Baby Boomers Plus 2017 Authors

Stories Through The Ages Baby Boomers Plus 2017

Lisa Lebduska 

WAITING FOR STEVEN SPIELBERG by Lisa Lebduska - This is a magnificent glimpse into the life of a would-be screen writer, Rachel, and her friend, Bobby, a laid-back chauffeur who provides a beautiful counterpoint to her intense outlook on life. This story is hilarious on the surface but ultimately reveals a complex and poignant relationship that shouldn’t be taken for granted.

Lisa Lebduska directs the College Writing program at Wheaton College in Massachusetts, where she teaches undergraduates and helps faculty to incorporate writing into their teaching. Her essays and short stories have appeared in such journals as College Composition and Communication, Lunch Ticket, Narrative and The Tishman Review. She has never ridden in a car with Steven Spielberg, but she did write “Daredevil Mosquito,” which thankfully, has never seen the publishing light of day. You can follow Lisa on Twitter @lisalebduska. Go to the book page.

Judy S. Richardson 

HOW TO EAT RAW OYSTERS by Judy S. Richardson - It is the early 1960’s and Jenna wants to spend her 16th birthday with friends and a special trip to American Bandstand but her over-bearing father has other ideas. This is a great story told with humor and insight into a teenage girl and her family and a glimpse into family life in the 1960’s.

Judy Richardson lives in Richmond, Virginia. As a professor of Education, she wrote numerous articles for academic journals as well as three textbooks: Reading to Learn in the Content Areas; Read It Aloud! Using Literature in the Secondary Content Classroom; and The English Teacher’s Survival Guide. She received the Virginia Commonwealth University Award of Excellence, the Association of Literacy Educators & Researchers Laureate Award, and two Fulbright Scholar awards. The professional articles she enjoyed writing most were in narrative style, so she could focus on the story behind the research. She has always read widely; among her favorites are Flannery O’Connor, Ann Beattie, Louise Erdrich and Louise Penny. Although Judy always dreamed of writing fiction, life sidetracks some dreams while providing other opportunities, such as—for her— marriage, raising three sons, studying for advanced degrees, being a teacher, and traveling. While in Macedonia in 2015, she decided that writing fiction would become her priority once again. Her works include:

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Richard McPherson 

MAN WANTED IN CHEYENNE by Richard McPherson - Jake is an aging wrangler, a modern day cowboy, expert in all manner of dealing with horses. When his working-ranch job is eliminated he finds the perfect job - but there is a catch. Jake and his best friend, Bucky, are in for a totally unexpected ride, and the reader gets to go along. Just delightful!

Dick McPherson was born in Oklahoma, educated at New York University and lives on the California Central Coast with his wife Heidi. His career was devoted to advising good causes on marketing and Dick’s clients included PBS, NPR, the Juilliard School, the NY Public Library, Planned Parenthood, the UN and women’s rights organizations from Europe to China. Helping a new generation learn to advocate for the good guys, he taught at NYU, Columbia University and UCLA. His 2007 nonfiction book, Digital Giving: How Technology is Changing Charity, anticipated the impact of the Internet on charity. Recently taking up fiction (and the occasional Haiku), Dick says his influences include Twain, Steinbeck, Billy Collins and Comedy Central. Man Wanted in Cheyenne was first read at the 2017 Santa Barbara Writers Conference and is Dick’s first published short story. Dick’s next story, a thriller about a retired spy called “The Old Man in the Park,” was published in the Black Fox Literary Magazine (2018). Based on interest from readers, he is now working on a novel, Hollywood Cowboy (wt), about the unlikely life of Jake, the original Man Wanted in Cheyenne.  Go to the book page.

Tony Concannon 

1967 by Tony Concannan - A young boy has a decision to make—spend time with his father watching the Red Sox game or go with his friends to the movie—a seemingly inconsequential act like those we all face in our lives. For Brian the result is not what he expected and he might never recover from the, in his mind, wrong choice. This story provides a wonderful insight into the mind of a young boy and how our lives are impacted by the choices we make.

Tony Concannon grew up in Massachusetts. After graduating from college with a degree in English and American Literature, he taught for 18 years in Japan, where much of his fiction is set. Since returning to the United States, he has been working with adults with developmental and intellectual disabilities. He began writing in 1979 and stories of his have appeared in Columbia Journal, Litro, On the Premises, Oasis Journal, The Taproot Literary Review, Origins, Here Comes Everyone, The Lost River Review and Eastlit. Go to the book page.

Nadia Greasley 

THE MAGIC SEAMSTRESS by Nadia Greasley - Emily Shaw is anxious to leave her rural town of Adams, away from her mother and sister. She is nothing like them and is forced to endure her last prom dress fitting at the Magic Seamstress. But through the ordeal of getting her dress, she gets a life lesson in the process.

Nadia Greasley has worked for the past 10 years as a college writing guide at Hamilton College in Clinton New York. Writing has become part of her second chapter. She has started the arduous process of editing a memoir about her life in Upstate New York. Her essay, The Map of France, was published in the digital fall issue of Longridge Review (2016). She has translated a scholarly book by Prof. Steve Goldberg (from English into French) on the Art of André Kneib, a French calligrapher who specializes in Chinese calligraphy. Work will be published in fall 2017. Her essay Writing is the Opposite of Letting Go was published online (September 2017) by 1888 Center for their project called, Why We Write? She has lived in Upstate New York with her family and dogs for the past 23 years. Two of her favorite things are watching birds and listening to crickets. She can be found on Twitter @BraveChickadee Go to the book page.

Dan Jorgensen 

FRANCIS by Dan Jorgensen - Francis is a whimsical look at life along the Northwestern seaboard. A fanciful relationship between a homeless man and his environment with the personification of a fog that is reminiscent of Wordsworth and ‘I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud’. Francis forces us to think but the thoughts are all pleasant.

Dan is a retired State of California electrician and materials tester. He is the second of three children born to an English teacher father and a Girl Scout leader mother. He was motivated to start writing when the IRS audited his inadequately journaled business expense records in a well-traveled year. He also wanted to record the legacy of his grandfather’s story-telling. As a kid, Grandpa would tell stories of Danish nisse playing mischievous tricks on people who had displeased them. Woe be to those unfortunates. His writing goal is to spin a tale that will suspend belief in reality and hopefully bring a smile to the reader’s face. He now resides in Olympia, Washington with his wife, Celeste, doing projects around the house and volunteering time to a charity agency that helps with home repair.  Go to the book page.

Susan Lowell 

IRONWORK by Susan Lowell - The author has created a darkly humorous tale of an artistic loner who deals with the absurdities of the world in his own unique way. It is 1999 and Rascoe is coming face to face with the millennium—or is he? This is a marvelous story, well written and entertaining with matchless characters in a world that only Rascoe could create.

Although born in Chihuahua in 1950, Susan Lowell is a fourth-generation Arizonan who now divides her time between Tucson and a cattle ranch on the Mexican border. She was educated in public schools and at Stanford, Harvard, and Princeton Universities, and she has worked as a journalist, a professor, and a freelance writer. As well as many short pieces, she has published sixteen books for adults and children. Her honors include Arizona Author of the Year, OneBook Arizona, a New York Times Notable Book, and the Milkweed Editions National Fiction Award. She’s currently at work on a novel based on family papers and other memorabilia that range from a string of amber beads to an iron strongbox. Inside the iron box she found pocket journals, photographs in sepia tones, and a mummified frog—as well as a series of unopened love letters addressed to a long-dead wife. Go to the book page.

Ernesto Marcos 

FOUND AND LOST by Ernesto Marcos - A fascinating tale of a woman, whose pattern of behavior, unwittingly leads her into an impossible set of circumstances. This story has the supernatural overtones of an Edgar Allen Poe tale. Well written with a fascinating plot. The ending is very abrupt and makes one wish that different decisions had been made when there was still time.

Ernesto Marcos lives, breathes and dreams South Florida. A love affair that has flourished since he first arrived fifty years ago. A wide range of artists have influenced Ernesto since he developed an interest in writing. If he had to narrow it down to three, he says they’d be Edgar Allen Poe, Hermann Hesse, Jorge Luis Borges. Somerset Maugham and Arthur Conan Doyle. (Was that five? Oh, well, math was never one of his strong suits). For him, “A perfect day begins with a café con leche and toasted Cuban bread, a midday tapa consisting of fresh seafood accompanied by crispy tostones and ends with a shared bottle of wine with friends and passersby on the beach. Oh, and yes, add a little writing, reading, fooling around and some serious guitar playing to that day as well.” Ernesto has authored two short story books Urgent Tales of Mystery and Horror, and Three Women and Three Wolves. Go to the book page.

Suzanne Grieco Mattaboni 

CARTOONS by Suzanne Grieco Mattaboni - A poignant episode in a young woman’s life is described with strong emotion and a healthy dose of wry wit. The characters are vivid from the not so heroic Timothy, to the good friend Pam, to the poetic but imaginary ex-boyfriend, and the guiding force of Carla. Everyone has advice on how to solve Jackie’s problem, but in the end, she has to figure out how to heal on her own.

Suzanne Grieco Mattaboni is a fiction writer, journalist, and corporate public relations consultant based in eastern Pennsylvania. She’s the author of the women’s fiction novel, EXCUSE ME, WAITRESS, IS THAT NEW JERSEY? and the middle grade novel, TACO GIRL. Suzanne is a former education reporter for Newsday whose work has appeared in The Huffington Post, the “Chicken Soup for the Soul” anthology series, Seventeen, Mysterious Ways, Guideposts.com, Child, 50 Word Stories, Turtle, The Best of LA Parent, and a host of high tech trade magazines. She’s a past winner of Seventeen’s Art and Fiction Contest and a National Council of English Teachers Award. Originally from Long Island, New York, she has a B.A. in fiction writing from the University of Pittsburgh. She is a podcaster focusing on the ‘70s, ‘80s, and ‘90s with the Banzai Retro Club, www.banzairetroclub.com. Suzanne is the Area Six representative for the Pennwriters Group, and will be editing You can find her at:

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Barbara Mujica 

PREJUDICE by Barbara Mujica - This is a very well written story about stereotypes and how we react to them. It is timely because of the setting and theme. It is provocative and yet never preaches merely laying the reality out before us and letting us, the readers, decide. Just what we look for in a meaningful short story.

Barbara Mujica is a novelist, short story writer, and essayist. Her novel Frida (Overlook Press, 2001) was an international bestseller. It appeared in eighteen languages and was a Book-of-the-Month Club alternate. Her novel Sister Teresa (Overlook Press, 2007) was adapted for the stage by Coco Blignaut of the Actors’ Studio in Los Angeles.. I Am Venus was a winner of the 2012 Maryland Writers’ Association competition in the category Historical Fiction, and her newly completed novel, Lola in Paradise, was a winner in 2016. Mujica has also won many prizes for her short fiction, including the E. L. Doctorow International Fiction Competition, the Pangolin Prize, the Theodore Christian Hoepfner Award. Her story “Jason’s Cap” won first prize in the Maryland Writers’ Association national competition in 2015, and “Ox” won second prize in 2016. Her articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Dallas Morning News, Commonweal, Américas, and hundreds of other publications. The mother of a Marine, Mujica was Faculty Adviser to the Georgetown University Student Veterans Association and Co-Director of the GU Veterans Support Team until her retirement in July 2017. In 2015, she received the President’s Medal from the University for her work on behalf of veterans. In 2016, she received the FLL Distinguished Service Medal, and in 2017, the Dean’s Medal for Excellence in Teaching. Her projects include:

  • (author) Women Religious and Epistolary Exchange in the Carmelite Reform: The Disciples of Teresa de Avila. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020.
  • (editor) Collateral Damage: Women Write about War. Charlottesville, VA.: University of Virginia Press, 2020.
  • Her novel I Am Venus was a quarter finalist in the 2020 ScreenCraft Cinematic Novel Competition.
  • Spanish editions of two of her books have recently been published:
  • Hermana Teresa. Santiago, Chile: Cuarto Propio, 2017 (novel)
  • Lejos de la casa de mi madre. Moorpark, CA: Floricanto, 2019 (short stories)

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Richard Perreault 

HOLDING HANDS WITH THE CLOCK by Richard Perreault - Cynthia is waiting for news from her doctor, news that will set the remainder of her life on either a path of hope or despair. She looks for ways to delay the inevitable truth, whatever it might be, as she reflects on a life that contains some regrets.  A fantastic ending that reveals insights all of us must ponder as we grow older.

Richard lives on a mountaintop in Western North Carolina overlooking the Tuckaseegee River Valley and Great Smoky Mountains National Park, where his wife, Sue; and cairn terrier, Darci Gayle; offer up heaping helpings of support, inspiration, and tolerance. Since turning his writing focus to short fiction in 2011, Richard’s stories have won more than 40 awards. His story, Have Yourself a Merry Little Xmas was recently selected as a feature story in The Treasure Trove: A Collection of Prose and Poetry by Atlanta Writers. He has presented writing workshops at the Appalachian Heritage Writer’s Symposium in Richlands, Virginia. All proceeds from Richard’s book, Toto Too. The True Story of What Happened Over the Rainbow, go to help support animal rescue shelters in the Southeast. Go to the book page.

Alexandra Rochman 

IDENTIFICATION PLEASE by Alexandra Rochman -  A woman reminisces about what life brings us and how we identify ourselves in various ways at different stages of the journey. Funny, honest and well written the passage from one phase of life to another always ends in the same place.

Alexandra Rochman is a writer, meditator, and yogini. She enjoys traveling, photography, books, and book clubs serving wine. She’s grateful to be inspired to write fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry. In her first blooming, she had careers in nursing, birthing hypnosis, and healthcare informatics. These jobs required international travel. In her second blooming, as a novelist, she travels between her dining room and kitchen tables. Sometimes she even ventures to the outdoor deck. You can follow Alexandra on social media or her website.

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Ted Scott 

AIR EAGLES by Ted Scott - Three best friends from high school were all good athletes and their group, the Air Eagles, an important part of their lives—but time has a way of changing relationships--altering beliefs and feelings. When trying to recapture some of the memories one member of the group experiences an astonishing reunion with the Air Eagles.

Ted grew up in Tennessee but moved north when he was 17. During the sixties he worked at MIT for the military and the space program before becoming an antiwar activist. He thinks there should have been a Truth and Reconciliation Commission after the war. He stands an hour a week at a Vigil for Peace and Justice. He got a PhD and taught Physics for more than 30 years. He lives in western Massachusetts with his wife of 52 years, and his children and seven grandchildren all live within walking distance. He began writing memoir and poetry ten years ago and has been published online and in local and regional anthologies. He is a member of writing groups and regularly attends Spoken Word events. AIR EAGLES is his first published fiction. He runs slowly but enjoys windsurfing on a lake in northern Vermont. He is 80 years old. Go to the book page.

Elena Schacherl 

LET’S GO by Elena Schacherl - Antonio is in a nursing home, but he is ready to return to his own place and cannot understand why no one will listen to him. He finally manages to escape, but what he discovers is much more—or maybe less—than what he expected. A fitting tribute to the frustrations of aging.

After a post-graduate education in English and career in non-profit management, Elena Schacherl took on a new challenge—writing fiction. She was inspired by her roots. Her maternal great-great grandfather was a Croatian village bard and poet. And her father, his brothers, aunt and uncles were all writers. She loves reading but finds writing even more satisfying—you get to choose the plot and characters. In 2016 her short stories were published in Treasures along the Fenceline and Loft on Eighth’s Long Lunch/Quick Reads Anthology. She has also completed a novel, Beach of the Dead, about a baby boomer who meets a retired revolutionary in Mexico and sees ghosts whenever she enters the bathroom. Her short story “Swimming with Sharks” was published in the Canada Council-funded art book, Printed Word which is on permanent exhibit at the Calgary Public Library. A documentary of the project was also produced . Born in Trieste, Italy, Elena immigrated to Canada as a child and lived most of her life in Saskatchewan until moving to Calgary, Alberta in 2000. She’s a member of Calgary’s East Village Writers’ Circle, the Alexandra Writers’ Centre and the Writers’ Guild of Alberta. Go to the book page.

Nancy Wick 

DEAR DAVE by Nancy Wick - A tender love story of two old friends who maintain a long distance relationship over an entire lifetime of moves, career changes, marriages, children and all of the episodes that make us human. Through it all they are always there for each other. This is a beautiful story--Oh that we could each have such a friend.

Nancy Wick has been writing since childhood and spent her career as a writer and editor, first at a daily newspaper and later at the University of Washington in Seattle. Since her retirement, she has begun turning her life experiences into personal essays and has had her work published in Minerva Rising, Persimmon Tree, Longridge Review and Oasis Journal, among others. Her undergraduate years in the late 1960s left a lasting impression on her as she saw the rise of feminism, a philosophy she had always believed in, even though she hadn’t previously had a name for it. These days, when not hunched in front of her computer—either writing or doing freelance editing—she’s volunteering for the King County Sexual Assault Resource Center, staffing the front desk at her local yoga studio or taking care of her beloved granddaughter. Go to the book page.

Martha Worcester 

CALL ME MR. GRUMP by Martha Worcester - Wonderful short story through the eyes of an elderly man who gets the reputation of being difficult; a trait that he doesn’t deny and, in fact, relishes. We understand why as the story unfolds. Aging is a very personal thing and sometimes our friends and relatives can’t understand.

Martha Worcester has just begun writing at age 75. Many stories come from past nursing experiences in work with older adults. She continues working with groups and individuals in planning and managing their lives as they age and names her work Keys to Aging: Late Life Design. This is her first publication as a creative writer. She is thankful to her writing teacher Keith Eisner who got her started, and her monthly writing group who provide editing and encouragement. Writing gives her voice to describing the many paths of life taken in old age, and also opens wide the doors to memory and imagination. Reading both fiction and non-fiction has given her much pleasure, strength, and insights throughout her life. Publishing her writing, she sees as an avenue to contribute to the lives of others as so many others have to hers. Go to the book page.