Publishing milestones for authors from Millsboro, Ardmore, Philadelphia

C.J. Spataro

Philadelphia author C.J. Spataro has written a clever fantasy novel called “More Strange Than True.” The book combines the ethereal magic of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” with a modern-day Philadelphia setting. After the protagonist Jewell Jamieson unknowingly eats a magic-spiked meal, she awakens to find her dog Oberon has been transformed into a handsome man in her bed. Complications ensue when Titania, the Queen of the Faeries, decides she wants Oberon for herself, setting into motion a series of difficult choices for Jewell.

Spataro is the director of graduate programs in publishing and creative writing at Rosemont College. She is an award-winning short fiction writer whose work has appeared in many literary magazines and anthologies.

As an editor, she has edited the fiction for three “Philadelphia Stories” anthologies, and edited the fiction and nonfiction for “Forgotten Philadelphia” and “Extraordinary Gifts: Remarkable Women of the Delaware Valley.”

Learn more at www.cjspataro.com

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Jo-Ann Vega

Jo-Ann Vega’s 2021 immigrant memoir “Moments in Flight” has been named a Bronze Medal winner in the Reader Views Reviewer’s Choice Awards, 2023-2024. Vega, who lives in Millsboro, Del., wrote the memoir as a chronicle of her family’s life in America, including scenes set against the backdrop of cultural upheaval in the 1970s.

A book of her poetry, “Wolf Woman and Other Poems,” was also a Bronze Medal winner in the Reviewer’s Choice Awards.

The Reviewer’s Choice Awards were established to highlight authors who choose to self-publish or work with subsidy publishers, small presses, university presses, or independent book publishers.

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Linda Romanowski

Linda Romanowski’s 2023 book “Final Touchstones” was recently named a finalist among more than 1,000 entries for the Eric Hoffer Book Award in the memoir category.

Romanowski lives in Ardmore, Pa., and wrote the book as a multigenerational immigrant memoir about four brothers leaving Sicily for America in the early 1900s.

The Eric Hoffer Book Award honors the memory of American philosopher Eric Hoffer by highlighting salient writing, as well as the independent spirit of small publishers. Since its inception, the Eric Hoffer Award has become one of the largest international book awards for small, academic, and independent presses.