Our Front Porch Books Publishing Company

23/01/2024

Winter giving you the blahs? Maybe a good book written by a local author is the cure you need. Check out books by Debbie Tindle Parker now available for delivery (as long as I can get out of my driveway without sliding in the ditch or running into a snow pile) or pickup. 😀

21/12/2023

If you are looking for a Christmas gift with a local flare, check out novels by Montezuma author Debbie Tindle Parker. "The Auctioneer," "Moving On," and "Attempting Redemption," in the Hope Series and Debbie's latest book, "Mister Christmas," a stand-alone Iowa-based novella. Our Iowa photo books on the Iowa State Fair and the Midwest Old Threshers are also available. We have books in stock and can deliver locally in time for Christmas.

15/10/2023

14/09/2023

2023 All-Iowa Writers' Conference Presenter Spotlight - David LaBelle

David LaBelle is many things: a photographer, a teacher, an author, a speaker, a husband, a father, a grandfather, and a lover of baseball. Above all, he is a Christian who strives to be a compassionate storyteller and celebrate the beauty of life with words and pictures. He grew up on a frog farm in Oak View, California where he explored the creeks and hills with two sisters and two brothers, along with numerous animals and birds. He applies many of the lessons he learned during his magical boyhood years in rural California to his photography and writing. He is an internationally renowned photographer who began his photojournalism career as a weekend sports-shooter and lab man at the Ventura County Star-Free-Press in California while still in high school. Throughout his 50-year career, he has worked with 20 different newspapers and magazines in nine states. He was the National Press Photographers Association Region 10 Photographer of the Year at age 19, an honor he received for the next two years.

Despite his rich career in photography, he is best known for his work as a teacher and as an author. David joined the faculty at Western Kentucky University in 1986 and taught photojournalism for more than a decade. He taught at the University of Kentucky, where he was an adviser for the award-winning “The Kentucky Kernel”, before directing the Photojournalism sequence at Kent State University. He has become a popular seminar speaker for conferences around the world. David has written five books. In 1989, he published the first edition of the acclaimed “The Great Picture Hunt,” a visual how-to book about finding feature pictures. In 1995, he released the second edition. In 1990, he published “Lessons in Death and Life,” which deals with the ethics of photographing grief. In 2009, he published “I Don’t Want to Know All That Technical Stuff, I Just Want to Shoot Pictures”, an easy-to-read book about basic photography skills designed for beginners. Most recently, David published his first novel, “Bridges and Angels: The Story of Ruth” in 2019. Often called the Norman Rockwell of photography for his focus on the beauty of small-town America, David contributes a monthly photography column for Oregon-based Ruralite Magazine, in a blog titled “Bridges and Angels.”

13/09/2023

We hope to see you at the conference this Saturday!

13/09/2023

2023 All-Iowa Writers' Conference Presenter Spotlight - Adrianne Finlay

Adrianne Finlay received her PhD in literature and creative writing from Binghamton University. Originally from Ithaca, New York, she now lives in Cedar Falls, Iowa with her husband, the poet J. D. Schraffenberger, and their two young daughters. She is a professor of English and the Program Director of Creative Writing at Upper Iowa University in Fayette, Iowa. When she’s not writing, reading, or grading, she’s making soap to sell locally, raising money for type 1 diabetes research.

12/09/2023

2023 All-Iowa Writers' Conference Presenter Spotlight - Joseph LeValley

My career path to becoming an author was unusual, to say the least. I like to describe it as a life of "outrageous good fortune." Significant roles in the past have included: Reporter-photographer for Iowa newspapers for seven years. Served for more than 30 years as an executive in Iowa hospitals and its largest statewide health care network. Performed in rock bands, a country-rock trio and as a solo artist. I also am a composer. In 2016, I was thrilled and honored to be inducted with the Mourning Glory Rock Band into the Iowa Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame. After a life of writing many different types of fiction and non-fiction, I published my first novel in early 2019. I now have written five novels and am working on number six. Four have been published and have won a total of nine awards.
A lifelong Iowan, I am a proud alumnus of Iowa Central Community College in Fort Dodge, Drake University in Des Moines, and the University of Iowa in Iowa City. I have a degree in journalism from Drake and a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of Iowa. I am proud to note that Iowa Central inducted me into its "Distinguished Alumni Hall of Fame" in a ceremony in Fort Dodge, Iowa on Saturday, November 22, 2022. I am a Life Fellow in the American College of Healthcare Executives. I serve or have served on the boards of directors of many community organizations in northern and central Iowa, and have served on committees for state and national health care advocacy organizations. I also am a member of Mystery Writers of America (MWA) and The Authors Guild, and participate in activities of International Thriller Writers (ITW) and StorySummit. My wife, Jane, and I have six children and live in Dallas County, Iowa.

11/09/2023

2023 All-Iowa Writers' Conference Presenter Spotlight - Kevin & Patricia Kimle

Kevin and Patricia Kimle, high school sweethearts originally from Hastings, Nebraska, have published "The Only Free Road: An Underground Railroad Saga Unveiled". Kevin is a professor at Iowa State University. Patti works as an artist and designer in the craft industry and has written several books on the subject.

The couple’s passion for history inspired a family vacation in 2005 traveling through Nebraska City, Nebraska, Tabor, Lewis and West Des Moines, Iowa, tracing the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom run by the National Park Service. Major figures of the era including abolitionists John Brown and Iowans J.B. Grinnell and James Jordan, were joined by countless others working together to prevent the territory of Kansas from becoming another slave state. Bravely, they defied the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 by helping slaves escape to freedom in the north and Canada. Afterwards, Kevin wrote the first 10 chapters of his first work of fiction--what would become “The Only Free Road.”

“J.P. Grinnell was a Congregational pastor, a lawyer and politician, he was straight as an arrow and breaking a federal law,” says Kevin. “I wanted to help people understand that it wasn’t easy for him--it was dangerous and controversial.”

The manuscript languished for several years. When their youngest child started her senior year in high school, Patti picked up the story and revived the project.

“Historical fiction is my favorite," Patti said. "After I took over, I did all the research and the writing of the drafts, and had Kevin read each day’s sections after he got home from work. I worked on it two or three months at a time. All told, it took about a year-and-a-half to finish.”

The book is available for purchase online and the Kimles wanted to do more than the usual author's book readings to get the word out. So they present their two-person, one-act play, “Missives of the Civil War.” In it they read eight letters between several characters—some from the book—describing the events and hardships of life in Iowa during the time of the Civil War.

“Part of the purpose of this was to get it out into the world and to honor those who were part of the Underground Railroad, and to honor the slaves who were fugitives trying to get to freedom,” says Kevin.

08/09/2023

2023 All-Iowa Writers' Conference Presenter Spotlight - Laura Snider

I am Laura Snider – a writer, lawyer, runner. I am the wife to one, step-mother to two, daughter to four, sister to six, and aunt to eight (and counting). I was born in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and raised in Topeka, Kansas. There were seven children in my household – 3 full blood siblings, one of which is my twin, and three step-siblings. We were a large, rambunctious family, and still are, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. I am very close to my family, which translates into my writing as they are the inspiration to many of my stories. I graduated from high school in 2003. I went on to attend Washburn University for an undergraduate degree in Political Science and am a 2009 graduate of the Drake University school of law.

My area of legal practice has, up to now, been criminal. I started my career as a prosecutor, then switched sides after two years and became a defense attorney. I worked for the Public Defender’s Office for over five years, and I would be a fool to say the experience hasn’t influenced my writing. I have seen countless injustices within the criminal justice system both as a prosecutor and as a defense attorney and have written some pieces that are intended to shed some light on that subject.

While my career has been in law, my passion has been in books. I started reading like an obsessed psycho hermit five or six years ago because I needed a way to escape the stresses of the legal profession. I particularly focused on fantasy novels – the more magical the better – and have branched out from there. Now, in addition to reading, I write my own stories. Which is the purpose of this website – to share those stories. Enjoy.

07/09/2023

2023 All-Iowa Writers' Conference Presenter Spotlight - Stella Bixby =
I never thought I’d be a writer. I’ve always been an avid reader, but in high school I was a math and science nerd. I initially went to college for Mechanical Engineering. Then life happened. I changed majors a handful of times. I had two kids, got married, got divorced, graduated college, got married again, moved across the country, had another baby, and somewhere in the mix, I decided to write a book. Enter NaNoWriMo. In 30 days 50,000 words fell from my brain onto a computer screen. I was proud. Family and friends told me it was good. I was excited. But it wasn’t good. It wasn’t good at all. Experienced writers murdered it with red ink. (Thankfully they had chocolate to lighten the blow.) I was deflated but not defeated. Stephen King’s On Writing, Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird, and Janet Evanovich’s How I Write were instrumental in my growth. As was writing and writing and writing. And reading and reading and reading. And all of my amazing writing friends along the way. Nine years after my first NaNoWriMo, I published Catfished and haven’t stopped since.

06/07/2023

The 2023 All-Iowa Writers' Conference Pre-Registration Form is now available on our website: ourfrontporchbooks.com

23/02/2023

We are excited to announce that the All-Iowa Writers’ Conference will be returning for 2023! The conference will be held on Saturday, September 16 at the Ruritan Building in Brooklyn, Iowa. Watch our website and pages for more information! We look forward to seeing everyone!

03/08/2021

Dear Writing Friends,

We wanted you to know that we have made the difficult decision to cancel the All-Iowa Writers’ Conference this year.

We have been trying to find a suitable location to hold our conference in our county and haven’t had any luck. They are all either booked up, too small, too expensive or don’t respond.

We did find a possible location in a neighboring county just a week or so ago, but are concerned at this late date, we just don’t have enough time to plan the best conference possible.

Also, due to low participation in the past, we have decided to suspend the writing contest for this year as well. We hope to bring this back next year.

We do plan to hold the conference in 2022 and hope you will we be able to join us then. Watch our website, www.ourfrontporchbooks.com, for information about next year’s conference.

Sincerely,
J.O. and Debbie Parker

22/12/2020

Thank you to everyone who entered the 2020 All-Iowa Writers’ Conference Fiction Writing Contest! All of the entries were exceptional this year and that made it very difficult on our judges!

The results are as follows:
1st Place = Show Me A Sign by Melinda Wichmann = 58 points
2nd Place = Chasing the Phantom of Love by Millicent Porter Henry = 57 points
3rd Place = Hector by Cheryl Sease = 55 points
Jinxed by Karen Carr = 48 points

The winner of the drawing for free admission to the 2021 All-Iowa Writers’ Conference is Karen Carr.

Congratulations! And we hope you all have a Merry Christmas!

09/11/2020

There is still time to enter the 2020 Our Front Porch Books Fiction Writing Contest! The rules are your entry must be fiction and no more than 2500 words. You may enter as many times as you wish. There is a $5 fee per entry. Make checks to: Our Front Porch Books. The deadline to enter is November 20, 2020. Winners will be announced on our website on December 14, 2020. Prizes are: First Place - $50; Second Place - $25, Third Place - $10. And everyone who enters the 2020 Our Front Porch Books Fiction Writing Contest gets one entry in a drawing for one free admission to the 2021 All-Iowa Writers’ Conference!

Please mail your entries to:
Our Front Porch Books
4746 100th St.,
Montezuma, Iowa 50171

12/07/2020

Dear Writing Friends,

We are sad to announce that we have decided to cancel the 2020 All-Iowa Writers’ Conference, which was slated for Sept.19.

This conference was created in 2010 to help writers improve their craft and to network with each other. We believe strongly in the conference and the good that has come from it during the past 10 years. We are disappointed to have to make this decision.

COVID-19 has cast much uncertainty and craziness in our world. When hosting an event of this nature, we have to be aware of the safety of our attendees, presenters and family present. We feel this is the best move at this time.

On a positive note, we do plan to have our writing contest this year with prizes. Look back soon for more details on how to enter. And watch our website www.ourfrontporchbooks.com for the announcement for our first presenter for 2021, which will be released soon.

We hope to see you in 2021,

J.O. and Debbie Parker