June, 2009 Update Between bites of Marty Aftewitz's sumptuous picnic spread, I talk with fellow writers Jim Stevens and Jedwin Smith at the Atlanta Writers Club picnic.

May, 2009. Waiting in line for critiques at the recent Atlanta Writers Club Writers Conference. From the front: Susan Crawford, yours truly, and Kendra Longchamps. Terre Spencer stands as timekeeper for our meetings with April Eberhardt, agent with Reece Halsey North Literary Agency.

FACEBOOK PAGE>>www.facebook.com

TWITTER >> @gingerbcollins

BLOG >> http://coppertopcollins.blogspot.com >>>>> Off the Top of My Red Head, Publishing Tips for First-Time Authors. News and trends from literary agency websites and blogs, along with tips on social media--all from a redheaded, aspiring novelist's point of view..

STORIES TO SHARE >> Set in northside Chicago, the novel WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW explores how far a person will go to be loved and accepted. The story focuses on Sylvie Bauer Morrison and her adult daughter, Rita.

Craving social approval and status, Sylvie hides the shameful events surrounding her childhood during the Depression. Her secrecy and distance translates into a lack of maternal warmth for young Rita, who spends her childhood doing Sylvie's bidding in search of affection--even when it means becoming an accomplice to Sylvie's sometimes risky behavior.

The novel shows you can live with someone all your life and never really know who they are. After exposing one small piece of the family's past, Rita discovers Sylvie's hidden childhood, and begins to understand her mother for the first time. Then she and her cousins stumble on a much bigger family secret--something about their grandmother even their mothers don't know. It changes the family tree and has the power to crumble the fragile bond between Sylvie and Rita.

Read stories about young Rita and Sylvie here: .

IN PRINT >>

I SAY THE WORD appears in the Scratch Anthology, available on Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com. Learn about SCRATCH at www.scratch.com

Short story JUST PUSH PLAY appears in the Freckles to Wrinkles anthology from Silver Boomer Books.Copies available on Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble.com, Read an excerpt.

Flash Fiction story FIRST SIGHT won second place in Writer Advice's Third Annual Flash Prose Contest. Judges called it "a wise story about being careful what you wish for." Visit www.writeradvice.com for information on future contests.

REASON TO BELIEVE, a true-life essay appears in Voices of Alcoholism, one of the five Voices of . . Healing Companions from The Healing Project and LaChance Publishing. Read an excerpt

Short story WHEN MORE MEANS LESS appears in the Silver Boomer Anthology. Read an excerpt.

Photos from road trips, book signings, and more. Click here.

Ginger B. Collins is a published author of short fiction and creative non-fiction that focuses on life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Cruising World Magazine and Living Aboard Magazine have published her slice-of-wave sailing tales, and Ginger's travel articles have appeared in both The Atlanta Journal Constitution and The Cincinnati Inquirer, including a two-part story in the Inquirer about a trip to China in the middle of the SARS epidemic. Ginger's short stories have been published online by Scratch, LunchHour Stories Literary Magazine and Writer's Advice, and appear in two anthologies published by Silver Boomer Books. The personal essay, REASON TO BELIEVE appears in Voices of Alcoholism one of the "Voices of" series published by LaChance Publishing.

Avid offshore sailors, Ginger and husband Melvin spend summers sailing the Atlantic Maritime anchorages and distant shorelines around their home on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. Winters are spent in Atlanta or in the North Carolina mountains.

Connections to her roots in the Atlanta writing community remain strong. Ginger is a past board member and VP of Programming for the Atlanta Writers Club and stays active with the group. She is a member of the Writers Federation of Nova Scotia and participates in the Cape Breton writing community.