Virginia Department of Health Blog
During my tenure as the Health Districts Communications Coordinator for the Virginia Department of Health, I authored high-impact content for the agency’s primary digital platforms. My work focused on strategic accessibility, translating complex public health initiatives into engaging, plain-language narratives designed to reach and resonate with a diverse statewide audience.
Fiction and Poetry Publications
Beyond the professional sphere, I am a published author of speculative fiction and poetry, exploring the human condition through a lens of wonder and precision. Here, you will find a curated selection of my work across all mediums, united by a commitment to powerful, purposeful storytelling.
Fiction Publications
For anyone who knows the history, Salem, Massachusetts has more than a few stories to tell. Travel to the Witch City within the pages of these collected short stories, and know the captivating nature of one of the oldest towns in America.
Feel the summer breeze at Salem Willows and smell the scent of mulled cider drifting down Derby Street. See the wharf from a birds-eye-view, feel your toes in the sand while the sun sets over Dead Horse Beach, and find the secrets that reside in the very cracks of three-hundred-year-old tombstones in the Old Burying Ground. Spend a night among ghosts and witches and know the magic of Salem, where myth and legend collide with truth. Do beware, dear friends, for the Witch City has a dark side, and there is more to those legends than what you might read in the pages of a dusty old book. Remember to look over your shoulder, for you never know what shadows follow you down that dimly lit corridor.
From poems to micro and flash fiction, some of the biggest names in fiction provide short tales designed to fracture your funny bone. Featuring a who’s who in award winning fiction, as well as established authors and a few new to the craft, Quick Draw! will give you a much needed endorphin boost during a time where we could all use a few extra chuckles. Who, you ask? Well, we have stories by Piers Anthony, Kevin J. Anderson, Cat Rambo, Lawrence Watt-Evans, Django Wexler, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Tom Merritt, Francesco Marciuliano, Rick Gualtieri, John P. Logsdon, Gail Simone, John G. Hartness, Martha Carr, EM Kaplan, Author, Eric Knowles, Ben Zackheim, RE Vance, R.E. Carr, Hunter Blain, Orlando Sanchez, Steve Wetherell, Nazri Noor, Robert Bevan, Lorraine Agent, Megan Harris, Melissa McArthur, and more!
“When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
Sherlock Holmes is one of the most recognizable characters in Western literature. Conan Doyle’s inimitable detective has been the subject of literally thousands of books, movies, television shows, plays and even songs. With the rise of the BBC series and the release of most copyrights, the beloved character has found a new life among modern audiences.
In An Improbable Truth: The Paranormal Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, 14 authors of horror and mystery have come together to create a unique anthology that sets Holmes on some of his most terrifying adventures. A pair of sisters willing to sacrifice young girls to an ancient demon for a taste of success, a sinister device that can manipulate time itself, and a madman that can raise corpses from the dead are just a few among the grisly tales that can be found within these pages.
Curl up with a warm cuppa and leave all the lights on. This is not your grandfather’s Sherlock Holmes.
Welcome back to Baker Street! Holmes and Watson are here to greet you once more spinning amazing tales of murder, mayhem, and mystery with a supernatural twist. This time the great detective and his stalwart companion will venture into alternate universes, histories, and futures to solve puzzling cases of the paranormal far beyond the bounds of imagination.
An Old West town plagued by a legendary beast, a dystopian future where black snow falls on Baker Street, a cyborg Holmes engaged in a psychological game with an ancient enemy, a world-weary Holmes and Watson who must choose between vampiric immortality and oblivion, and a classic noir with dames to kill for are just a few of the strange adventures that await you in Curious Incidents.
Grab your deerstalker and hold on tight! The game is afoot!
21 Vignettes and Short Stories set in Faith Hunter’s World of Thorn St. Croix.
The Rogue Mage world began long ago, when the epic battle between the High Host and the Darkness was won and lost. TRIALS takes fans of Thorn St. Croix into the past, before the opening pages of BLOODRING. These stories, set in Faith Hunter’s Rogue Mage world, are adventures with new characters and old, facing dangers unimaginable. And they must save the world all over again.
If you ever wondered what happened between seraphs, kylen, second-unforeseen, mages, seraph-touched, spawn, humans, dragons, and their creatures before the series, now is your chance to delve deeper and wider. TRIALS features new short stories from nine authors—including Faith Hunter—and vignettes from the Rogue Mage role playing game.
Over two dozen writers from North Carolina or with deep ties to the Tarheel State band together to raise money for LGBTQ charities in Charlotte and North Carolina as a response to the NC General Assembly’s passage of HB2, the “bathroom bill.”
We are not discrimination. We are not hate. We are not fear. We are not oppression. We are not this.
Melissa Gilbert 