IWN member, Tom Crawford, will be bring to life some of his greatest obituaries when he debuts his new book, “Resurrections… of an Obituary Writer,” January 30th at 10:00am, at Coastal Discovery Museum.

Tom Crawford, a native of Whitinsville, Massachusetts, graduated from Westminster College in New Wilmington, Pennsylvania, and began his news career as a reporter with the The Worcester (Massachusetts) Telegram.

After graduation from a 48-week course in the Ukrainian language at the Army Language School (Now Defense Language Institute) at Monterey, California, he separated from the Army in Germany and enrolled at the University of Munich, where he studied history and Slavic languages.

Back in the United States he joined United Press International and served in the Springfield, Massachusetts, Boston, London and Belgrade bureaus of the news agency. He returned to the United States with his family in 1967, and joined The Springfield Union and Sunday Republican, where he served as copy reader, wire editor and news editor, responsible for Page 1.

He has concentrated on his writing since his retirement in 1996 and after spending several winters on Hilton Head, S.C., permanently relocated to the island in 2007. The first work to be published was Foibles, a collection of humorous vignettes in 2009. Goli Otok (Naked Island) is a novel giving an account of the effects of World War II on a Ukrainian family whose family head was killed in combat in the battle for Belgrade in October of 1944.

Resurrections…of an Obituary Writer is available on Amazon.

Island Writers Network member, Natasha Boyd, has been busy (and successfully) promoting her second fiction novel, Forever Jack, which is book two of her Eversea story. She is the winner of the 2014 Digital Book Award for adult fiction.

Natasha is an independent, self-published author that demonstrates the real possibility for unknown authors to promote their own written works and, with the key elements of quality writing and word of mouth promotion, the potential for major success without a major publisher.

As reported by Publishers Weekly, Ms Boyd landed a six-figure deal for German translation rights and has closed another big deal in the UK.