Members
Dave Archard
Born in Rochester, New York, Dave moved with his family to Ridgewood, New Jersey a month before Pearl Harbor was attacked. He attended Bergen County schools, graduating in 1954. In the mailroom of the American Broadcasting Company, he earned tuition for announcer training in New York. Enrolled at Broadcast Coaching Associates, he connected with a South Carolina station and began his career in 1956. Dave woke-up the west coast of Florida as the top-rated DJ on powerhouse WALT. He later became one of the Swinging Gentlemen at legendary WLCY, St. Petersburg. Settled in Daytona Beach in 1970, Dave was a talk show host on WNDB and handled several program series at WROD. He has worked for WDSC Channel 15 as outreach director, on-camera host and voice-over talent. His project, Through Slanted Windows, a Boy's Journey into Radio, chronicles his struggles to get on the air. The memoir was a finalist in the 2008 Royal Palm Literary Awards and excerpts have been published in Florida Writer Magazine and Seniors Today. Dave is Vice President of the Ormond Writers League for 2009 and belongs to the Florida Writers Association. He continues to seek a literary agency to rep him to publishers.
Joe Asaro
Charles H. Bertram
Born in 1936 in East St. Louis, Illinois, Charlie worked as a carpenter while in high school and also served in The Army National Guard. He joined the US Air Force and was stationed in Denver where he took writing classes at the University of Colorado. He worked his way through Southern Illinois University as a photographer, graduating with a B.S. in communications, a minor in education, another in parks and recreation, and a third in photography. He was employed for two years as a recreation director in Seneca Falls, N.Y., where he met and married Janice Bunting, a music teacher from Honesdale, PA. With help from Welcome House, the agency set up by the writer, Pearl Buck, Charlie and Janice adopted three children. Two are Amerasians from Korea, and one a Cree Indian from Canada. While teaching special education, Charlie started an apple orchard and a fruit farm. In 2001, he sold his Pennsylvania orchard and moved to Ormond Beach, Florida. The first story he ever sent out was "The Pine Tree," published in the Army Times. Along with many short, humorous pieces and op-eds, he published the article "The Environmental Mousetrap" many times, and even today it generates e-mail questions. His recent book Chipped Beef on Toast, S.O.S., a collection of twenty short stories, is available from Infinity Publishing.
L.P. Cloer
L.P. Cloer was born in Los Angeles, California and grew up just a short distance from the Hollywood studios in east San Fernando Valley. Her parents, both Cuban immigrants, decided to move the family to Miami, Florida in the late 1980's.
Upon graduating high school, Lucille moved to Orlando, Florida to attend the University of Central Florida. She majored in public relations and advertising. Her interest in the fields of sociology and film led her to continue her education as a student at Miami-Dade College, and later Daytona State College.
Currently she resides in Ormond Beach, Florida with her husband of 16 years and their four children.
She has been successful in her pursuit of happiness and is looking forward to her next endeavor.
Her first fictional novel is due for completion in the Fall of 2011.
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/l-p-cloer/37/27b/2a0
Barbara Fifield
Barbara Fifield is a retired social worker and journalist who has published widely in newspapers and literary journals. She is the author of two novels, Photographs and Memories (published in 2009, but revised in 2010) and Lucifer Rising (published in November, 2009) and her first book of poetry, Passion's Evidence, containing poems written over the past 30 years. The poetry book was published in May, 2010. She is a member of several writing groups, including Tomoka Poets and the Ormond Beach Writers' League. She resides in Port Orange, Florida.
Rollene Gannett
Rollene Gannett is a retired high school and college teacher of English, speech and creative writing. A native of Michigan, Rollene attended the University of Michigan, Barry University (FL), and the University of Miami. She received two NEH grants: one for study at the University of Virginia; the other for an independent study of William Faulkner at the University of Mississippi. She has published a young adult novel, Flying Wheels (Scholastic Press) as well as several literary short stories in magazines such as the Carolina Quarterly, along with many articles. Rollene loves books and literature, and revels in language: words, connotations and sounds. She is currently working on several young adult books and adult short stories. A member of the Ormond Writers' League since 1997, she has served as secretary, vice-president and president, and is now contributing her expertise as one of the editors of this anthology.
Lois Gerber
Lois Gerber is a community health nurse as well as a writer. She has had numerous stories and articles published in nursing journals and in local literary, women's, and parenting magazines. She's also written a memoir for an elderly gentleman. One of her pieces is scheduled to be published in Cup of Comfort for Adoptive Families in June, 2009. She has nearly completed her first novel.
Sheryl Pascal Gormley
Born in Washington, D.C., Sheryl lived most of her life there, or in its suburbs, with the exception of a few years in Whiteville, NC. The daughter of a writer and an artist, Sheryl has worked in oils, acrylics, and several other mediums, the most recent being watercolor. She is also an accomplished photographer. At the age of ten, she published a four-line verse in the Washington Times Herald for the payment of one dollar. Since then much of her writing has been non-fiction, directed to trade magazines. Four novels and two children's picture books are now in the works. A driving force is that her daddy would be so happy to see that one of his daughters has a passion for writing. Flower gardening, inspired by a trip to the butterfly conservatory in Niagara Falls, Canada, is one of her hobbies. Throughout the warm months of the year, her back yard is filled with dozens of varieties of butterflies. Sheryl is animated and has a sense of humor, and as 2003-2004 president of the Ormond Writers' League ran successful meetings with a casual observance to Robert's Rules of Order.
Robert Hart
A veterinarian in academia and practice for over forty years, Bob has been a general practitioner in New York state and Florida for thirty years.
Born in London, schooled (sort of) in Mbeya, Tanganyika (now Tanzania), and Swaziland, he did a pre-medical year in Trinity College, Dublin, followed by many more at The Royal Veterinary College, University of London.
He has had stories published in Horse and Hound, Dog World, Animal Review, Animal World, The Florida Writer and Private Pilot, humorous vignettes in Veterinary Technician, feature articles for the Capital District Business Review, Albany, NY, and contributed to the web page of the Unofficial History of Television Studios in London.
His young adult novel, Horse with Bespoke Shoes was a finalist for the 1998 Heekin Foundation prize, he has been mentioned twice in the Writer's Digest Annual Writing competition, and Hart's Original Petpourri, Vol 1, Miscellany was published by Langdon Street Press in March 2010. He has just completed Cageliners, a perverted series of vignettes about pets, vets and owners (a finalist in the FWA Royal Palm Awards for 2010).
Hobbies are photography and theater. A member of FWA, he is a soul lost in cyberspace with several social networks.
Veronica (Ronnie) Helen Hart
Born in New York City and raised throughout the U.S., Veronica graduated from high school in Miami, Florida, and has since led an eclectic life. Her college/university education, specializing in Russian language, was scattered through four states and two countries. Now, once again living in Florida, this time with her spouse, Bob, she divides her time between writing and her other love, directing and set design at a local theater.
- The Prince of Keegan Bay, a novel, available from Champagne Books.com
- First Place winner for humor/fiction 2009 RPLA,
- Elena, a novel (WIP) - From make believe-piano to Carnegie Hall, the story of a young girl's struggle to survive during WWII.
- Murder in Morocco: the musical - recipient of seven Outstanding Achievement Awards from the Theater Association of New York State
- Script/manuscript editing
- Directing and set design
- Regional Director, Florida Writers Association
- President, Ormond Writers League 2009 - 2010
- Member - Sisters in Crime
- Web page www.veronicahhart.com
Robert Kamholtz
A native of Brooklyn, Robert graduated from a trade and technical school there. He began his engineering studies at The New York Institute of Arts and Sciences, completing his education after serving in the United States Air Force during the Korean War. As an engineer, he wrote technical specifications and operating instructions for specialized security electronic devices and systems and developed an interest in writing. In the 1980s, while living on Long Island, he attended local writers' groups and was inspired to go on to short stories and poems while beginning work on two novels. Many of his articles and essays were published in local newspapers. Robert retired in 1991; in 2000 he and Barbara, his bride of almost 50 years, moved to Ormond Beach to be near their children and grandchildren. He is a certified Law Enforcement Firearms Instructor and has written a comprehensive Firearms Training Manual for Public and Private Police Personnel, which he hopes will be used for training recruits at police academies. He is the current treasurer of the Ormond Writers' League. His hobbies are traveling, woodworking and teaching firearms' courses. He's still writing short stories and novels and hopes to finish a children's book this year.
Pat Otwell
Pat Otwell served as chaplain at three nursing facilities in Paris, TX, for fourteen years. During that time, she was on the cutting-edge of Alzheimers ministry and gained experience in virtually all aspects assisting in nursing facility placement and adjustment, providing day-to-day-spiritual care for patients and families, providing crisis ministry during hospitalizations, developing and facilitating an Alzheimers support group, and officiating at funerals.
She received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology from Mercer University; Master of Education degree from the University of Georgia; Master of Religious Education, Master of Divinity, and Doctor of Ministry degrees from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Pat also completed two-and-one-half years of Clinical Pastoral Education at hospitals located in Georgia, South Carolina, and Maryland.
Her publications include: ABCs of Alzheimers Ministry (various, 2010); Guide to Ministering to Alzheimers Patients and Their Families (Taylor & Francis [Routledge imprint], 2008); A Chaplain-Led Ministry to Families of Alzheimers Disease Patients Through the Development and Utilization of a Support Group (Doctor of Ministry Project Report, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary,1986); A Hobby That Ministers, (Christian Single, 1986); and Reflections, (Christian Single, 1984).
Dr. Otwell is a retired Clinical Member of the Association of Clinical Pastoral Education and a retired Associate Chaplain of the Association of Professional Chaplains.
Pat enjoys a writing ministry, playing the piano, and walking along the beach!
Julie Eberhart Painter
Julie Eberhart Painter was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania and raised in Bucks County. She and her husband and three children have lived in Pennsylvania, Texas, Illinois, Ohio, Georgia and Florida. These venues made great settings for Julie's books and stories.
For twenty-six years, Julie worked with nursing homes as a volunteer coordinator and later as a community ombudsman in Atlanta. She spent eighteen years with Hospice of Volusia/Flagler in Port Orange, Florida and contributed to and edited two of their self-help books. Her only nonfiction book, From the Inside Out, a volunteer looks at staying motivated, is considered a best selling ebook. Six of her flash fiction stories can be read on www.bewilderingstories.com
Julie has seven books in print; her most recent is Kill Fee, a 'cozy mystery'. She and her husband Shaw have traveled the world. Julie writes the "Life Travels" column for Seniors Today, a senior tabloid in Volusia and Flagler Counties.
Lark Shields
Charles (Chip) Stoll
Charles (Chip) Stoll was born in Farmingdale, L.I. in 1956. He began writing seriously at the age of sixteen after a tragic fire killed fourteen of his friends at a resort in the Catskill Mountains. He wrote his first novel "Staffhouse" as a tribute. It worked better than therapy and he wrote two children's books called "Monkey Biscuits" and "Indoor Cats/Outdoor Cats." His first published book is "Hanging in the Balance" and is currently working on "A Simple Happy Life." He won the N.C.T.E. National Award in Writing, is a member of the Ormond Writer's League and currently resides in Ormond Beach, FL. E-mail author9@netzero.net.
Gail Vedder
Guardian ad Litem...U.S Supreme Court appointed.
Volusia County Court Mediator
Volunteer: Rape Crisis Center, American Red Cross, Guardian ad Litem
Prev. experience: Director of Nurses, Dir. Inservice Education, ER, ICU.
Books published: Trilogy to help children cope with loss of loved one. "Kaylee Shares Her Sadness"
"Why did Grandpa Die?" "Where Is Grandpa Now?"
Graduate: Youngstown State University, Youngstown, Ohio
Gail is widowed, lives in Ormond Beach, Florida and has two children Scott Vedder and Sherise Vedder.
James Weis
Jim grew up in a northwest suburb of Chicago. His first creative writing was as contributing editor for his high school senior class anthology of short stories and poems.
As a West Point cadet he contributed several short stories to The Pointer, the student magazine of the day. During a career in the service, he wrote mountains of technical stuff, for the U.S. Army and internationally on behalf of the United States.
After retiring, he wrote more technical stuff for Brookdale College as an adjunct professor of computer science.
Deciding to switch to fiction, Jim took two courses from the Institute of Children's Literature and began writing short stories. He currently is trying to sell a YA novel and is working on several other projects. In addition to OWL, Jim is a member of SCBWI and FWA.
In his spare time, Jim is a committee official for the Florida State Golf Association.