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  • Podcasts
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    • Book Pages Wreath
    • Heart Pages Wreath
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    • From Humbug to Humble: The Transformation of Ebenezer Scrooge – Personalized & Signed
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  • Saturday Style: Women in Hats

    May 7, 2016 /

    *** Summer is around the corner, and it’s time to think about getting yourself that perfect hat. Whether it’s a straw one, cotton one, or a ball cap, you will want to protect your face from the harmful rays of the sun. Along with getting yourself a good pair of sunglasses, you will want to purchase the right hat for your face shape that also goes well with your hair. The six-year run of Downton Abbey made me fall in love with hats all over again. Watching Mary, Edith, and the rest of the ladies on Downton, made me miss the completeness a hat can bring to fashion and your…

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    Stephanie Verni 0 Comments

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    Inspired by Joanna Gaines and Fixer Upper on HGTV

    April 4, 2016

    Campus Book Talk Tonight and Some Monday Inspiration

    April 18, 2016

    Beauty + Joy

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  • In Honor of Teacher Appreciation Week & A Thank You to My Students

    May 6, 2016 /

    In the laundry room on Pointer Ridge Drive in Bowie, Maryland, where I grew up, my parents hung my large blackboard I got for Christmas. The laundry room was a good size, and the perfect place for me to set up my schoolroom. My aunt had given me a grade book she used when she was a teacher, and at the age of eight, I began practicing to be a teacher by writing on the board, planning lessons, and marking the imagined students’ grades in my grade book. Mrs. Schuman and Ms. Cosby were my fourth grade teachers, and I watched how they conducted the class. I wanted to be…

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    The Best Soup | A Family Favorite

    October 20, 2015

    Friday Fodder: My Obsession with Letters & Journals

    May 6, 2022

    Sentimentality Run Amok

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  • Meeting People Makes Travel Magical

    May 2, 2016 /

      My husband and I were sitting in a restaurant in London one night trying to get in touch with his Italian cousin who is a surgeon in the city. We were there for vacation, but we had promised Massimo and his wife that we would get together during our stay for dinner. In our effort to contact him at work, we were failing miserably. The people at the table next to us recognized that we were struggling with the phone and our attempt at communication with the hospital and promptly invited us to their table. When we explained that the hospital said he was in “theatre” we assumed he…

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    Opening The Door to Love or Closing the Door to Love

    February 12, 2016

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    February 13, 2019

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    March 17, 2016
  • Breathing In the Air and Tasting the Wines in Napa Valley | Part Two

    April 29, 2016 /

      (This is part two of my travel piece about Napa Valley and San Francisco. To read part one, click here). Besides the incredible number of wineries, there are some picturesque towns that are definitely worthy of a visit. Napa was our first stop. Perched on the Napa River, the town offers adorable shopping, great restaurants, wine bars, and views worthy of your best camera. We ate at Bounty Hunter Wine Bar and Smokin’ BBQ, a restaurant/bar that was highly recommended to us, and my husband never passes up an opportunity for good barbecue. Additionally, the place forced you to be social as we sat at group tables, and made…

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    Podcast 17: The MFA Journey as a Writer (and a teacher of writing)

    May 27, 2020

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    November 2, 2021

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  • Breathing in the Air and Tasting The Wines in Napa Valley

    April 27, 2016 /

    First, there was the air, consistently devoid of humidity according the locals, and as fresh and crisp as you would imagine the hills and unspoiled land of Northern California to be. Puffs of soft clouds decorated the blue sky as temperatures hovered in the high sixties. Then, there was the scenery. The rolling greens of the mountains lulled you in sweetly, beckoning you to stop what you’re doing, forget your watch, and stay a while. Rows and rows of meticulously placed and aligned grape vines grow upwards on the mountains as striking winery after winery welcome and encourage you to come and taste what has been made on the premises…

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    Sentimentality Run Amok

    July 28, 2021

    BOOKISH — Sunday Book Festival and Monday Book Talk on the Docket

    September 25, 2015

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    April 29, 2016
  • Campus Book Talk Tonight and Some Monday Inspiration

    April 18, 2016 /

    I’m excited to talk to students tonight about the self-publishing world. Faculty in the Halls, a program at Stevenson University, has asked me to speak to students about the path of publishing your own book. As I’ve published two novels this way, I’m excited to share my knowledge of the growing arm of publishing, how you can make this work for you, and the pros and cons of doing it on your own. I’ll be talking about both Beneath the Mimosa Tree and Baseball Girl, and I hope to inspire some folks to give it a whirl. It’s by no means easy, but it is something that, given enough drive…

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    For the Love of Postcards (and other written correspondence)

    January 14, 2019

    Podcast 5 – Clearing Your Head, Work Space, and Thinking About POV

    February 3, 2020

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    April 16, 2017
  • Recounting Five Years of My Life As a Blogger

    April 17, 2016 /

    On April 6, the notice above popped up in my notifications on my blogging platform, WordPress. I was thankful for the reminder because I wouldn’t have remembered the anniversary of the first day I began the blogging journey. I am too busy tackling the challenge of deciding on what I will write about next. What will the next post reveal? Will I write about writing, fashion, teaching, decorating, films, or books? Or, will I choose to tell a story? In some ways, I’m amazed that five years have passed since I first began this endeavor. I’ve logged 707 posts to date on Steph’s Scribe. During some months, I turn out…

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    Writing About Women + Friendship in Little Milestones

    June 9, 2019

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    Podcast 2: The Things I’ve Learned—Work Ethic is Everything

    February 14, 2022
  • Friday Fiction: Writing the Prologue & Baseball Girl

    April 15, 2016 /

    There is much debate in the fictional writing world as to whether or not your story should begin with a prologue. The last three books I have read–all mainstream fictional novels–have started with a prologue. I found the prologue of Me Before You particularly effective. The discussion of the prologue is a relatively simple one: should you include a glimpse for the reader as to what will eventually come of the characters and plot of the story? Does the prologue have a somewhat different voice? Does it intrigue the reader and offer a bit of a backstory, which will, in turn, propel the story forward? It’s a challenging question to…

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    The Case for Gelato

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    July 7, 2021

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    December 15, 2020
  • Why I Probably Shouldn’t Have Ridiculously Large Clocks in the House

    April 12, 2016 /

    The wisdom acquired with the passage of time is a useless gift unless you share it. ~ Esther Williams There they are before me. A large clock in the dining room, an even larger one in the living room, and a most gargantuan one on our porch. They always say, “the bigger the better.” I’m not sure if I believe that’s true. I have a sort of fascination with clocks. I love having them around the house, but lately, I sometimes don’t enjoy having them staring me in the face all the time. They are a constant reminder that this very moment will never happen again. That each tick-tock of…

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    Dealing with Disappointment

    March 1, 2020

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    October 4, 2020

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    July 10, 2020
  • A Good Book Will Never Let You Down

    April 11, 2016 /

    I’m about to finish Adriana Trigiani’s touching and inspiring novel entitled The Shoemaker’s Wife. I’ve enjoyed reading this sweeping story of Italian immigrants loosely based on the history of the author’s own grandparents. From the mountains of the Italian Alps to New York City to a small town in Minnesota, the characters and sights covered in this novel will allow you to become a part of a different time and place when the world was a different place, America was growing, and World War I loomed. The truth of the matter is this: a good book will never let you down. As I’ve become older, wiser, and more finicky about…

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    Little Milestones Receives 5-Star Review from Readers’ Favorite

    July 17, 2020
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    Two Exercises for Teaching Description and Using The Five Senses in Writing

    May 22, 2020

    Meeting People Makes Travel Magical

    May 2, 2016
  • A Royal Lesson: Typing Class Came in Handy

    April 6, 2016 /

    *** Just for a minute, I’m going to take you back with me to typing class in 8th grade at Severn River Middle School. We sat in rows, typewriters in front of us. We did the drills. “A, A, A…S, S, S…D, D, D…” We typed this sentence over and over again: “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.” The whole room was filled with sound…the reverberations of clicking keys, the pounding of returning and advancing the page, the echoes of the teacher calling out what we should type. It was chaotic. It was fun. It was hands-on learning—just you smacking the keys of the typewriter. What I…

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    The Slump: A Short Story in the Absence of Baseball for Fiction Friday

    March 27, 2020
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    When An Idea Hits You, You Jump [for joy]

    November 29, 2017

    Some Highlights & Appreciation

    February 5, 2016
  • Inspired by Joanna Gaines and Fixer Upper on HGTV

    April 4, 2016 /

    My husband and I have been updating our home since we bought it in June of 2013. Little by little we have tackled the project of making our home something we love. In our previous residence, we did the same thing, though on a much smaller scale. I think we both enjoy watching our projects turn into our visions. Of course, we can’t do it on our own–we need help, and we have received it in the form of an architect and builders who have helped us along the way. Lately, I’ve started watching HGTV again, and have become attached to Fixer Upper, as many of you readers may have…

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Welcome to my website! I'm Stephanie Verni, author of 8 works of fiction, adjunct professor of communication, and part-time travel writer. I love sharing my work, travels, and experiences with you. Thanks for stopping by!
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I read Elizabeth Gilbert’s book called BIG MAGIC when it debuted years ago. I remember feeling like we were soul sisters when it came out because of how I value creativity—both in myself and in my students. I never wanted to be that teacher who put the brakes on creativity. In fact, it was (and continues to be) a driving force in the way I teach my students. I am always amazed by students who believe they are not creative. Yet when you switch on the light and tell them they are, you see the proof of it in the work they produce. They ARE creative. We all have big magic in us; sometimes it just takes a little push to open the door to it. Don’t you agree that half the battle of writing a good story is believing in it? It takes a certain amount of faith and belief in your story— that it is worth telling—to keep you going. You need this faith in order to pursue all the things that go into the arduous task of writing and publishing a novel. I don’t know about you, but the satisfaction of hearing that people enjoyed it makes having that faith so worthwhile. This is my ode to being near the water. My soul always feels refreshed when I’m on the water. Most of my novels take place in a setting that involves water and boating. I love setting stories in places that reflect the love I have for small towns with water access. To me, it always feels like a place where you can escape to when you need that time to rejuvenate. Most of my characters feel the same way. I guess it’s true – write what you know. Which do you think I love more? The book is called Inn Significant for a reason. 💕 Two years after receiving the horrifying news of her husband Gil’s death, Milly Foster continues to struggle to find her way out of a state of depression. As a last-ditch effort and means of intervention, Milly’s parents convince her to run their successful Inn during their absence as they help a friend establish a new bed and breakfast in Ireland. Milly reluctantly agrees; when she arrives at the picturesque, waterfront Inn Significant, her colleague, John, discovers a journal written by her late grandmother that contains a secret her grandmother kept from the family. Reading her grandmother’s words, and being able to identify with her Nana’s own feelings of loss, sparks the beginning of Milly’s climb out of the darkness and back to the land of the living. The porch is open for the season. Thank you to @leeverni and @hector_herbert for all the help today. Couldn’t have done it without you! XxOo Another Blue Angels fly in Annapolis is in the books. Here’s a glimpse for those who love them as we do. 💙 Blue Angels Day here in Annapolis, but I’m sad to be without my husband, who’s in New York with the Orioles and clients. Wearing orange in their honor. Looking forward to seeing the planes fly shortly! I heard this and knew I wanted to make a reel with this audio. It’s so good & true & on 🔥. We are all of our experiences, both the good and the bad, the heartache and the happy times. You are better off with a woman who has grown from her experiences, including the mistakes, misjudgments, and bad decisions. We are a force to be reckoned with.

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