Works

Cheryl Mathis is an author with short stories published in an anthology and in journals and is also a pre-published novelist. She currently has three completed middle grade novel manuscripts and one young adult work-in-progress. She is seeking representation and publication for those works and any future stories she dreams up.

She has been awarded the Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators, Sue Alexander Award runner-up honor for work-in-progress The Runaway Ghost (now titled The Haunting of Honey Island Swamp).

Published Works - Juvenile Short Stories

“Alphatheda and Lafayette Cemetery No. 1” and “Prank Night”

Bayou Bogeyman Presents: Hoodoo and Voodoo, anthology Editor Laura Roach Dragon (Pelican/Arcadia Second Edition 2020), pp. 17 and 107.

“Wild Parrots”

Thema Literary Journa1, Vol. 20, No. 3, 2008, p. 1.

Completed Manuscripts

The Mapmaker

Fearing an inherited illness, 12-year-old Jake searches for the source of an old woman’s life-saving ginseng, with its mystical human-shaped roots. Despite the woman’s reputation as a weathermaker and witch, Jake spies on her. But after he finds the ginseng growing deep in the swamp and maps its location, the drawing falls into the wrong hands. Jacob races to retrieve it before a surprising hurricane can destroy all he now holds sacred. Middle Grade. 46,000 words

The Haunting of Honey Island Swamp

(with co-author Laura Roach Dragon) New Orleans tween Margaux Delachaux discovers she can see ghosts. But the ghosts she sees are more frightened than she is. What do they want from her? Margaux and her friend Cosette wage a battle of wits with an evil presence in the swamp as they try to free ghosts haunted by their own violent deaths. Stand-alone mystery with potential for series. Middle Grade 37,000 words.

Scrub League

Eleven-year-old Zack is devastated when he’s placed in the B-League. But when his dad agrees to coach, Zack sets out to draft the most talented teammates remaining – with the dream of winning their league and then playing the A-League team at Summerpalooza. Then he finds out Nick Finn has been added to their roster. Everybody says Finn stole his own class’s field trip money. How’s a guy like that going to be a team player? Middle Grade 38,000 words.

Work in Progress

Life, Interrupted.

Jets fall out of the sky, cell phones die, and the country goes dark on a summer day. Sixteen-year-old Kelli and her younger brother are visiting Doc, their granddad, at his small-town pharmacy in Louisiana. No power, no communication, no electronically powered transportation. Was it a solar flare or an electromagnetic pulse attack? Realizing the chaos that will surge as soon as the new reality sets in, Kelli and her family form an alliance with a local teacher and her 19-year-old son Michael. The woman has an ancient jeep with no electronics, and Doc has Lost Bayou, an isolated fishing camp. They retreat to the camp where they hope to survive. Then they learn it will be months, if not years, before life as they know it returns. Lost Bayou is their only hope. But menace also lurks deep in the swamp. Could it be more dangerous than the violent world outside? Young Adult. WIP