Meet the Blogging Team

We’re a group of editors and writers, so you know we’ll have lots to say. Our hope is that you will have lots of questions, comments, and suggestions for us. Our goal is to help writers by blogging about what we know best – editing.

You can see from our backgrounds, we have a wide range of experiences and expertise:

Elspeth Antonelli 

Elspeth Antonelli is an author and playwright. Her twelve murder mystery games and two plays are available through host-party.com. She has also contributed articles to the European writers' magazine "Elias". Her blog, "It's A Mystery," explores the writing process with a touch of humor. She is on Twitter as @elspethwrites. 


Shon Bacon

Shon is an author, editor, and educator. She has published both creatively and academically, and her debut solo novel, Death at the Double Inkwell, will be released June 2010; you can read an excerpt here. Shon also interviews women writers on her popular blog ChickLitGurrl: high on LATTES & WRITING. You can learn more about Shon's writings at her official website, and you can get information about her editorial services at CLG Entertainment. Currently, Shon is busy editing, writing screenplays, and pursuing her Ph.D. in Technical Communication and Rhetoric at Texas Tech University.  


Kathryn Craft
Kathryn is a free-lance developmental editor at Writing-Partner.com. She loves any event that brings writers together, so she gives talks, hosts writing retreats for women, and helps put on two great conferences:  Philadelphia Writers’ Conference (Philadelphia, PA) and The Write Stuff (Allentown, PA). Her book club fiction and memoir are represented by Katie Shea at the Donald Maass Literary Agency and her debut novel, The Art of Falling, is due out January 2014 from Sourcebooks. She blogs at The Fine Art of Visiting and Healing Through Writing and is happy to be part of the virtual community of writers at the Blood-Red Pencil. You can follow her on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. 

Helen Ginger

Helen Ginger writes both nonfiction and fiction. She has authored three books in TSTC Publishing’s TechCareer series. In 2012, her first fiction book, Angel Sometimes, debuted. When Angel was 12, she was taken 800 miles from home and abandoned on the streets. At 22, she's almost ready to confront her parents. She just needs a car, her G.E.D., and a gun. Angel Sometimes is available on Kindle and in print. Helen's next book, Dismembering the Past, a suspense, will be out early 2013. Helen's free ezine, Doing It Write!, which goes out to subscribers around the globe, is now entering its fourteenth year of publication. Helen has served as a Board member and Executive Director of the Writers’League of Texas and currently works as a Volunteer Chair for the Texas Book Festival. She is the Coordinator of Story Circle Network's EditorialServices and an Owner/Partner of Legends In Our Own Minds®. You can find Helen on her blog, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ or her website.



Dani Greer

Dani heads up the Blog Blook Tours group and started this group of fearless Blood-Red Pencil editors. She has great information for authors trying to set up their own blog tours here. She is an advisory board member and special projects coordinator at Little Pickle Press. She also critiques and edits manuscripts, with special attention to period details and voice in historical novels and plot resolution in her favorite cozy mystery genre. Email her for costs. With her husband, she owns a liturgical arts studio. In her few spare hours, she works on her own children's books and a mystery novel. 


Linda Lane 

Retired editor Linda Lane focuses on helping new and not-so-new writers improve their skills through posts on Blood Red Pencil, as well as through her new website, www.lindasbooknook.com. The site, which should be completed in March 2013, offers pertinent articles, a blog, mini-flash-fiction contests, serialized novels, a Q and A roundtable, a bookstore, and much more in a cozy environment that welcomes all visitors and shows writers how to reach for their dreams. After editing, in whole or in part, three award-winners, Linda joins leaders in the evolving world of publishing to strive toward upgrading independent and e-publishing into a leadership role that will one day set the standard of excellence for the industry. You can also visit her editing team at www.denvereditor.com to find great editors in a variety of genres to help you polish your work into a marketable book.

Morgan Mandel

Morgan Mandel writes thrillers, mysteries and romances. Her current release is the romantic comedy, Her Handyman, featuring a handyman, a crazy canine and a rich, quirky artist. Coming soon is Blessing or Curse, the sequel to Morgan’s thriller, Forever Young: Blessing or Curse. Forever Young: Blessing or Curse, a thriller with a touch of romance, is available on kindle and print. This page turner features a 55-year old widow who takes a pill to be 24 forever, and then discovers getting old is the least of her problems. Before long, she’s hunted not only by the villains, but also the law. Blessing or Curse, a romance with a touch of thriller, will feature 5 diverse people, with 5 separate stories, and shows how the Forever Young pill impacts their personal relationships. A few villains also lurk in the background. Morgan’s romantic suspense, Killer Career, about a Chicago lawyer’s dangerous career change is on Kindle and Smashwords, and also available in print. The ever popular Girl of My Dreams, Morgan’s reality show romance, is available on kindle, as is Two Wrongs, Morgan’s debut mystery. For more about Morgan and her books, check out her website, blog, Facebook Page, and connect with her on Twitter at @MorganMandel.


Maryann Miller

Maryann Miller is an award-winning scriptwriter and author with nineteenbooks in print, including her latest, OpenSeason, a police procedural mystery. One SmallVictory is a suspense novel,  and PlayIt Again, Sam is a woman's novel. She also has a short story collection, TheWisdom of Ages, and two short stories, The Visitor and SAHM I Am, available as e-books. Her background is in journalism and she has held staff positions at several publications as an editor, most recently as the Managing Editor of WinnsboroToday.com, an online community magazine. As a freelance editor, she likes nothing more than to help a writer make a good book better, and her clients say she is as much a writing coach as an editor. Visit her Website to find out more about her books and to check out her editing rates. For fun and to feed her creative spirit she likes to perform on stage at area community theatres and direct plays at the Winnsboro Center for the Arts, where she is the Theatre Director. 


Elsa Neal

Elsa Neal is an Australian writer and former Fiction Writing and Creativity Editor for BellaOnline.com. She teaches writers how to get the most out of MS Word through her Word 4 Writers course . Elsa writes fiction under the pseudonym Elle Carter Neal. More of her writing-related articles can be found on her website, HearWriteNow.com. She can also be found on Squidoo. 


Heidi Thomas 
A native Montanan, Heidi Thomas now lives in Northwest Washington. She has had two novels published, EPIC Award-winning Cowgirl Dreams,  and WILLA Literary Award-winning Follow the Dream (http://www.trebleheartbooks.com/SDHeidiThomas2.html), based on her grandmother. Heidi has a degree in journalism, a certificate in fiction writing and is a member of Northwest Independent Editors Guild. She teaches writing and edits, and is working on the next books in her “Dare to Dream” series.

So, there we are. The official founders and bloggers of The Blood-Red Pencil.

We hope you'll ask lots of questions (put those editors on the hot seat!) and leave pithy comments (or any kind of comment). Our comments section is always open.