• Home
  • About
  • Our Members
    • Iain S. Baird
    • John Clark
    • Dawn Davis
    • Jane C. Elkin
    • Patsy Helmetag
    • John C. Kelly >
      • Quotations
      • The Redneck
    • Jessica Jordan Paret
    • C. Wallace Walker
    • Inactive Members >
      • Jeanne Slawson
      • Hank Pugh
      • Simon Ward
      • Becky Bartlett Hutchison
      • Shaun Taylor Bevins
  • Contact
  • Blogs
    • Shaun Taylor Bevins' Blog
  • Jane's Blog
  • Writing Resources
    • Writing Prompts >
      • Writing Prompt #1
      • Writing Prompt #2
      • Writing Prompt #3
      • Writing Prompt #4
      • More Writing Prompts
    • Maryland's Writing Community
    • Submitting Work
    • The Craft of Writing
    • Books on Writing
    • Other Resources

Iain S. Baird

IAIN S. BAIRD is an award-winning writer published in numerous literary magazines in the United States and abroad, including:  The Delmarva Review, Seven Hills Review, CHA: An Asian Literary Journal, The Survivors Review, The Timber Creek Review, Oracle, The Berkshire Review, The Briar Cliff Review, Louisiana: In Words, and others.  TWO STORMS is his first memoir. 

He is recipient of several prizes for short stories and creative nonfiction from the Maryland Writers’ Association and the Tallahassee Writers’ Association.  He won the William March Award for Best Short Story and the Eugene Walter Award for Best Novel.  He was a Finalist for the William Wisdom Award from the William Faulkner Festival and won the First Place Award in the Delmarva Review’s 2012 Short fiction Contest.  He was nominated for a Pushcart Award in 2007, 2012 and 2013. 

Iain baird's page


John Clark

JOHN CLARK's first publication was Gunnery Doctrine, distributed to the division heads on a naval destroyer.  He later was Editor for Fiscal Notes, a financial newsletter distributed to navy medical offices around the world.  When not at the office, coaching sports or helping care for their children, Welsh Springer and serial cats, John found time to write short stories and poems. 

A graduate of the Naval Academy and George Washington University, he has studied writing and literature at St. Johns College and The Writing Center.  His goal is to tell stories that entertain.  Recently retired, he and his wife enjoy living in Annapolis and are planning their next European adventure. 

John Clark's Page

Dawn Davis

DAWN DAVIS grew up as both a corporate army brat and preacher’s kid, weaving her active imagination and colorful experiences into short stories while still in elementary school. Always headstrong, she dipped her toes into self publishing before making a strong effort for traditional publication instead of after. Her two novels, Until and Ever, are available for Kindle readers through Amazon.

Dawn hopes to expand her literary resume by offering quality, entertaining, and thought provoking prose for traditional publication. Always ready with a sense of humor, she plans to retire her two book streak of novels with one word titles. In addition to writing, Dawn’s other professional endeavors include her job as a client relations executive at a boutique Washington, DC area marketing firm.

When she’s not writing, working, or wrangling children, she can be found by the water with a good book and a glass of champagne.

Dawn lives in Annapolis with her husband, three children, and dog.


Dawn Davis' Page

Jane C. Elkin


JANE C. ELKIN, a graduate of Bates College and Southern Connecticut State University, is the founder and facilitator of The Broadneck Writers’ Workshop. Her poetry, fiction and non-fiction have appeared in such journals as Kestrel, Ducts, Snowy Egret, The Way of the Buffalo, Serving House Journal and Earth’s Daughters under the pen name J.C. Elkin. A Pushcart nominee for non-fiction and a prize-winner in the Maryland Writers’ Association Promising Novel contest, she is also a theater critic and essayist for the Bay Weekly. A self-proclaimed Renaissance Woman, she works as a language teacher, singer, and handwriting analyst. 

Jane C. Elkin's PAge

Patsy Helmetag

PATSY HELMETAG's creativity was in the physical realm of graphic design, oil painting, and lawn mowing until 2004 when the Brood X Cicadas emerged. She and her daughter, Kita Murdock, co-wrote, and Patsy illustrated, a children’s book called Cecily Cicada. Initially it was written to soothe her granddaughter’s fears, but the naïve little book caught on and sold like hotcakes from May until July when, alas, the cicadas all died. It was enough for Patsy to get the bug. And Kita, too, who wrote a novel for young adults called Francie’s Fortune in 2010.

Enjoying the competition with and support of her daughter, Patsy took several writing classes, joined friends in memoir writing, and recently is aspiring to write an adult novel. That’s proving to be the fun challenge of a lifetime. 

Patsy Helmetag's PAge

John C. Kelly

JOHN C. KELLY accelerated his professional career by self- publishing a book on computer performance evaluation in the early 80’s. With that book as a foundation, he built a computer education and training business which morphed into a software development company, Datametrics Systems Corporation. He sold the company in 1997. Today, the company is called Sightline Systems. John learned early on to never underestimate the power of the written word.

Over his career, he has published hundreds of articles in trade magazines, newspapers, and conference proceedings. For the past six years he has written a monthly column on small business success for the Annapolis Capital Newspaper. John’s business related activities and many of his small business articles can be found at focusware.com.

Today his writing centers around creative non-fiction with an emphasis on memoir. His essay titled “Eternity is a Long Time” was published in the “This I Believe Series.”

John Kelly's Page

Jessica Jordan Paret

JESSICA JORDAN PARET aspires to many things including becoming a well-paid, talented and highly regarded author. Jessica began her career working for the government, then took a leap of faith and opened her own boutique. After three and half years she decided that it would be more fun, and possibly more fruitful, to close the store and instead publish an Oprah book club-worthy narrative on the humor and horrors of working in women’s retail.  Although guest-starring on the Oprah show is no longer possible, Jessica continues to write about her experiences in retail and has added parenting and adoption, both topics very close to her heart, to the list of would-be memoirs.  When she’s not writing or providing clever edits to her colleagues, she enjoys her roles as armchair psychologist, wife, mother, and part-time retail consultant.

JEssica Jordan PAret's PAge

C. Wallace Walker

C. WALLACE WALKER began her writing career in fourth grade by sending complaint letters to companies on behalf of her Pennsylvania Dutch-speaking grandmother.   Writing success in those days came in the form of complimentary new fan blades and coupons for free cat food and cereal. Later she wrote obituaries and edited speeches. After years of piecemeal work, she secured a real job as a technical translator.  Her professional stature and desirability were inexplicably enhanced by the seizure and confiscation of her passport and visa in the former USSR.  Since then, she was awarded a PEN prize among other honors. Her work can be found in Ploughshares, The Southeast Review, The Little Patuxent Review and other journals.  She is a member of the Broadneck Writers’ Workshop and editor of the Literary Lunch Room.  Wallace lives on Maryland’s Severn River with her husband, two sons and two scheming but lovable beagles. 

C. Wallace Walker's Page

Copyright 2012. All rights reserved.