Rebel Writers

Rebels Writers are a small, highly select, critique group of experienced, accomplished writers focused on novel-length fiction.

For more than twenty years, the group has met monthly in Bucks County to discuss writing and review its members’ work, helping each other to successful publication.

M E M B E R S

Russ Allen has been a full-time freelance writer for more than 30 years, and is owner of The Writers Studio, a creative-editorial, marketing, and promotional-services practice.  Russ has a master’s in communications and studied creative writing at the University of Virginia. His novel Ella’s War will be released in 2023 (Vine Leaves Press). He is also currently pitching these completed novels: Paper Wings, a Victorian literary novel; Desert Soup, a love story set around the Iraq war; The Piedmont Harlots Club, some racy women’s fiction; Queen of the Bay, an ecoterrorism thriller; and Mean Streets Paris ’44, his co-write of WWII detective novel with passed Rebel, John Wirebach.

Chris Bauer,  Rebels founding member, is the author of seven thrillers currently available through Severn River Publishing. His newest novels, Cradle, from Severn River Publishing, and I Heard You Paint Cowboys, from Black Rose Writing, will release October 2024 and May 2025. He is also author of Jane’s Baby, a thriller set around the mystery of Jane Roe’s baby of Roe vs. Wade fame. Jane’s Baby is set for re-release by Crossroad Press in late 2024/early 2025.  He is currently working on an historical crime novel set in immediate post-WWII Japan.

Dave Jarret, a Rebels founding member and former clinical psychologist, has published short stories, including one that received top prize in the Bucks County Community College short fiction contest. He is currently pitching Coryell’s Ferry, his historic novel of family and survival set around the Revolutionary War’s Battle of Trenton, New Jersey. Dave is working on a new contemporary novel addressing many topical issues, including the Catholic priesthood and the opioid drug epidemic, and a second novel based loosely on the life famous Philadelphia spiritual leader Father Divine.

Kathleen Madigan spent 25 years as an economics journalist in New York City and finished her career as a writer at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. She is currently pitching Murder in Jersey City, the first in a series of current-day police procedurals set in towns around New Jersey and featuring detectives Kim Norris and Ricky Balestrino, two members of the elite State Police Special Circumstance and Case Squad.

Marc Elias Keller grew up in Bucks County, Pa., and studied anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. His short fiction has appeared in New Pop Lit, Pif, Literary Orphans, Every Day Fiction, and elsewhere. Keller’s nonfiction has been published by The Black Fox Literary Magazine, JMWW, and other venues. His novel, Strange Case of Mr. Bodkin and Father Whitechapel, the other side of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, was published in 2012 and named an “Indie Groundbreaking Book” by Independent Publisher. He currently lives in Bucks County, Pa., and won first place in the 2024 Bucks County Short Fiction Contest. His website is www.marc-elias-keller.com.  

F O U N D I N G  P A S T  E M E R I T U S  M E M B E R S

Jeanne Denault

Marie Lamba

Damian McNicholl

 John Wirebach was a long-time writer, editor, and  literature professor with an MFA. Rebels mourned his passing in October 2020.  We lost a good writer and friend.

See also this article written for Writers Digest about the Rebel Writers by Marie Lamba.  Here, Marie uses Rebels as a case study in how to set up and run an effective fiction-critique group: PLOTTING A NOVEL GROUP by Marie Lamba