Author Event: Signing "Prophecies Fulfilled in the Death & Resurrection of Jesus" Tomorrow!

Saturday, August 31, I will be at The Greatest Gift & Scripture Supply Store showing off my newest book Prophecies Fulfilled in the Death & Resurrection of Jesus.

This is the sequel to my book that released last Christmas, Prophecies Fulfilled in the Birth of Jesus.

If you're in the area, please stop by! I'll be there from 12:00 noon to 5:00.

If you're looking for a great resource to lead a Bible study, or family devotions, a discussion for a nonfiction book club, or your own individual study, this book will give you plenty of good, solid information and questions that apply the information to our lives today.

In Prophecies Fulfilled in the Death & Resurrection of Jesus, you'll rediscover 52 prophecies that were foretold -- sometimes hundreds of years earlier -- and then fulfilled in the events surrounding Jesus' arrest, crucifixion, death, and resurrection.

Each of the 52 short chapters in the book explores one prophecy fulfilled, including:

• Why Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey
• The significance of the fact Judas was paid thirty silver coins
• The prophecy of the Potter’s Field
• The prediction of Peter’s three denials
• Caiaphas’ words “it is better for one man to die than a whole nation perish”
• The meaning of the crown of thorns
• The prophecy in the scapegoat
• Why Jesus was led outside of the city to be crucified
• The prophecy in the snake on the pole
• The prophecy that the soldiers would divide up His clothes
• The prophecy that not one of Jesus' bones would be broken
• Where it was prophesied hundreds of years earlier that He would be pierced
• The significance of the myrrh given at His birth.
• The two signs of Jonah
• Why Jesus claimed He could rebuild the Temple in three days
• Where it was prophesied that Jesus' body would not see decay
• And many more...

Discover where these prophecies were first given, in what context, how they came to be fulfilled in every detail, and much more. Each chapter includes application and discussion questions, Bible readings, suggested prayers, and so much more.

This book will strengthen your faith. When we see God's promises and then see them fulfilled perfectly, we gain confidence that He is in complete control -- no matter what we see going on in the world. And we know that He will also bring to perfect completion the remaining prophecies that are yet to be fulfilled...but will be fulfilled very soon, and some are already being fulfilled right before our very eyes.

In our troubled times, what do we need most? We need our faith in God strong enough to carry us through. That's what you'll gain from this book: it will strengthen your faith for the future.

Looking for a great read or study to get you ready for Christmas? Consider the first book in this series:  Prophecies Fulfilled in the Birth of Jesus. Also great for individual study, small group Bible studies, family devotions, and nonfiction book clubs.

 



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Make Plans Now to Attend the Colorado Christian Writers Conference



Elk near the Colorado Christian Writers Conference

 It's not too late! The Colorado Christian Writers Conference starts one week from today, and it's not too late for you to make plans to attend.

If you've ever wanted to write books for the Christian market, or write Christian-themed books for the general market, or write for Christian magazines, you can learn what you need to know at the Colorado Christian Writers Conference. Launch your career, or further your career. Or simply fulfill your ministry on the side of your current career. It's all here.

This year there will be continuing sessions on all these topics:

• Reaching the Hearts of Your Readers by Ken Gire
• How to Get Published by Tim Shoemaker
• Suspense Novels & Screenplays by Bill Myers
• Fiction for Women by Gayle Roper
• Obscure No More by Thomas Umstattd Jr.
• Inspiration and Perspiration by Dina Sleiman
• Nonfiction Books by Kim Bangs
• Pixels to Profits by Brian Schwartz

In addition to all those, there are stand-alone workshops on many other topics, including the writer's life, the writing craft, writing fiction, writing nonfiction, publishing, and marketing.

I will be teaching two earlybird workshops on Wednesday, May 15. My workshops are:

• Beginning Screenwriting
• How to Shape Your Story for the Screen

I will also be representing my publisher Pix-N-Pens and Write Integrity Press, looking for manscripts for this publisher to consider.

Are you, or do you have, a teenager? Be sure to check out Teens Write, a special segment on Saturday especially for young people. I'll be sitting on the panel Saturday afternoon to talk about screenwriting.

You can network with other writers and authors, and make appointments with editors and publishers.

Still, in my opinion, the best value for your dollar. So sign up now! Register here.

Your lodging includes your meals. Make your reservation here.

Please share this with your contacts by using the Share buttons below to Tweet, Facebook, and Google+ this. Thank you!

I hope to see you next week at the Colorado Christian Writers Conference!

Campaign to get into the International Christian Retail Show!

I have a great opportunity to take my three most-recent books to the International Christian Retail Show. But I need help to get in the door!

The International Christian Retail Show (ICRS) is a closed trade show (meaning not open to the public). It is a trade show where book publishers and other companies that create products to be sold in, or otherwise used for, Christian retail outlets show their wares to Christian retailers, such as Christian bookstores. This is done primarily through half-hour book signings where authors sign and give away the featured book. (No sales allowed.)

Almost all the the major Christian publishers attend.

My three most-recent books have been published by Pix-N-Pens Publishing (PNP), which is a small publisher that opened only two years ago in 2011. Owned by Tracy Ruckman, PNP has a sister publishing company called Write Integrity Press (WIP).

Because these two publishing companies are small and new, they do not have big budgets to pay all the expenses required to take part in this trade show, we're asking for you help.

What are the expenses?

For a publisher to hold a book signing at the International Christian Retail Show, there are several requirements:

• Each author entering the show must have a badge to get in. There are five authors going, besides Tracy and possibly other helpers.
• Fees for renting booth space.
• Must provide a minimum of 60 of each book featured to be given away (not sold). This means not only the cost of the books but the shipping to get them there. Multiply this times five authors. Multiplies more if the author is representing more that one book. I will be representing three!

As you can see, it cots a pretty penny to get this all done.

Are you raising money to pay for the authors' trips?

No. Each of the five authors and Tracy are all paying their own travel expenses to get there, including their travel, hotel, and meals. The money we are raising is only to pay for the requirements to hold our book signings at the show.

Where do I contribute?

We've set up a fundraising campaign over at FaithFunder.com called Meet Us in St. Louis 2013.

There we have a video that runs about 4 minutes. It made me laugh out loud! That's me there, in the first photo and the last photo and a few more in between.

Be sure to check out the list of incentives down the right side of the page. For as little as $5 you can get a digital book of your choice. For $10 you can get a print book, a real bargain since most of our books are more and this also includes shipping! If you'd like to donate a little more, you can get critiques of a large chunk of your novel or several pages of your screenplay (by yours truly). You can get 12 copies of a book for your Book Club plus a visit from the author via Skype. If you're in the St. Louis area during ICRS in June, we can do dinner. There's even a gift basket from Bolivia! There's much more, so please take a list.

Who all is going?

All the authors of Pix-N-Pens and Write Integrity Press were invited to go. Five responded. Besides me, the others are:

• Fay Lamb, author of Stalking Willow and Charisse (The Ties that Bind Series)
• Vicki Tiede, author of Parenting on Your Knees: Prayers and Practical Guidance for the Preschool Years
• Peggy Cunningham, author of the new children's book Really Rare Rabbits (children's series) and contributor to Grandparenting Through Obstacles.
• Marie Wells Coutu, author of For Such a Moment (Mended Vessels Series)

Which books are you representing, Dianne?

I will be signing my three most recent books (assuming we get funded and can get all the books there). They are:

• Grandparenting Through Obstacles: Overcoming Family Challenges to Reach Your Grandchildren for Christ. Coauthored with Renee Gray-Wilburn, this book just won "Book of the Year" in the Family / Relationships category from the Christian Small Publishers Association.
• Prophecies Fulfilled in the Birth of Jesus (November 2012)
• Prophecies Fulfilled in the Death & Resurrection of Jesus (April 2013)

Finally...

Please know I'm very grateful to every person who donates. And if you can't or don't want to, believe me I understand. I hate asking for money! I only am asking this time because we can't afford to do this on our own and so we need a little help.

So if you'd like to be part of getting us into the International Christian Retail Show in St. Louis, June 23 - 26, or if you just want one of the great incentives, please visit Meet Us in St. Louis 2013. But hurry, there's only a few days left. The fundraiser closes Saturday!

Thank you so very, very much.

My third book, Grandparenting Through Obstacles, Wins a CSPA "Book of theYear" Award!

Christian Small Publishers Association (CSPA) has announced the winners of their 2013 Book of the Year awards and Grandparenting Through Obstacles won in the "Family/Relationships" category!


A big hearty Thank You! to everyone who took the time to go vote. Obviously, this wouldn't have happened without you!
I offer my sincere congratulations to my co-author, Renee Gray-Wilburn, as well as to the twenty writers who contributed their stories and to Cavin Harper who wrote the foreword in the book.

Needless to say, our publisher, Pix-N-Pens Publishing, is also thrilled. This is the first Book of the Year award from Christian Small Publishers Association for the publisher as far as I know, so PNP is really excited. I also send my sincere congratulations to the publisher, Tracy Ruckman, for all she has done and all she is continuing to do to make this book successful.

(In the "continuing to do" category, we have some more really exciting news about something Tracy is up to...and we're going to need your help with that too, if I'm not coming to the well too often...but let's not cut this celebration short. I'll gather that information and put it in my next post and get it posted soon--perhaps tomorrow morning. Please don't miss it!

Oh.  You want a hint?  Okay: Going to St. Louis to promote my Pix-N-Pens books. But more about that later...)
For me, this is a special honor because this is the second year in a row one of my books has taken the "Book of the Year" in the Family / Relationships category! If you've been following this blog for long, you'll remember that my second book, Deliver Me, took this award a year ago.

Winning an award like this provides one more way to make our book known. It's hard to make a book known, but that is the only way it gets it on the radar scope of the people who need it and whom it can help.

So thank you again for all the help you gave us to win this "Book of the Year" award from Christian Small Publishers Association (CSPA). You voted. You prayed. You did it. I thank you so much.  Again.

Please VOTE for Grandparenting Through Obstacles!

Another one of my books has been nominated for "Book of the Year" at Christian Small Publishers Association! Voting is open through March 31, so please vote now! I need your vote if my book is to win.

Would you please click through right now and cast your vote for Grandparenting Through Obstacles here?  http://www.christianpublishers.net/13votes/  It's in the "Family / Relationships" category which is the second category down. The book is on the right (third row of books down) with the blue cover. This is the book I co-authored with Renee Gray-Wilburn.

If you want to check out the book further, read the reviews on Amazon or check out some pages on Amazon's "Look Inside the Book" feature.

After you vote you can snag a print or an e-copy of the book from Amazon for Kindle or BarnesandNoble.com for Nook.

You have the opportunity to vote for your favorite books in several categories. A Familiar Shore, in the fiction category, is published by the same publisher and I know Jennifer would appreciate your vote too.

It would help me a lot if you'd ask your friends to vote also. You can send them here for the link.

Thank you for voting for one of my books . . . again. As you know, winning "Book of the Year" is great publicity, lets readers know it's a fine book, and would help get the word out about Grandparenting Through Obstacles: Overcoming Family Challenges to Reach Your Grandchildren for Christ so people who need it will hear about it.

"Books of Hope" Nonfiction Contest Winner!

I'm please to announce I've won the non-fiction category in Pix-N-Pens Publishing's "Books of Hope" contest!

In 2012, Pix-N-Pens Publishing, the same company that published my book co-authored with Renee Gray-Wilburn Grandparenting Through Obstacles, held a contest to search for manuscripts to publish. Early on, publisher Tracy Ruckman said that she had noted something disturbing in the faces of people she saw everywhere: hopelessness. She wondered what she could do. So she sponsored the contest to look for books on hope to publish in order to take hope in Jesus Christ to the hopeless.

The contest was announced in May. Pix-N-Pens and its sister publisher, Write Integrity Press, wanted entries in both fiction and nonfiction. They also wanted stand-alone books and books in series of three.

I wanted to enter the contest, but I wasn't sure what to enter. I didn't have anything that fit the "hope" theme in the works. So I did what I always try to do with my writing: I went to see what the Bible had to say. I turned in my concordance and started looking at how many times the word "hope" was used in the Bible. I found about fifty uses of the word in the New Testament, 31 in the Psalms, 18 in Job, and interestingly only 12 elsewhere in the Old Testament.

I thought I could write a brief chapter or devotional-style entry on each occurrence and so that's the idea I pitched to the contest in the 3-book series nonfiction category.

Finalists were announced in June. Turns out there were far more entries for fiction that for nonfiction books (lucky for me!). Everyone wants to write fiction! But nonfiction sells a lot more. When people need help, they reach for nonfiction.

My idea was a nonfiction finalist. The winners of the contest were announced on January 23, 2013. You can read the official announcement here: "2012 Books of Hope Nonfiction Winner" Announced. Scroll down for the winners of the fiction categories. I see some really exciting books there that I'm looking forward to reading!

My first book in the "Days of Hope" series will be 50 Days of Hope from the New Testament.

When will it release? That has yet to be determined. Right now Pix-N-Pens has me very busy with two other series I'm writing for them.

The second book in my "Prophecies Fulfilled" series, titled Prophecies Fulfilled in the Death & Resurrection of Jesus, releases next month just in time for Easter. Please watch this blog for the soon-release of the book's cover! Very exciting!

The first book in that series, Prophecies Fulfilled in the Birth of Jesus, released for Christmas 2012 and is available now. Like Grandparenting Through Obstacles, it's a great resource for individual use or group study.

I'm also contracted for a 3-book series of fiction, the "Springs Eternal" series starting with Hope's Diner which is scheduled to release later this year.

My thanks to Pix-N-Pens Publishing (PNP) and Write Integrity Press (WIP) for the opportunities to write for them and for their heart for reaching people with the hope that is in Jesus Christ.

I'm a Semifinalist in the Kairos Prize for Spiritually Uplifting Screenplays!

Wow. Remember that screenwriting thing I was doing? Went to the Act One Program a couple years ago and stuff? I'm still plugging along on that and guess what. The screenplay I wrote last year and entered in the Kairos Prize for Spiritually Uplifting Screenplays competition is a semifinalist!

My screenplay is titled Daemon. You can see my name on the list at Kairos Prize. There are 55 semifinalists this year. Last year there were 60.

Finalists will be announced at the beginning of February on the web site, so I'm guessing that will be early next week. I'm not sure how many finalists there will be. Last year there were twelve.

Winners will be awarded at the 21st Annual MOVIEGUIDE® Awards and Report to the Entertainment Industry on February 15th, 2013, in Los Angeles.

Can you believe it? My head is still spinning. Pinching myself to make sure it is real. I'm not sure. Maybe I've been sucked into some crazy movie from Hollywood. I wonder what's going to happens next...