We are so proud. Our book Cruel Messenger by Timothy W. Ayers just won a major award, the Selah Award for speculative fiction from the Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers’ Conference. The same book is also up as finalist for the Realm Award, recognizing the most excellent speculative fiction books written by Christian authors, and for the Excellence […]
Our approach to editing your book
Castle Gate Press is unusual in several ways. One of them is in our team editing approach. The contests where we’ve been entering our books often ask who the editor of the book is, leaving space for the name of one editor. This is apparently the common way for the big publishers to do it, with […]
Our book Cruel Messenger finals again!
Judges are loving this book! So far, it’s a finalist in the Realm Award, the Excellence in Editing Award, and now: the Selah Award from the Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers Conference! We’re excited about this news and hope you are too. Author Timothy W. Ayers has managed to pen a truly winsome suspense story. […]
Get some mentoring from us at Realm Makers Conference
This summer at the Realm Makers Conference, we’re offering free mentoring to anyone who signs up. We’re happy to share some of the Castle Gate Press special handling we give our authors. This TLC has so far resulted in: last year one Amazon category bestseller, and for this year a book that is both a finalist […]
Misconceptions is an Award Finalist!
Our book Misconceptions by Colleen Scott is a finalist for the readers’ choice Grace Award for 2016, we’ve just learned. We are so thrilled! Colleen’s book is indeed a great read, full of suspense and romance. She’s a gifted writer, and we’re so glad more people are finding out about her. Grace Award winners will […]
Terrific news from Castle Gate Press–an award finalist!
A book of ours, Cruel Messenger by Timothy W. Ayers, is a finalist for the Realm Award. We are so thrilled to hear this. The Realm Award comes from the Realm Makers Conference, a writers’ conference for Christians writing speculative fiction (sci-fi, fantasy, time travel, or in this case a cop who gets clues from his […]
The Ambiance of a Writing Conference Makes a Difference
The co-owners of Castle Gate Press, Phyllis Wheeler and Suzanne Hartmann, attended the Realm Makers Writing Conference for Christian Speculative Fiction this past weekend. While they are both exhausted, the atmosphere of sharing and the sense of family energized and renewed them. Sensing these qualities–which Castle Gate Press also promotes–poured out in a larger arena and touching every attendee, […]
We’ll be at Realm Makers!
It’s hard to believe that it’s almost time for the Realm Makers Christian Speculative Fiction Conference, but it’s only a few weeks away. Phyllis and Suzanne will both be there to represent Castle Gate Press, so we’ve been planning, making arrangements, and preparing our costume for the awards banquet. We’ll be taking appointments to hear about […]
Revision Prompt – Filtering
You’ve heard of writing prompts, now we have revision prompts! Each prompt will give you a specific writing issue to check for in your WIP, along with tips on how to fix each. Going through this process one issue at a time will not only help polish your current novel but will also teach you specific ways to […]
Things We Do and Don’t Like to See in a Submission to Castle Gate Press
Although each publishing house has their submission guidelines, there are always parts of the query letter and synopsis that are left undefined, or perhaps it is assumed that everyone is in agreement that they should be professionally presented, yet again, this is often undefined. So we at Castle Gate Press would like to give you a […]