Biographies The "C's"

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Carma Haley
I have always said that I am a "nurse by trade and a writer by nature." As most writers, I have taken part in the craft in some way, shape, or form for as long as I can remember; perhaps since birth. Being a writer is not an option for me -- it is rather, a part of me.

As a wife, mother, nurse, and writer, my life is often filled with fun, excitement, and often chaos. However, the writer in me sees each of these as opportunities to find new ideas for articles, essays, poems, or children's stories.

Currently, I am the Contributing Editor for the Suite 101 (Link not available at this time), a Senior Contributing Writer for iParenting Media www.iparenting.com, as well as a Contributing Editor for the publications of Highbury House Communications, Inc. such as Baby Years and Pregnancy Magazine.

In addition to my current writing positions, I also compose poetry, children's fiction and folklore, greeting cards, and various medical articles.
Contact me at: CarmaH01@aol.com

Caroline Akervik
Caroline Akervik is a freelance writer whose humorous articles on family life have been published in both print and electronic publications. She also writes romantic suspense under the pen name Isabelle Kane, and her first novel, Calypso's Secrets, will be released by Whiskey Creek Press in May of 2005. Please visit her website: www.isabellekane.com

Carolyn Davis
Carolyn Davis is the proud mother of two angels, Savannah (2 years) and Hunter (2 months). She is happily married to her best friend for nearly seven years. Carolyn is a stay-at-home mom and aspiring writer specializing in family topics. She is the Family Software Editor for Suite101 as well as the stay-at-home mom leader for HerPlanet.com. In addition, she is the Family Center Editor for The Reader's Retreat at BookMom.com. She plans to pursue her education in the Fall getting her degree in Psychology.

Carolyn and her family are originally from Dallas, but now reside in beautiful San Diego where they enjoy numerous outdoor activities. She loves to help people and volunteers as much as time permits. Carolyn hopes to inspire more moms and dads to tackle the most important job in the world...staying home with their children. This can be accomplished by providing support and encouragement to parents through informative articles and books. In addition, she feels her work will help her to become a better parent and stay on top of the ever-changing, always exciting world of parenthood.
You can contact Carolyn Davis via email at: family.editor@ReadersRetreat.com
You can visit her on-line at:
http://www.suite101.com/welcome.cfm/family_software

Carol Lindsay
Once upon a time I was a technical writer and researcher with a multi-national corporation. I had a promising career, fabulous prospects, and intellectual patents! Then came chronic illness, layoffs and financial stress. In the midst of floundering and confusion something really wonderful happened. I discovered my children and the potential of a home life.

Then true love found me, and everything changed – again. Life doesn’t slow down, or even pause for you to take a breath. The children grow and the adults within began to peek through letting you know your time as primary care person is drawing to a close. When I realized what I was missing, or would miss if I pursued the career, I refocused my life.

To help keep me at home and healthy, my husband, Jim, and I recently purchased www.coffeehouseforwriters.com which allows me to exercise my writing and organizing skills while also providing opportunities for other freelance writers. Now my days are spent managing a working home while staying in touch with a vibrant creative community.

Bye-bye big money, at least for today. I’m staying home with my people and my pen.

Carrie Schmeck
I am a SAHM of three beautiful children (g-10, b-5, b-2) and wife to a hunky, wise man (almost 14 years!). We live in northern California. I worked in the corporate world of financial marketing for several years before coming home to my dream job. Since writing made up at least 60% of my job at work, I figured it was something I could continue at home. So, after three years at home, I finally got off my duff and made some inroads in freelance business writing but found that I really wanted to publish like the "gods" in the magazines. Fortunately, we live in a small town with a small paper and they were more than happy to print almost anything I wrote. From there, I moved to querying regional parent magazines, got something published and finally, got that taste of a national publication in '99--selling three pieces! I plan to give a little more credence to my "work" and find less excuses for pushing forward. I've already learned a bunch from the crew at momwriters and look forward to securing some great relationships.
Email Carrie privately at: carrie@tech-line.com

Catherine C. Harris
Catherine C. Harris is a freelance writer and editor with three young children. She is the editor for Writing Tips/Advice for RITRO.com, and a columnist at Suite 101 http://www.suite101.com/welcome.cfm/goddess_weekly. Catherine’s passion of motivating people and honesty takes her into the realm of esteem issues and personal freedoms with her web site (Link not available at this time). Catherine writes for http://www.touregypt.net, Egypt’s Official Tourism Site and various other places.

Catherine Karp
Catherine Karp lives in San Diego with her husband and daughter. Her debut novel, GILDED, is available from Xlibris and has been a first-place winner in both the 1999 Hollywood Opus Magnum Discovery Awards and the 1999 Authorlink New Author Awards Competition. Her novel-in-progress has been a finalist in the 1999 San Diego Book Awards.

For more information about Catherine's work, including a free sample chapter of GILDED, please visit http://www.catherinekarp.com

Cassy Stone
Hi there. I am superwoman. Just kidding, although sometimes I feel I should be superwoman. I am the mother of five wonderful kids--ages 13,11,10,7, and 2. I am the wife of a dairy farm, and we will celebrate our third anniversary in June of this year. We met online...but that is another story in itself. I am a writer, reader, singer, volunteer, conservationist, student, housekeeper, homework helper, errand runner, bill payer...egads...I think you get the idea. HEHE I have been a freelance writer for two months now, but have been writing all my life. I have been published by MindHorizons.com, a wonderful resource site for the people who suffer from mental illnesses and the people who care for them. That is the extent of my publishing history. However, I am a hardworker, dedicated to my craft and I will never give up. I love writing too much for that. Come see me at http://myweb.ecomplanet.com/STON5519
Thank you, Cassy Stone Cstone01C@netscape.net

Christine Spindler
Christine Spindler is an author and translator living in Germany. She studied physics and languages and worked at a translation agency for fifteen years. Today she's a full-time writer and her published books cover the genres suspense, science fiction, fantasy and poetry. Her hobbies are: playing the piano, writing music, singing when nobody listens and trying new recipes. She lives in the countryside with her family and enjoys her frequent research trips all over Europe. Visit Christine's homepage: http://www.christinespindler.com

Cindy Appel
Cindy Appel, struggling novelist and harried mother of two rambunctious girls, freelance writes on a variety of topics. Currently, she has ongoing gigs at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram Online as a weekly "cyber columnist" and was named a contributing columnist for the Christian family magazine, "Right Road". Two of her SF short stories are to be published shortly in "Singularities" and "Romance and Beyond". But what she really always wanted to be was a novelist. At the moment, she is trying to land an agent for romantic-comedy novel entitled "The Fixer Uppers." An excerpt of her novel, "The Prophet's Wife" can be read online at Xlibris.com. Whenever she gets writers block, Cindy begins answering her e-mail, as her numerous writing acquaintances almost always inspire her to pick up that manuscript and start revising! :)

My web page for "Every Day *Is* Mother's Day" is
http://www.star-telegram.com/homes/cappel/columns/momsday.htm and you can reach me at cynthianna@hotmail.com

Cindy Dow
Cindy lives in Massachusetts with her best friend and business partner husband and their three girls. The family owns cranberry bogs, a small apple orchard, and is contemplating another shot at growing Christmas trees.

Cindy currently works at a local weekly newspaper as the reporter for her town, covering such varied topics as selectmen's meetings, fire training exercises, and endangered species in the local water supply ponds. She contributes a regular column focused primarily on life in a small town. She has also had inspirational pieces, children's fiction, and mainstream women's nonfiction published. Her crowning achievement to date has been having a fiction piece published in Cricket magazine selected for use in two state assessment tests for fifth grade readers.

In her spare time, Cindy volunteers at the public schools. She enjoys reading, scrapbooking, photography, loud music, decorating cakes, and enjoying the out doors. She plays violin, and is currently teaching two of her daughters to play the instrument. She has thrown in the towel on having a beautiful garden, given that that would involve weeding during the heat of the summer, but she still enjoys thinking about and viewing beautiful plantings.
Contact her privately at: cranberry@tmlp.com or cranbearie@ivillage.com

Cindy La Ferle
Currently writing newspaper columns and personal essays "from home," midlife mom Cindy La Ferle worked in reference book publishing prior to the birth of her son, now 13. After her son was born, she began writing (freelance) arts and entertainment features for local papers in Royal Oak, MI, then was offered the editorship of Innsider, a new country inn travel magazine. Cindy traveled the U.S. and Canada, scouting and writing about inns and historic sites for the magazine -- until it folded six years later.

By that time, Cindy's son was starting kindergarten, and she realized she'd missed some tender moments back home. Simultaneously, since her father had been diagnosed with a terminal disease, she decided to resume freelance writing. For lack of a better plan, she created a makeshift office in her damp basement, next to the laundry room. There she discovered she loved the personal essay genre ("It was very therapeutic," she said).

Cindy began publishing these short essays in national magazines and newspapers -- including Country Homes, The Christian Science Monitor, Cleveland Plain Dealer Sunday Mag, The Detroit News, Mary Engelbreit's Home Companion, Reader's Digest, and several others. Writer's Digest assigned her a feature on writing personal essays, which appeared in the February 1999 issue.

One of her missions is to share what she considers the beauty in ordinary living and the pleasures of home and family. She also enjoys offering support, advice, and friendship to other women writers who struggle with balancing family, home, and work.

In 1994, Cindy began writing "Life Lines," a weekly Sunday column in her suburban newspaper, The Daily Tribune of Royal Oak, MI. In 1998, the column won First Place (Local Columns) in the Michigan Press Association's Better Newspapers Competition. A small collection of Cindy's early essays and columns are gathered in *Old Houses, Good Neighbors*, which she self-published in 1994 with a group of women editors and art directors who also work from home. A portion of proceeds from the book sales have benefited local charities, churches, and school programs. (Sample essays are posted on her Web site at www.laferle.com)

Since then, Cindy has moved her home office upstairs, where she enjoys the proverbial room of her own.
Email her privately at: cindy@laferle.com

Connie Byrd
My Name is Connie Byrd.I'm a single mom to two girls ages 15 and 11. I own a newsletter publishing business and I write for newsletters and magazines. I also write poems and commentaries ,short stories. I really love the MOM writers list ! :)

Check out my website at "Blueberry Lane Newsletters" http://members.aol.com/Connni/Publications.html
Email me privately at: BByrdPlus@aol.com

Crystal Cook
Crystal, although fairly new to the writing world, has seen much success in the past year and a half. She is a contributing writer for Windowbox.com, Briefme.com and writes children's devotionals for iam3rd.com. She is also the Sports Channel Manager and Golf Host for BellaOnline.com. Several of her short fiction stories have appeared in various magazines, both online and in print. Her inspirational essays have been published on Internet publications such as Heartwarmers.com. She has also had one of her humorous pieces appear on the front page of the living section of her local Sunday newspaper, the Knoxville News-Sentinel. Lately she has branched out into narration for travel videos and promotions.

She has two pre-teen children and a supportive husband of 15 years. She has been a Momwriters member since summer 1999. Feel free to email Crystal if you'd like links or clips to some of her work.

Crystal Cook ~ Email me at mach2ink@earthlink.net
Golf Host for Bella Online - http://www.bellaonline.com/sports/golf
Contributing Writer for http://www.Windowbox.com
Contributing writer for: www.iam3rd.com/

Crystal Schwanke
Crystal Schwanke resides in the Atlanta, GA area with her husband, daughter, and two dogs.  She writes and edits for LoveToKnow.com and is the author of a Mommy Beauty blog, mommybeauty.blogspot.com.  Her work has been featured in several online locations to include WritersWeekly.com and Flakmag.com (where one of her articles was podcast).  Crystal also writes for print magazines across the country and has a novel in progress.

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