Ann lives in Texas with her husband and rescue pets. She taught reading and other subjects for a number of years before leaving to devote more time to her first love—writing. Reading with children was always her favorite part of teaching.
Cool Well Press published her ghostly series for the young at heart, Stevie-girl and the Phantom Pilot, Stevie-girl and The Phantom Student, and Stevie-girl and The Phantom of Crybaby Bridge.
Her adult novels—All For Love, women’s fiction, and the suspense trilogy Stutter Creek, Lilac Lane, and Copper Lake, are all published by 5 Prince Publishing.
Takers, Ann’s foray into speculative fiction, was released earlier this year.
She has won several awards for fiction since her college days and has had short stories and essays published in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, The Binnacle, Timeless, an anthology, Seasonal Sweet, and Suspenseful, an anthology, Jitter Press, Fictionterrifica, The Rusty Nail, The Sandstorm, Reflections, an anthology, and Blue Mountain Review.
Q&A With the Author
Please, tell me a story. It can be long or short. From your childhood or last week. Funny, sad, or somewhere in between. Just make sure it’s yours. What’s your story?
Once upon a time, I went on a date with a firefighter. “I want to show you one of my favorite places,” he said. And then he took the doors off his sparkly green Jeep and drove us to a caliche pit outside town where we raced up and down the hills catching air beneath our axles like crazed fools. When we came upon an abandoned farmhouse at the top of a rise, we dared each other to go inside. Together we climbed in through a broken window illuminated by a pearly moon.
Dust covered every surface and drifted up in the corners like small, red dunes. We’d barely crossed the large room when we heard the chilling sound of a dog pack barking and baying as if on the hunt. We stopped in our tracks and looked at each other across the dim expanse. Where were they? Were they close? Inside the empty house, it was hard to tell. The sounds bounced from wall to wall.
Without a word we turned and hightailed it back out the window—snagging my favorite sweater on a nail—and ran to the Jeep just as the dogs materialized out of the gloom. The pack leader appeared to be a Doberman followed closely by some sort of Collie mix. I saw two or three others, but couldn’t make out their breeds. My heart leapt into my throat. I really wished he hadn’t removed the doors. Even inside, I didn’t feel safe.
He shoved the Jeep in gear and stomped on the gas. The big tires bit into the earth and threw up a huge red rooster tail of dirt. We roared down one hill and halfway up another before we lost traction and began to slide. I thought we were going to tumble backward, end over end, but then he gunned the motor and twisted the wheel and the slide was halted. In seconds we’d made it back to level earth, leaving the barking behind.
It’s a wonder I ever went out with that fireman again, but thirty-seven years ago, I married him. It’s been an adventure ever since.
Connect with the Author here:
Book 1 – Stevie Girl and the Phantom Pilot
When a small planes crashes behind Jase’s rural home, strange things begin to happen. But no one believes him. After all, there’s no such thing as a ghost, right? Then he sees his pretty, quiet schoolmate, Stevie-girl, about to enter the legendary haunted house, and he knows if anyone can help him solve the mystery, she’s the one.
Book 2 – Stevie Girl and the Phantom Student
Stevie asks Jase to help her find out why the ghost of a girl keeps appearing in her mirror. They think it has something to do with the new student at their school, a boy who has Tourette syndrome. Both the new kid and the new phantom seem to need some kind of help. When the new kid falls prey to the school bullies, Stevie knows they must act. But will they be too late, or will a tragic moment in their school’s history be repeated on Halloween night?
Book 3 – Stevie-Girl and the Phantom of Crybaby Bridge
The summer his parents treat them to a camping trip in New Mexico, the two friends can’t wait to visit the legendary Crybaby Bridge. Right away, they hear the crying baby. Is it a phantom, or is someone playing tricks on them?
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10 Fun Facts about Ann Swann
I signed up to go sky diving once but my instructor broke his ankle on a hard landing and I never went back!
I can wiggle my ears
Once I broke down on the L.A. freeway and had to sleep in my car beside the highway.
My high school mascot was a Golden Tornado (go Tors!)
Stevie-girl and the Phantom Pilot is set in a fictional version of my hometown
I lit a science project on fire during an experiment in college. That wasn’t supposed to happen.
One of my earliest jobs was delivering newspapers. One of my later jobs was as a 911 dispatcher.
I also taught upper level elementary school – Reading, of course.
My home is so close to a local high school I can hear the band practicing every morning. It takes me back to my own band geek/choir nerd days.
I once had a dog named Snakeman and I based one of my favorite characters on him (see the novel Takers: Apocalypse in Eden)
(Looking back over these, I fear I may be suffering from arrested development!)
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Bestselling Author Bernadette Marie is known for building families readers want to be part of. Her series The Keller Family has graced bestseller charts since its release in 2011. Since then she has authored and published over thirty books. The married mother of five sons promises romances with a Happily Ever After always…and says she can write it because she lives it.
Someone has decided to become the moral compass for the women in town, and now they’re turning up dead. It will be up to Detective Lacy Pratt to find their killer before her relationship with Declan Matthews, brother to one of the victims, marks her as a target.
Nichole Giles, the author of DESCENDANT, BIRTHRIGHT, and WATER SO DEEP, has lived in Nevada, Arizona, Utah, and Texas. She is a huge fan of all things paranormal and magical. Her dreams include owning a garden full of fairies, riding a unicorn, and taming the pet dragon she adopted at a recent local ComiCon. His name is Zane. She also loves to spend time with her husband and four children, travel to tropical and exotic destinations, drive in the rain with the convertible top down, and play music at full volume so she can sing along.
Marni Graff had a successful career as a registered nurse who wrote on the side before writing full time. She has a degree in English Lit and studied Gothic Mystery at Oxford University in England. She also wrote articles for Mystery Review magazine, where she interviewed many of the authors whose work she admired.
