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Baseball as a Backdrop…again…in my upcoming novel
The second novel I published, Baseball Girl, takes place in the big leagues, with Francesca Milli working in the front office of a baseball team (The Blackbirds). The novel explores the professional side of baseball, while Francesca (Frankie) copes with the death of her father and explores relationships with two men: Joe, a baseball player, and Jack, a baseball writer. If you can smell there’s a love triangle, you are correct. Now, as the the finish line is in sight, and I look to publish my 8th novel currently entitled Dodging Lies, baseball is in the backdrop once again. Except this time it’s 1956 in New York City, and the…
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Baseball Girl Gets a Revamp
There’s still time for a beach read! *** Hi, all! I hope you’re having a good Thursday! I made a little video to offer insight about my novel, Baseball Girl, which may have been the most fun of all my novels to write. I’ve been thinking about this novel a lot lately, and I went back and reread it. It’s chock full of so much “stuff,” so instead of writing about it, I thought I’d just share my thoughts here. The new cover is live on Amazon now. As a funny aside, I have to give special thanks to all the people I met along the way working in the…
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Sentimentality Run Amok
I can’t help it. It happens every time. Every single time. Even though I live and breathe baseball vicariously through my husband, who works for the ballclub, when I go to Camden Yards, it’s as if I never left. Be forewarned: take me to Camden Yards, and I get sentimental. With the pandemic seeping into every aspect of our lives, I haven’t been to the ballpark in a year and a half. On Friday night, our family enjoyed a lovely outing and got to spend time “at the yard,” as Orioles fans like to say. Luckily for us, the team had a big win Friday night over the Nats and…
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Booking Remote Book Club Visits
*** As many of us are still in the “working remotely” phase of this pandemic, I’ve decided to promote virtual book club visits to help promote reading and our sanity! I’m currently booked for a book club in July and have a lot of openings for book clubs who might want to read my books and discuss them. As an author, one of my favorite things to do is to meet new people through book club discussions. As I have five books on the market, I’m happy to visit your book club virtually. I’m getting good at this, especially since the back half of the semester I just taught was…
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Baseball Nostalgia and Baseball Fiction
✨THINGS THAT HAVE MOST AFFECTED MY LIFE✨My parents & familyMy husband and kidsHigh school & collegeWorking in baseballBeing a teacherFriendships.✨THINGS THAT HAVE MOST AFFECTED MY STORYTELLING✨Broken lovesGrandmothersLife in baseballRelationships (good & bad)Losing people we loveMaryland’s beauty . BLACKBIRDS PARK is the fictional version of Camden Yards in my novel entitled Baseball Girl. I worked at Old Memorial Stadium and Camden Yards for the Orioles (hence the Cooperstown bear pictured here, a gift from Orioles owner Mrs. Angelos). I’m somebody who can feel romantic about places and about baseball. This novel is loosely based on my life working in baseball, an amalgamation of the people and places I loved over the…
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Love and The Orioles
* My husband and I met while working in the front office for the Baltimore Orioles at Camden Yards back in the 90s. Many of you know this story, or may have heard it once or twice before here on Steph’s Scribe. But now the story has come full circle. My husband left the club in 1994, and I stayed until late 1998; he went on to have a long career in media and sales—spending time at the Wizards and Capitals, Redskins Radio, CBS Radio, RadioOne, MASN, and Comcast. Last month, he returned to the Orioles, the place where he began his career and is serving as the VP of…
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The Thing That Connects Us
*** I was sitting here staring at a blank cursor knowing what I wanted to write but not knowing exactly how to say it. Then I remembered studying writer James Baldwin during my first master’s degree, and thought of his quote: “You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who are alive, who had ever been alive.” – James Baldwin I’ve been “officially” publishing fiction now since 2012. Fiction is the best outlet to tell…
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An Update and the Plot Overview of Little Milestones – Coming Soon
Right now, my beta readers are looking over the draft of Little Milestones. I am reading the manuscript again, as well, for the hundredth time. As well, I’ve started to create some of my marketing materials for the book. For those of us in the trenches as independent authors, it’s a never-ending cycle of book promotion, writing, and editing. We’re at it all the time as we try to build our brand and find our niche of readers. I’m still at it and I haven’t given up. Today, I’m sharing the draft of the copy that goes on the outside of a book or inside a book jacket—you know, the…
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The Wonderful, Wacky World of Writers
I’m just gonna put this out there because it makes me sad: too many people are not reading. They are spending their time on other things, which is great, but I would like to see the average books people read a year climb (see a piece I wrote last year about average number of books people read each year by clicking here.) I am, however, encouraged on Instagram by all the READERS and WRITERS I’ve become connected with over the last six months. People post books, book art, and their favorite stories in beautiful pictures. It’s been a whirlwind of likes and follows, but the people I’m connected with are…
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And Here’s to You, Mr. Robinson
Yesterday, we learned that Orioles great and Hall of Famer Frank Robinson had passed away. He was 83. I was lucky enough to get to know Frank during my time at the Orioles. His humor, willingness to be helpful, and energy was a positive force within the Orioles organization. When you learn someone has passed away, you take a moment to be pensive. To truly understand how quickly life goes by, and that a little appreciation for people, places, and things is important in life. If you’ve read my blog at any point in the past, you know that I write quite sentimentally about my time working in baseball. I…
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My Books Are All Influenced by Maryland: #ReadLocalDC Blog Hop
*** Magical Maryland. That’s what I like to call it. Our state has a lot to offer people who like variety—the mountains to our west, the beaches to our east, the Chesapeake Bay, nearby Baltimore and Washington, D.C., theme parks and casinos, pretty state parks and delicious Maryland crabs, the picturesque and historic capital city of Annapolis, and numerous quaint, tucked away towns and cities with charms all their own. I’ve lived in Maryland since I was five. I grew up in Bowie and Annapolis. I went to college in Towson at Towson University. Along with my husband and children, we’ve lived in Baltimore City, Ellicott City, and Severna Park.…
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The Real People Who Have Inspired My Leading Men
As I did a few weeks ago, I thought I’d continue this series which was inspired by a fellow writer’s blog whereby he wrote a post about people who have inspired his characters along the way. I loved reading his insights and what informed his writing, so I’m going to continue doing so with people who have inspired some of my own characters in my novels. Again, I’ll pick three, one from each book. MICHAEL CONTELLI from BENEATH THE MIMOSA TREE When I was little and my grandmother and grandfather (Nanny and Poppy) lived in Cedar Grove, New Jersey, on Myrtle Avenue, I would regularly visit. We didn’t move from…
