About Us
Our Staff
Strand Media Group
- Front row (left to right):
- Natasha Owens, Taylor Nelson, Kathy Blanchard, Nicole Mann, Helen Lattimer
- Middle Row (left to right):
- Scott Konradt, Sneha Pai, Amanda Kennedy-Colie, Delores Blount, Leslie Moore, Susan Bryant
- Back Row (left to right):
- Patrick Sullivan, Erica Schneider, Greg Schultz, Celia Wester
Our Writers
Connie Barnard refers to her life as 50 years of slow-growing epiphany. After almost 30 years of teaching English composition to high school and college students, she has joyfully returned to writing herself.
Kathleen Bergeron is a happily married mom of four, living in the high desert of California. She currently works as a substitute teacher, and has been writing and selling freelance for over 20 years.
Margaret Bishop is a stay at home mom in Camden, SC. She and her husband, Matt, have three children: David - 6, Olivia - 4, and Thomas - 1.
Jennifer Borchers is a frequent visitor to Myrtle Beach. As an Upstate resident, she looks forward to spending her vacation time at the shore and among her favorite haunts along the Grand Strand. Jennifer is a senior at Converse College and will receive a BA in English in 2008. She lives in Greer with her husband and two children.
Merry Carol Cotton arrived in Pawleys Island over five years ago after having taught high school English in Michigan for nearly thirty years. She has published in the National Council of Teachers of English Journal, edited medical textbooks, and contributed many articles to church-related publications. She and her husband have three grown children and seven grandchildren.
Susan DeBow is a Midwest writer with a Southern heart. Her work has been published in the Chicago Tribune, Family Circle, Christian Science Monitor, Cleveland Plain Dealer, the Writer, Poets and Writers, among many others. Her first novel, Cleaning Closets, was published in 2007 by Dialogue Publishing.
Terri Elders, a lifelong freelance writer, received the UCLA Alumni Association Award for Community Service in 2006. In her acceptance speech she mentioned the Merry Sea Rat. She is a public member of the Washington State Medical Commission.
Melissa Face lives in Wakefield, Virginia, with her husband, Craig, and her Boxer, Tyson. She teaches special education in Prince George County. Melissa devotes nearly all of her free time to writing and has a story coming out in November in Chicken Soup For The Soul: Teens Talk Middle School. Email her at: writermsface@yahoo.com.
Cathy C. Hall is a freelance writer and humor columnist from the metro Atlanta area. Her family life essays have been included in anthologies, including Chicken Soup for the Tea Lover’s Soul and Cup of Comfort for Dog Lovers. She has also been published in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, webzines and several regional magazines. You can find out more at her website: www.cathy-c-hall.com.
Jean Matthew Hall is a freelance writer. She and her husband, Jerry, live in Indian Trail, N.C. She blogs her Conversations With God at www.jeanmatthewhall.blogspot.com.
Susan Harvey is a humor writer who teaches college English. She lives in Murrells Inlet, and in her spare time enjoys cooking and reading mysteries.
Sonja Herbert is the author of an award-winning unpublished novel about her mother surviving the Holocaust in a circus, and of many other true stories. Her website is germanwriter.com.
Oak Island resident, Lynn Ingram, has written stories since she was 12 years old. She grows flowers, takes long beach walks and studies clinical psychology at the University of North Carolina Wilmington.
Kim Alden Mallin is 46 years-old and lives with her husband on the marsh in Mt. Pleasant, S.C. Most of the time, she practices family medicine, but in her spare time she’s working on her first novel.
B.F. McCune is a freelance writer, married, mother of two and grandmother of two, currently in training for a bicycling vacation and entering numerous recipe contests in the hope of gaining a windfall. She has numerous credits in local, regional, and specialty publications for news and features, and is co-author of Recruiting and Managing Volunteers in Libraries (Neal-Schuman Publishers, 1995).
Deborah Missal is a writer living with her family in Chevy Chase, Maryland. She previously worked as an attorney and public relations professional in Washington, D.C.
Linda O’Connell, from St. Louis, Mo., is a veteran teacher. Her prose, essays, poems and articles have appeared in periodicals, anthologies, online and in newspapers.
Dee Orr is a native Texan, born in Ft. Worth, and a graduate of Baylor University School of Music. Before retiring to the Myrtle Beach area in 1993, she taught middle school music in upstate New York.
Liz Pardue-Schultz is a freelance writer living in Myrtle Beach with the love of her life and their perfect little girl. She changes diapers, pushes strollers, makes organic baby food and loves every minute of it.
Sharon Raines is the author of Through Mom’s Eyes, and has also been published in Dabblingmum and Western North Carolina Woman. You can read about her writings and other interests on her web site: sharonraines.com
Debbie Roppolo’s works have appeared in magazines, newspapers, Chicken Soup for the Dog Lover’s Soul and Chicken Soup for the Coffee Lover’s Soul. She resides in the Texas Hill Country with her husband, and is the zoo keeper of two cats, one Siberian Husky, a rabbit, several horses and two boys. In her spare time, she enjoys tormenting her children by dancing in the aisles of grocery stores.
Judie Schaal is a 31 year resident of the Grand Strand. She is married to her favorite golf pro, Gary. She has two grown children and three grandchildren. She has written for The Sun News as a tennis columnist and On the Green.
Kim Seeley resides in Wakefield, Virginia, and is a former teacher and librarian. Her connection to the Grand Strand goes back to her childhood when her family frequently visited her father’s cousin, who owned a hotel in the area.
Diane Stark is a wife, a mother of five and a freelance writer. Her work has appeared in publications like Chicken Soup for the Soul: A Tribute to Moms, Woman’s World, and MOMsense. She loves to write about her family and her faith.
Diane DeVaughn Stokes is the host and producer of Southern Style on Time Warner Cable and the President of Stages Video Productions. She and her husband, Chuck, share the same passions – travel and theater.
Sharon Struth is a freelance writer and mother of two teenage daughters. Someday she hopes to be able to complete her Sudoku puzzles in pen, like her husband.
Laura Tobin left the wintry Midwest to reside in Myrtle Beach. She received her graduate degree from Michigan State University, and was an International English Language and Literature teacher. She writes fiction, nonfiction, poetry and recently completed a novel about women pilots who flew for the military during WWII.
Faye Tucker is a photojournalist published nationally and internationally on myriad topics.
Martha Wegner is a freelance writer living in St. Paul, Minn., with her husband and two children. See more of her articles and essays at www.marthawegner.com.
Janey Womeldorf is a freelance writer who believes that attitude is everything, but cheese helps. She scribbles away in Orlando, Fla.