Raven Publishing produced its first two middle-grade novels, Miranda and Starlight and Starlight's Courage, the first two books of the Starlight Series in 2002. By the end of 2004, four more volumes completed the Starlight series.

Raven continued to publish award-winning novels by various authors at the rate of two or three per year through 2008. Other than making its print titles also available as e-books on Amazon’s Kindle and Smashwords.com, Raven took a moratorium for two years to restructure and ride out financial drain of the economic downturn.

Now at the end of 201l, Raven has published two young adult novels, a memoir, and a historical legal mystery. There are also two picture “Books by Kids” which have been published under our new imprint, Nesting Tree Books.. With a growing staff of professionals on our team, we have four to five books slated for publication in each of the next three years, with more planned in the years that follow.

 

OUR TEAM MEMBERS

CEO and publisher: Janet Muirhead Hill, an author of some of our growing list of titles, is also founder and publisher of Raven Publishing, Inc.

Janet grew up on a cattle ranch in Colorado, where her father taught her love and respect for horses and a love for books and storytelling from her older sister.

As an adult, she has worked at many diverse occupations from oil field roustabout, custom haying and ranching to business management, nursing and childcare. She has had several short stories published in various children's periodicals as well as nine middle-grade novels in print as of the end of 2011, with more coming. Over a period of six or seven years, beginning when her children were in school, she studied a variety of courses at Montana State University, including premed, nursing, human development (with emphasis on child development) public health, and English writing. She also completed two writing courses from the Institute of Children’s Literature.

Janet works closely with Raven's authors and staff to bring quality books into print and as e-books and audio books. When she can find time, she enjoys conducting workshops on fiction writing. She also continues to write middle-grade novels.

Editor-in Chief: Aurora Mackey, PhD, joined our editorial staff in 201l. Dr. Mackey comes to us with many years of editorial and journalistic experience. She is an award-winning former staff writer and columnist with the Los Angeles Times, the Los Angeles Daily News and the St. Petersburg Times, and also was a feature writer and columnist for California Lawyer Magazine. She has worked as the senior editor of several trade magazines, in addition to freelance experience editing novels and academic essays. The author of two nonfiction books, Dr. Mackey also taught writing for several years at the University of South Florida and at Western Carolina University. As Editor-in-Chief, Dr. Mackey will assist in preparing our many forthcoming titles for publication, maintaining the fine quality of our finished product.

Educational Development Advisor: Marcia Melton, M.A., M.L.S. who writes the discussion guides for our novels has also recently joined our team. Ms. Melton has held academic positions at Mesa Community College, Arizona; Montana State University; and Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. In addition to being a Librarian and teaching Library Science, she taught college courses in Children’s Literature at these institutions. She also has experience in public library children’s services. She began her educational career as a teacher and has worked with many ages of children from preschool (working in Head Start) through middle school. Ms. Melton, who compiles the study and discussion guides in our books for teachers and home school parents, is the person to contact for information about our school offerings.

Editor: Florence Ore, who works from her home to evaluate our many queries and unsolicited manuscripts, has a natural eye and ear for narrative, dialogue, and plot, thereby helping us choose the winning manuscripts we accept for publication. With a good understanding of Raven Publishing's goals and a feel for the style and message our audience seeks, she has long been a vital part of our team, often working directly with our authors to shape and edit their work. Florence is an integral part of Raven and has been with us from the beginning.

Vice President: Stan Hill, Janet’s husband, maintains our office building, and provides moral and technical support.

Secretary/Treasurer: Tayla Andrews joined the staff in April, 2003, but due to the restructuring at the end of 2008, was laid off. She worked full time for the USPS in the interim, but is now back to help Raven oversee the office staff and work on the website.

Internet and Electronics Technician: Joel N. Andrews, CEO of A+ Computer Medic has recently joined our team to keep our equipment repaired and running so that we can avoid costly down time from interfering with our very full publishing schedule.

Student Intern and Marketing Assistant: Position currently open