“Chicken Soup for the Soul is honored to have Samantha Waltz as a contributing author.“

D'ette Corona,
Production Coordinator, Chicken Soup for the Soul

It takes a village to raise a writer. I would like to thank:

My Parents:

My mother, Helen Hinckley Jones, taught Writing for Publication and wrote short stories, essays, and novels. My father, Ivan Charles Jones, was also a writer, as well as an English teacher at the local community college. While some families talk about their day as they gather around the dinner table, my parents, my sister Jacque’ and I talked about how to spell a word – one of us getting the dictionary – or about a particularly interesting book, play or idea. My parents were mentors extraordinaire.

My writing group:

B.J. Bateman: My mentor for the personal essay, BJ writes with a strong voice and a light touch. She is currently marketing her novel, In The Shadow of the Lone Star, a story of racial practices and tensions, a mixed race love affair, and a near hanging in the east Texas piney woods of 1938.

Willa Holmes: Author of She Who Watches, Willa always bumps my thinking to a new level. She is currently marketing Sodbuster, a novel for middle graders about a boy who in 1913 is forced to abandon his dream of entering the modern age and instead to join his family in a covered wagon trek to Colorado and homesteading.

Herbert Piekow: Herbert is our group’s master of sensory detail. He is currently marketing his novel, Dance of the Scorpions, the story of two extraordinary, intertwined families in the Middle East during the tumultuous years 1930-1980.

Terence Shumaker: Terence visualizes our writing in the kind of physical detail he can weigh and measure. Known for his acclaimed AutoCad textbooks, he also has a stirring novel in progress, Take These Eyes, the story of three Vietnam vets struggling to put their lives together after being blinded during their tours in Vietnam.

Tim Gilmer: Tim is a careful critic who invariably gets right to the strength – or weakness – of a piece. He is editor of the award-winning magazine New Mobility, and is working on a memoir.

My Extended Writing Group:

Marcia Gerhardt: Marcia can find just the right word to make a sentence flow better, and just the right nudge to move me toward another market or contest. (The nudge is often chocolate.) She is completing her third mystery novel, Murder and the Midnight Disease.

Sonja Herbert: Sonja continually inspires me with her professionalism and her editorial suggestions. She is currently marketing her novel Tightrope!, the true story of a half-Jewish girl who survived the Nazis by hiding in a circus where she found both safety and her true love. www.germanwriter.com.

Jennifer DiCamillo: Jennifer is an endless source for markets, contests, and encouragement. She sets the example for getting things out and getting them published. www.jenniferdicamillo.com