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  • Press Kit
  • Podcasts
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  • Shop My Products
    • Book Pages Wreath
    • Heart Pages Wreath
    • Small Book Pages Wreath
    • From Humbug to Humble: The Transformation of Ebenezer Scrooge – Personalized & Signed
    • The Letters in the Books – Signed, Personalized, and with a letter tucked inside it
    • Beneath the Mimosa Tree: A Novel – Personalized & Signed
    • Baseball Girl: A Novel – Personalized & Signed
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    • The Postcard and Other Short Stories & Poetry – Personalized & Signed
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  • The Annual Birthday Post – A Poem

    August 16, 2018 /

    It’s my birthday, and you know what that means…the annual snarky birthday post. I’m celebrating this year’s birthday with a poem…Dr. Seuss style. Enjoy! Thanks for reading Steph’s Scribe! Happy Birthday Poem Another year has passed me by I could laugh but I want to cry For time has flown without a hitch This growing old thing is surely a bitch. One kid off to college—so fully grown To explore and call the world his own. The other in high school – independent and bold With her, we truly broke the mold. But with aging comes aches and pains You feels some losses, you feel some gains You hang on…

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  • Grocery Store Bonding and Singing in Safeway: Two Stories

    August 17, 2017 /

    I’m going to attempt to tell these stories as they happened, exactly as they happened. I live in the town of Severna Park, and the closest grocery store is Safeway, which is walkable. I’m over there constantly, as I’m not a big “do the grocery load for the week” kind of person. I pretty much figure out each day what we will eat, and run over and get whatever I need since it’s so convenient. In the last several months, I’ve had two hilarious Safeway Moments, as I shall call them. The first happened a few months ago when I was standing in line to pick up a prescription. The…

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  • The Birthday Post: 52 Life Lessons

    August 16, 2017 /

    Yup. It’s that time, I’m afraid. It’s time for the annual birthday post. It’s the one day of the year that I allow myself to feel blessed and old at the same time. It doesn’t make it easier when your own brother sends you these GOOD MORNING images with “Happy birthday” written across the top of the text. So, with those lovely images in mind, and with life lessons I’ve learned over the course of all my (yes, 52 years), I thought I’d share them with you today. Please know that these life lessons are in no particular order and were written with full honesty. 52 Life Lessons Thus Far…

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  • Vintage 1965: Today’s Annual Snarky Birthday Blog Post

    August 16, 2016 /

    It can be a little daunting watching celebrities who are born in your birth year or a year or two ahead of you grow old along with you but show no signs of wrinkles and aging. Their endless use of Botox, plastic surgeries, and hours in the gym cause you to compare yourself to them and wonder why you haven’t considered going under the knife or injection needle yourself (working out is quite possible if you set your mind to it). As much as I want to look as if I’m in my thirties, that isn’t quite realistic any more. It’s time to come to grips with aging and simply…

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  • Kissing My 40s Goodbye

    August 16, 2015 /

    All day you’ve been thinking about this blog post and what you will write. It’s your birthday, and it’s tradition that you write something snarky about aging. Some people will tell you they love growing older–maturing, growing up, watching their kids grow, maybe even becoming grandparents. It’s a lovely thought—growing old(er) naturally—as if we actually have a say in holding on to youth and beating Father Time. We don’t. Aging is not fun. So your birthday looms. It’s the big 5-0. You think about it for weeks. It practically consumes you. You notice every grey hair, ever extra mile you have to walk to shed .001 pounds, and each line…

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  • It’s Your Birthday. You’re only mildly old. Can you read the bottom line?

    August 16, 2014 /

    The morning went something like this. You got up early to be at the Motor Vehicle Administration (MVA)  by 8:30 a.m. to have your license, which expires tomorrow (on your birthday) renewed. You waited until the last minute to get it done. There were too many other things to do this week, like drive your kid to golf many times and take your daughter to the movies. You’ve been writing all week–not Baseball Girl–but the textbook you’re working on with your brilliant colleagues. Nevertheless, you left it to the last minute, as you usually do, and thus suffered the consequences of waiting for almost an hour and a half until…

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  • It’s My Party, And I Won’t Cry. I Don’t Want To.

    August 16, 2013 /

    Dear Readers, Yes, I know. I am supposed to be on hiatus, hiding from the blogging world as I attempt to accomplish some other forms of writing and spend time with my family. But it’s tradition that I blog on my birthday. It’s my rite of passage, and it’s a time when I can reflect on some aspect of the last year that I have lived. For what is a birthday if not to celebrate life? Today’s birthday post will focus on the words that come from someone who is so famous he must be quoted. He has seen and done much. He has traveled the world, entertained us and…

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  • Thoughts on Teaching & The Spring Semester

    January 10, 2013 /

    None of us got where we are solely by pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps. We got here because somebody—a parent, a teacher an Ivy League crony or a few nuns—bent down and helped us pick up our boots. ~ Thurgood Marshall This year’s winter break has been a short one. I’m still getting my ducks in order and readying myself for the spring semester. It never feels daunting to me, but rather like a breath of fresh air…spring air. Even though it’s January and we won’t see the likes of flowers blooming and making it feel spring-like anytime soon, last year is over, and we’re in a state of…

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    Fiction Friday | A Not-So-Happy Story of Love

    October 22, 2015

    Baseball = Love : Reflections on Ripken, Gehrig, and 2131; Baseball Girl Receives an Award; and Thoughts on Moments in Time

    September 1, 2015

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  • Fill in the Blanks on My Birthday

    August 16, 2012 /

    WARNING: TODAY’S POST VEERS FROM WHAT YOU MIGHT NORMALLY FIND ON STEPH’S SCRIBE. YOU MAY BE SUBJECTED TO USING YOUR OWN VOCABULARY TO FILL IN THE BLANKS, ALONG WITH IMMENSE SARCASM. PUT ON YOUR HARD HAT AND ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK. There are times I’d like to throw around a curse or two on the blog, but I’m in a G-Rated-no-fly-the-curse-words-zone because my kids read it, so you’ll have to use your imagination and fill in the blanks accordingly. Kind of like Mad Libs of yore. ________  _________! That’s right. Here we go again. Yup. It’s my birthday. Good _________! Can you feel the exhilaration oozing through my pores,…

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  • For George & Thomas, John & Benjamin, With Thanks This 4th of July

    July 4, 2012 /

    Happy 4th of July, America! Today, we celebrate our country’s independence. We remember our Founding Fathers, and are thankful for men such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin. As I look at all the Facebook posts my friends are making this morning, I know many of us are taking a moment to realize how thankful we are to live in this great United States of America. Parades of all sorts are happening as I write this: bikes are decorated in red, white, and blue; kids on rollerblades waving flags; floats being driven down the streets as people wave to spectators; police, firefighters, and emergency crews driving vehicles…

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  • Another Birthday and an Unsuspecting Birthday Fairy Godfather

    August 16, 2011 /

    * So, today is my birthday. I’m supposed to be happy about it. However, the elation aspect of it is all a bunch of bunk. I love these people who have rays of sunshine shooting out of their eyeballs and say things to you like, “Oh, don’t pay attention to the number that’s associated with your birthday. It’s better than the alternative!” Right-o. It’s tough to frown at flowery, cheerful, eternal optimists. Of course, I’d rather be here than in the hereafter, that’s a given. But can’t anyone just let me wallow in this number that’s less than thrilling? My husband tries to impart his positivism about this particular birthday…

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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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If I’ve learned anything over these past 10 days it’s this: life is fleeting—truly fleeting—so grab hold of it, love the heck out of people in your life, and make memories you’ll cherish for as long as you live while trusting in God and His timing. Oh, how I love this. We’ve all been rescued at some point in our lives, whether it was a big or small rescue. For certain, I have been, several times and from different things/people. I think that’s one of the main reasons why I wanted to write a story like The Letters in the Books. All five characters have been through something. All five are trying to figure out how to navigate their futures. And all five have been negatively affected by the hurt they’ve endured. Then, when a letter filled with hope shows up in each of their books, good things begin to happen, and they end up finding each other. Weaving a story together with 5 main characters was a real challenge for me, but I’m so glad that this story is resonating with people, and I think I know why. We have all been there. I’ve always been a curious person who likes to learn new things. Currently, I’m learning a lot of new things, things I’ve never tried before. I love to travel near and far, and I enjoy writing for Maryland Road Trips. Places I’ve been feature prominently in my novels, almost as if they are a character. 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

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