LOCAL AUTHORS DISCUSS: Writing a Novel

LOCAL AUTHORS DISCUSS is a (mostly!) monthly program featuring members of the Door County Published Authors Collective. Each month features new themes and new authors. This month: Local Authors Discuss Writing a Novel.

Join four members of the Door County Published Authors Collective who will read from their work and discuss how and why they incorporated family into their novels. Today’s presenters are Judy DuCharme, author of Blood Moon Redemption; Patricia Neuman, author of Dressing Myself; Margaret Philbrick, author of House of Honor; and Dan Powers, author of How Long a Shadow. Authors will discuss and answer questions about their specific novels as well as participate in a general discussion about writing and publishing a novel.

This program is free and open to the public. Book clubs are especially welcome, as are readers and writers of all ages.

Judy DuCharme is the author of several novels as well as The Cheesehead Devotional. Her novel, Blood Moon Redemption, is an end-times thriller, connecting Jewish history and a terrorist plot.

Patricia Neuman is a graduate of Indiana University-Purdue with a major in journalism and a minor in English. She has worked as a reporter, editor, and freelance writer before shifting her focus to writing novels. She and her late co-author, Roasalind Burgess, wrote and published seven books in The Val & Kit Mystery Series, as well as Dressing Myself, which explores a marriage breaking apart and subsequent growth and change. Patricia and her husband John have been married for 57 years and have three children and twelve grandchildren. They have lived in Door County for the past 19 years.

Margaret Ann Philbrick writes to plant seeds in hearts. Her first novel, A Minor – A Novel of Love, Music and Memory (Koehler Books, 2014) garnered critical praise, “An emotional story…clear prose…delicately constructed….nuanced characters….breaks the mold.” Kirkus Reviews. Her second novel, House of Honor is forthcoming in the fall of 2023 (Ambassador International). Back to the Manger (Singing River Publications, 2009) created with her mother, an oil painter, is now a family Christmas classic with over ten years of consistent sales. She is the contributing editor of the essay and poetry collection for women, Everbloom (Paraclete Press, 2017). Margaret is a founding member of the Redbud Writers Guild. Her poems and articles have been featured in numerous anthologies and publications including Christianity Today, Relevant, Ready, The Redbud Post and Patheos. Her husband Charlie and their three highly dramatic, artistic children make their summer home in Baileys Harbor. You can connect with her writing at www.margaretphilbrick.com

After retiring, Dan Powers pooled his background in music composition, literacy and education and began to write fiction. He published his first novel How Long A Shadow in 2020. That same year he became a founding member of the Door County Publishers Authors Collective. His novel asks the question is genealogy destiny. In 2022, he won first place in the Hal Prize for Fiction with his short story “Two, Three…Which Is Me?”