Author Description

Perhaps you have never been stranded on a desert island Robinson Crusoe style, but hasn't each one of us felt stranded at one time or another? Stranded - to be stuck, abandoned, forgotten, left behind, trapped,marooned, held hostage, caught in a mental loop, isolated. Your choices narrow, freedoms disappear, perceptions alter. Held against your will either internally in your mind or externally by forces beyond your control, you begin to think of ways to survive. The Writing Journey of Naperville invites you to explore the colorful plots, characters, and settings of Stranded, an Anthology of fantasy, science fiction, romance, humor, horror, mystery, adventure, realism, dystopian, and steampunk. The psychological, emotional, and behavioral impacts of relationships gone bad, of arrested adolescence, of unresolved sibling rivalry, can drive us to search for tiny moments of redemption and escape. The characters that come to life in Beached, Static, Heat, Cold Upon You, Fever, Rewinds, What Lies in the Cracks Between Us, Moonlight Sonata, and Quicksand open windows to the heart so we can peer into those spaces where we often get lost. Generational, cultural, or religious identities can trap us into isolation from what we need most - to connect, belong, fit in, relate to one another. The Immigrant, Benediction, Grandpa, Flotsam and Jetsam, People's Paradise, and The Great Divide investigate these themes to capture the quandary of the stranger in a strange land. Stuck in our identities, we are often lost to what binds us together. The supernatural, the afterlife, ghosts and spirits, travels in time -the exciting stuff of the speculative and science fiction that we love to imagine. But would we want to be stranded there, where our dreams become our nightmares? Be Careful What You Wish For, Date of Death, Stranded in Time, Happy Travels, Tapestry, Waiting for My Family, Haunted, Ghost Diner, At the Other End, Lady Eve and Adam, and