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  • About My Novels
  • Press Kit
  • Podcasts
  • Books I’ve Enjoyed
  • 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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    • Little Milestones: A Novel – Personalized & Signed
    • The Postcard and Other Short Stories & Poetry – Personalized & Signed
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  • Capturing Moments

    November 12, 2020 /

    *** Capturing Moments Capturing moments, instead of things—A cloudless sky, a heron’s wingsThe things we loveHave come to passDimming sunshineDarkness, alas—Winter’s moodsBefall us hereWhen days are shortAnd nights are clearThe blackest nightWe’ll soon have metBut days like theseWe’ll not forget.We’ll not forgetThe way it feltWhen bleakness leftAnd hearts did melt. *** In August, my husband totally surprised me on my birthday and bought me a boat. Our friends were selling their boat and upgrading to a new one, so he bought the one they were selling. In the COVID-19 world, I can’t even begin to tell you how much that gift has meant to me. Since August, we have used…

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    There’s Something You Should Do During Quarantine and Social Distancing

    May 17, 2020

    We Need a Little Christmas, Especially This Year

    December 8, 2021

    For the Love of Postcards (and other written correspondence)

    January 14, 2019
  • Booking Remote Book Club Visits

    June 16, 2020 /

    *** 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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    The Colors of Autumn

    October 27, 2015

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

    September 1, 2015

    Today’s Suggestion: Keep Dancing

    October 19, 2015
  • The Slump: A Short Story in the Absence of Baseball for Fiction Friday

    March 27, 2020 /

    What I’m sharing today, in the absence of Opening Day for Major League Baseball, is a short story I wrote about a ballplayer in a slump. Working in baseball, we saw a lot of slumps, from top-tier players to rookies. I’m not sure when or why this short story popped into my head, but I’m glad it did. I enjoy writing about baseball. It’s the one baseball story that’s included in The Postcard and Other Short Stories & Poetry, and I thought I’d share it during these days of being at home and social distancing due to the coronavirus outbreak. The second book I published, Baseball Girl, is a novel…

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    7 Tips for Working From Home During This Unusual Time

    March 20, 2020

    Podcast 11 : Don’t Bring Negative To My Door

    March 23, 2020

    Book Launch – Day Two Promo

    July 17, 2018
  • Unlost – Sharing a Short Story from The Postcard

    December 18, 2019 /

    Today, I’m sharing a short story I wrote that was published in my book of 2018 titled The Postcard and Other Short Stories & Poetry. It’s set in London, a place I’ve only visited once, but loved. In striving to write about female friendships as I did in my new novel, Little Milestones, I guess you could say I practiced with this very short story. I love writing short pieces of fiction, as they test both your ability to tell a condensed story, as well as test your proclivity for further expanding the story. This one stayed put as a short story, but another one I wrote for that collection, Life with Nan, turned into…

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    Early This Morning

    June 1, 2020

    Some Updates on Some things

    September 8, 2020

    Travel, Interrupted

    January 2, 2019
  • The Thing That Connects Us

    December 14, 2019 /

    *** 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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    Is the Power of Positive Thinking Real?

    May 24, 2021

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    February 7, 2022

    A Writer’s Muse: Annapolis

    December 18, 2020
  • An Update and the Plot Overview of Little Milestones – Coming Soon

    July 9, 2019 /

    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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    Fashion Resolutions for 2016

    January 1, 2016

    I Believe the “New” Scrooge Would Adore this Collaboration

    November 7, 2022

    New: Monday Podcasts on Steph’s Scribe to Kick Off Our Writing for 2020

    January 6, 2020
  • For the Love of Postcards (and other written correspondence)

    January 14, 2019 /

    I’m romantic about travel. I’m also romantic about writing. Actually, I’m kind of romantic about everything. I have a really bad case of hopeless romanticism, and have been accused many times by people who know me that I tend to see the world in an unrealistic way. That may be true, but I also do see the world in quite a realistic way. Sometimes that makes me resort to my hopeless romantic bubble, which I don’t mind being inside. When we travel, we learn more about the world around us AND ourselves. This is just true and tough to argue. No matter where you go or how far you travel,…

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    We Need a Little Christmas, Especially This Year

    December 8, 2021

    Podcast 2 – Who Inspires Your Writing?

    January 13, 2020

    The Cicadas Are Coming! The Cicadas Are Coming!

    May 16, 2021
  • When You Majorly Alter Your Work in Progress After Writing 50,000 Words: The Hard Truth About Writing A Novel

    December 21, 2018 /

    * Today, my dear readers, I am going to give it to you straight. Straight up, as Paula Abdul once sang. And believe me, what I’m about to share with you is going to cause me to do quite a bit of work. Lots and lots of work. But in the end, I am hoping it will all be worth it. And also, you must know this about me: if I didn’t love crafting stories and the agony that goes along with that job, I wouldn’t do it. If you’ve been with me for a while, you know that I am a professor, writer, author, and as you see me…

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    Escape to Italy and Meet Anna, Matteo, and Nicolo

    January 28, 2022

    Sorry, I Just Think It’s Weird—House of the Dragon, updates on a new book, a reunion & Italy

    September 28, 2022

    Hip, Hip, Hooray: From one Great Birthday Gift to Another, the Annual Birthday Blog Post

    August 16, 2021
  • Writing About Baseball: The Slump from The Postcard & Other Short Stories

    December 11, 2018 /

    I’ll always have a little bit of baseball in my soul, even all these years later after having worked for the Orioles. The truth is, I grew up in baseball. I did. From the age of 19 through my early 30s, I learned so much from working for the Baltimore Orioles organization. That experience molded me and helped me in the careers I have chosen now. It also gave me some pretty remarkable friendships (and I also got a husband and two great kids out of the deal). One of those careers I have today is that of a writer of novels and short stories. Today, I decided to share…

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    The Thing That Connects Us

    December 14, 2019

    Podcast 7 – Writing a Character Sketch—it’s pretty helpful

    February 24, 2020

    Launching Little Milestones AND NaNoWriMo in one Evening on Campus

    October 26, 2019
  • Reflections on Feeling a Loss of Hope

    November 20, 2018 /

    It’s probably pretty shocking to some of you who follow my blog, a “safe space” for positivity and a place where lifting up others is standard operation. It’s always been my goal for Steph’s Scribe to inject a dose of  inspiration into people’s lives. But today, just days before Thanksgiving, I’m feeling something tampering with my state of hopefulness. A bleakness has entered my atmosphere. A sense of time slipping away and dreams fading a bit. I hate this feeling. A culmination of many things swirling around my personal domaine, I felt it was appropriate to be real with you for a moment, to illustrate that life is not always…

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    Podcast 12: Creating An Author Platform and Press Kit

    March 31, 2020

    Let’s Do This Thing

    November 1, 2018

    There’s Something You Should Do During Quarantine and Social Distancing

    May 17, 2020
  • I Decided To Have A Go At It

    October 8, 2018 /

    Last summer, I wrote a short story called Life With Nan. You can find this story in my recent publication The Postcard and Other Short Stories & Poetry. What’s happened to me after writing that story is interesting. Just as Contelli’s Mimosa, a short story I wrote in college, became a full novel entitled Beneath the Mimosa Tree, so has Life With Nan started to become a novel. I fell in love with Nan and the main character of the story so much, that it prompted me to write a longer story, and so I think I’ll have a go at it. That’s right. I’m using British lingo there. The…

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  • My Newest Writing Project

    September 7, 2018 /

    People always ask me what I’m working on next, so I thought I’d get this out of the way. It’s a common question I field often. It may disappoint some folks, but it’s not the sequel to Inn Significant, though I still play with that manuscript a little. Instead, there’s a short story in my latest release, The Postcard and Other Short Stories & Poetry, that I fell in love with and that wouldn’t leave me alone, kind of like a pesky fly that won’t go away. After publishing that book this summer, the characters in that story–Life with Nan–sort of came to life in my imagination–and then more characters…

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    A Nutty Story as a Metaphor for Life

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    On the Eve of My Son’s College Graduation…

    May 13, 2022

    Why I Probably Shouldn’t Have Ridiculously Large Clocks in the House

    April 12, 2016
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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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