secrets come to light – who will have what it takes to survive?
The 4 parts are anti-war, -authoritarianism, and -organized religion. Helen, widely blamed for the war, is given a chance to speak in Part 1. Wrath, about Achilles, is a love story. Ajax's story is a murder mystery. The last story presents Penelope's version, bringing many characters together.
Is it in the interests of Big Pharma to cure cancer? What if a researcher stumbles across a drug which renders all other anti-cancer money spinners redundant? Charlie's father dies in a lab incident. Charlie has no proof he was murdered, but the person he suspects is now an eminent professor.
Nathan Barshak was hurtling towards oblivion, until his long lost Bubbie Sadie - lifelong pill addict and hustler - blew into his life. She showed him how to grab life by the tail. He gave her a reason to finally stay clean.
‘Without Noor’ is a story about a girl whose world is turned upside down by the sudden death of her brilliant and beautiful older sister. Six years later, she discovers her sister secretly married and had a daughter and must decide whether to tell the family and risk scandal or gain her legacy.
While driving home after a birthday party gig, a down on her luck fairy impersonator hits and probably kills an old man. But where is the body?
Bek Usmonov's father rips him away from everything he loves. At 10yo he dreams of breaking away from the norm. He wants to fight. He wants to win. MMA takes him to Thailand, China then Australia when Covid19 hits, changing everything. The dream gets bigger; fighting in the USA becomes a reality.
It's 2020 & Mateo is on his death bed, due to the pandemic, Elena, his wife, can't be with him. The staff comes up with a creative solution so the New Mexican couple can have one last walk down memory lane. Mateo reminisces about his youth, over seventy-five years ago. Elena marvels at his courage.
Who would kill a town? Four Way Stop is a small town on a dirt track in California. It appears to be stuck in the 50s. And that's true because it's stealing people from its future to investigate who killed it and why. For Dwight and then Amber, there are other reasons to be interested in the town.
A traumatized FBI agent seeking peace and redemption is wounded and then recruited into an experimental program that seeks to transfer his knowledge and experience into an artificial intelligence being.
Addiction is a powerful force. However, on my journey to overcome not one but two addictions, I discovered that the mind, body, heart and soul of a human being are more powerful. Enough Is Enough shares my journey as an addict and how I learned to conquer drug addictions with my supernatural powers.
Lori has been a hospice nurse for the last half of her career. Diagnosed with stage four cancer the tables have turned. The irony doesn't get past her as she reminisces about her life growing up in northern Utah as an outcast & misfit. After many divorces she explores the possibility she likes women
The paths of SHEHLA and an aspiring journalist collide on the pages of a Pakistani weekly magazine, transforming the newly employed housewife into an impetus for social change.
In the world of Zellan, A man by the name of Theodore Drakos, a world-renowned scientist makes a life-altering mistake in his laboratory, accidentally killing himself in the process, on the day the king paid him a visit no less, at least everyone believed he was dead that is.
Bellamy, a fairy raised by dwarfs, spent his life without a flicker of romance that he loved from tales he knew by heart. A toiling lad with no charming princess in sight, not until he receives a letter from an admirer. Are they who they say they are, or are his hopes nothing more than fantasy?
All the disgraced Chief Operating Officer of Universe Winner wants is to be left alone. But when his ex-lover and arch-enemy conspire to kidnap his family, he has to face the wreckage of his life.
He collects the last-ever autograph of those who come to his attention. All kept in his little book of 48 pages. Now reclusive Theo has stolen his latest creation and the collector wants it back.
A woman, who traded faith in God for trust in herself searches for a kidnapped pregnant girl that her friends, family and law enforcement insists is a figment of her imagination, and a demon horde battles an angelic host for her life as she struggles to distinguish truth from deception.
Homo sapiens coexisted with Denisovans and Neaderthals for millennia. But what if there were a more evolved hominid species who abandoned us. Fintan is trying to survive in this damaged world but his discovery of the Exalted threatens not only his life but the future of humanity.
The start of it all? Is Cor Bradly just plain unlucky or is there more to this latest accident?
Jem Hart - she knows - has worked for too long as a hitman's lure. Dragging his targets into the open. Now she wants out, but not everyone's happy. Not least: the police, the company, and her latest mark's brother. DCI Mary McClure just wants to catch the killer. Even if only to shake their hand.
Having survived the American revolution, rebel Scot McGregor is castaway on an island near Alaska having had a run in with a Russian ship's captain. He is rescued by Captain Cook who is on his last voyage of discovery and Lachie sails with him to witness his death in Hawaii then continues exploring.
Kenzie wants to be famous and she doesn't care what or who stands in her way, not her neighbour Marjory and especially not icky bugs and insects. But one night she has a dream that changes everything and when Kenzie wakes up she is determined to right all her wrongs and to help other children do the...
Mewnoma enters into a different world to find the child of prophecy and revenge for his sister while on his journey he discovers love, friendship, and leadership.
Fleeing to the outer fringes of society in a blinding desperation for freedom, Seeking New Identities follows me and my little daughter as we enter the “underground," a world of identities changing as frequently as the tide waters of the Pacific Northwest, where I find predators lurking in the...
Finding love after loss sometimes takes a little guidance. Sydney's always been a strong, independent woman, and since losing her beloved boyfriend Will, she's had plenty of opportunities to prove it. Especially when he reappears and helps open her heart to healing Marine veteran, Logan Carter.
Villager, Mercenary, General, Queen. Queen Brunhilde was once a fisherman's daughter whose idyllic life was shattered by war. Found buried beneath the ruins of her family's cottage by a band of mercenaries, she loses everything including her memories. So begins the story of her rise to greatness.
