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After Action Report: Write Stuff Conference 2025

March 17, 2025 philgiunta@ptd.net Leave a comment

The weekend before St. Patrick’s Day saw a new and improved venue for the Write Stuff writers conference, organized by the Greater Lehigh Valley Writers Group (GLVWG). For 2025, our home was the beautiful Homewood Suites in Center Valley, PA.

I wasn’t able to attend on Thursday, so my conference began at 9AM on Friday with keynote speaker Tiffany Yates Martin teaching her excellent full day class on Mastering Backstory. I was interested in this topic given the fact that my first novel, Testing the Prisoner, is a poster child for backstory, memories, and flashbacks. I must have done something right since the book has won eight awards and continues to earn excellent reviews!

Tiffany Yates Martin teaching Mastering Backstory at the Write Stuff writers conference

Friday evening’s events began at 7PM with an excellent presentation on How to Go Deep with Point of View by writer pal, Dianna Sinovic and concluded with our traditional 8PM soiree starring Mark Twain (portrayed by Charles B. Kiernan) who regaled us with a brief anecdote of his writer’s journey.

Writer pal Ginny Shephard as Professor Minerva McGonnegal

Saturday was the final day of the Write Stuff conference. In the morning, I attended two brilliant presentations by Katherine Ramsland on Creating Mental Maps and Observation for Writers. In between, Tiffany Yates Martin discussed ways to avoid that Middle of the Book Sag after which, she delivered an inspiring keynote speech over lunch.

I skipped the afternoon classes to set up my table for the book fair. At about 4PM, the classes ended and the shopping began as well as the judging and awards for the flash literature contest.

Phil's table at the Write Stuff 2025 Book Fair

In addition to the new hotel, another element that made this year’s conference special was the release of our 2025 anthology, Writing a Wrong, which included my 30th published short story, “Give Them Peace,” the first short story featuring psychic-medium Miranda Lorensen from my paranormal mystery novels. Special thanks to Dianna Sinovic for managing the anthology from start to finish. I hope to take over for the 2027 anthology.

It was a blast spending two days with so many friends and colleagues in the writing community including GLVWG president Angel Ackerman, Dianna Sinovic, Charles Kiernan, Ginny Shepherd, Bob Gelik, Susan Kling Monroe, Carla Jones, Tammy Burke, GLVWG’s official photographer, Joan Zachary, Write Stuff co-chairs Charles Kiernan and Donna Brennan, Joanne McLaiughlin, and Ann Stolinsky from Celestial Echo Press, and so many more!

Onward to the next one…

Blog, Book Reviews

Book Review: Harlan Ellison’s Angry Candy

February 26, 2025 philgiunta@ptd.net

As Harlan Ellison described it during his interview with Jim Bohannon on the Larry King show, Angry Candy is a compilation of stories that deal with “the sense of loss and grief that attends the death of loved ones.” However, he didn’t realize this theme until after the stories were collected.

My favorites among them include:

“Paladin of the Lost Hour” – After being mugged in a cemetery, an elderly gentleman named Gaspar is rescued and taken in by Billy, a Vietnam vet. Billy soon discovers Gaspar’s gold pocket watch, but when he tries to pick it up, it levitates away and into Gaspar’s hand. The old man reveals that the watch is stuck at 11PM because it contains the lost hour that resulted from a miscalculation when the world adopted the Gregorian calendar. Gaspar is the latest in a line of guardians of that lost hour, charged with preventing the end of time. This story was translated into an episode of the 1980s Twilight Zone series.

“When Auld’s Acquaintance is Forgot” – Jerry Auld will pay anything to have one last horrible memory erased, even if he has to resort to illegal means.

“Broken Glass” – During a bus ride, a young woman daydreams about a sexual fantasy with two other women, only to have her thoughts invaded by a peeping tom. Elsewhere on the bus, a male passenger with telepathic abilities forces himself into her mind, causing her to panic until she turns the psychic tables.

“The Region Between” – After his death, William Bailey’s soul is reincarnated into different lives throughout the galaxy under the direction of an entity known as Succubus who assigns souls to living bodies for specific tasks. Bailey, however, will have none of it!

“Quicktime” – During an uprising in Galiopolis, a mob of peasants storms the towers and slaughters the royalty. Lord Garth manages to escape to the kingdom’s science building where a professor is developing a time machine. The machine has so far only been programmed to send an occupant back to the Upper Jurassic Period in the Mesozoic era. Garth arranges to travel there for a short time then be brought forward again once the revolution has ended. Best of luck with that plan, Garth.

“The Avenger of Death” – After finding a cryptic note and an uncashed check inside an old book, Pen Robinson learns that he was to be struck down by an agent of death, until said agent spared him. When Pen catches up to the agent, he finds the man dying on the street—the penalty for his failures. Pen learns that these agents are called “Takers” and is given the task of killing as many of them as possible before they claim more victims.

“Chained to the Fast Lane in the Red Queen’s Race” – A traveler in space and time pushes through the membranes between multiple realities, forcing his duplicate in the next reality to do the same until finally, one of the travelers finds the perfect life and refuses to move on.

“The Function of Dream Sleep” – While mourning the loss of several friends, a man wakes up in the morning to witness a fanged mouth appear in his left side, exhale a cold breeze, then vanish. In his quest to find an answer to this vision, he learns that he is not alone. According to Ellison, this story was inspired by an actual dream that occurred when during a brief nap before a meeting.

Blog, New Releases

Writing a Wrong – Launching in March!

February 24, 2025 philgiunta@ptd.net

I’m excited to announce that my ghost story “Give Them Peace” will be included in Writing a Wrong, the latest anthology published by the Greater Lehigh Valley Writers Group (GLVWG).

“Give Them Peace” is the first short story featuring psychic-medium single mom Miranda Lorensen from my three paranormal mystery novels (Testing the Prisoner, By Your Side, and Like Mother, Like Daughters).

Writing a Wrong will launch at the Write Stuff writers conference in Center Valley, PA. The conference runs March 13-15 at the Homewood Suites.

Blog, Book Reviews

With Deepest Gratitude to Ashley Ottessen

February 13, 2025 philgiunta@ptd.net

“Hauntingly thought provoking. I loved the positive messaging of forgiveness and not allowing one’s past to, quite literally, haunt them…”

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My deepest gratitude to the World’s Most Adorable Social Media Influencer, Ashley Ottesen, for her five-star Goodreads review of my paranormal mystery novel, Testing the Prisoner. Read the full review here.

Blog, Book Reviews

Book Review: A Lit Fuse – The Provocative Life of Harlan Ellison

January 25, 2025 philgiunta@ptd.net

“You have picked a difficult subject for a biography.” – Robert Silverberg

Love him or hate him, Harlan Ellison was one of the most prolific and awarded writers of all time and influenced many who came after him, myself included. To quote one of Harlan’s closest friends, writer Josh Olson (A History of Violence), “Harlan is the guy who made me want to become a writer.” Same here, Mr. Olson.

I found A Lit Fuse to be a wonderful companion piece to much of what I’d already known about Harlan from interviews, articles, his Sci-Fi Buzz segments, YouTube videos, and Erik Nelson’s excellent documentary, Dreams with Sharp Teeth.

There were events and experiences in Harlan’s life that author Nat Segaloff glosses over and for which details can be found elsewhere (such as in the aforementioned sources). Then there are other aspects that are more thoroughly explored in Harlan’s personal and professional lives such as the making of A Boy and His Dog, his experiences on the 1980s Twilight Zone series, writing the screenplay for I, Robot based on Isaac Asimov’s novels, the Dangerous Visions anthologies, his disastrous marriages before Susan, and the illnesses that slowed him down later in life.

If Harlan Ellison is a difficult subject for a biography, that might be partly due to his reputation as a quarrelsome and cantankerous firebrand, but it’s also because Harlan’s life was replete with so many amazing experiences that it’s nigh impossible to encapsulate all of them into anything shorter than a tome or a multi-volume series. Nevertheless, Segaloff does an admirable job of presenting the human being behind the legend.

Blog, Retrospective

Life Might Knock Me Down, but It Can’t Keep Me Down

December 30, 2024 philgiunta@ptd.net

I took my beatings in 2024, from being hobbled by severe arthritis in my knee to my mother’s sudden death in June to a home repair imbroglio that is now in litigation for who-knows-how-long. This was one of the most chaotic years of my life, filled with stress, grief, anxiety, and depression.

Despite all of that, I had plenty of reasons to be grateful. So many, in fact, that I filled my gratitude box (pictured below) with slips of paper on which is written all of the exceptional things that happened to me throughout the year. On New Year’s Eve, which is tomorrow as I write this, I’ll open the box and review each slip as a reminder of those wonderful people, places, and moments that sustained me in 2024 even through the darkest days. I’d like to take a few moments to list some of them here.

Testing the Prisoner (second edition) continued to win awards this year, picking up seven more including the spring BookFest competition, an International Impact Award, two PennCraft awards, the Pennsylvania Press Club, National Federation of Press Women, and the Independent Author Network.

By Your Side (second edition) was released in July amid the aforementioned chaos and while I could not give it the promotional attention is deserved, it went on to win three awards in the fall BookFest competition and has been submitted to three other awards. Results to be announced next year.

After a two-year dry spell, my short story efforts also rebounded with the publication of “A Thorne in Time” in Ruth and Ann’s Guide to Time Travel – Volume I by Celestial Echo Press. The book was released in August with a successful book launch at the Philadelphia Science Fiction Convention (Philcon) in November.

In early June, I was stunned when Black Cat Weekly—an online SF, fantasy, and mystery magazine edited by the amazing John Betancourt—accepted my science fiction adventure tale “In the Span of a Heartbeat” which will be published sometime in the first quarter of 2025. Watch this space!

In October, I spent a beautiful five days in Ligonier, Pennsylvania at the Mindful Writers Retreat, an event I attend almost every year. It’s a chance for me to focus on writing without the distractions of life and to connect with a community of writers in the western PA area that I otherwise only chat with on social media. More, the Ligonier Camp and Conference center is nestled in the Laurel Highlands region of the Allegheny Mountains, which is resplendent during autumn and perfect for walking through the woods and along the trails.

In November, my science fiction story “Isaac Geary’s Instant Utopia” was accepted by Oddity Prodigy Productions for their upcoming science fiction anthology, Bright Mirror, slated for a March 2025 release.

‌‌This month, my ghost story “Give Them Peace” was accepted by the Greater Lehigh Writers Group for publication in our 2025 anthology Writing a Wrong, also due out in March. Per tradition, the book will launch at the Write Stuff writers conference.

And to cap off the year, I submitted a story to Flame Tree Press yesterday for their Robots Past & Future anthology to be released in August 2025. The deadline is January 1, 2025. I learned about the open call on December 3rd and managed to conjure up a story by Christmas Day. My critique partners were kind enough to turn around their comments within three days.

Although I had to cancel my summer vacation and my appearance at Shore Leave when my mother died, I managed to attend Farpoint in February, the Write Stuff writers conference in March, and the Lehigh Valley Comic Con in August and again in December. As always, they were wonderful experiences and I’ll back again on the con scene again next year, including Shore Leave.

So while life knocked me down this year, it couldn’t keep me down. I’m still moving forward with gratitude, hope, and a determination to thrive in 2025. I wish you much peace, joy, and success in the new year.