Kathleen Langmaack Martens, a Delaware-based author, has a passion for writing, travel, and foreign cultures. Her award-winning works of fiction are known for their varied voices, diverse viewpoints, and dramatic settings inspired by her overseas career as an intercultural communications consultant. While living and working in Thailand and Indonesia, Martens helped employees of major US infrastructure corporations adjust to life working in remote areas of the world. Traveling to China as one of the early tourists admitted to the country, she took in the sights and sounds of a commune that would later become a foundation for writing award-winning memoir, Really Enough: A True Story of Tyranny, Courage and Comedy with Margaret Zhao. The memoir tells the life journey of young Margaret growing up in the tumultuous times of Chairman Mao and the Cultural Revolution. Really Enough was the recipient of the 2012 Sharp Writ Book Award for Best Biography/Memoir presented by the Smart Book Lovers Group. After enjoying a robust career and extensive international travel, and surviving cancer and severe Lyme disease, Martens moved to the beautiful shores of Rehoboth Beach, Delaware in 2013. As a member of the Rehoboth Beach Writers’ Guild, she now dedicates herself to writing.Kathleen currently enjoys writing short stories, novels, and flash fiction memoir pieces written to be read at Rehoboth Beach Writers Guild’s unique public, story-telling performance collaborations among musicians, writers and visual artists called Nights of Songs and Stories and Art in the A.M. From 2015 to 2018, Martens served as curator and editor of three books raising funds for women’s causes: The Divine Feminine: An Anthology of Seaside Scribes; She Writes: Visions and Voices of Seaside Scribes; and Seaside Scribes: Women Writing, Women, Rising. Martens’ first novel Wanderlust: A Wartime Search for Hope and Home was awarded First Place in the Delaware Press Association’s 2021 state-wide communications contest. Wanderlust also received an Honorable Mention nationally from the National Federation of Press Women. She is currently in the process of publishing a sequel to Wanderlust called The Wall of Hope, due to be released in March of 2024 by Byzantium Sky Press.In 2022, Martens' former international cross-cultural career also inspired her novel, Under A Jungle Moon: A Novel. The book is flavored by her unique experience working on a remote island of Indonesia amid one of the world's few remaining societies living a Stone Age existence. Her character-driven novel won Second Place in the 2022 Delaware Press Association Communications Contest. Martens’ engaging short story collection Rising Women, Rising Tides: Stories of Women, Water, and Wisdom also took a second place award in the 2022 DPA competition.PUBLICATIONS AND AWARDS2015-2018 Short Stories Cat and Mouse Press, Beach Reads Anthologies, Short Story Contest Awards:Molting, 2015 Judge's Choice Award Flight of the Songbird 2016 First Place Not in My World, 2017 Second PlaceSea to Shining See 2018 Second PlaceDelaware Press Association Communications Contest Awards:Flight of the Songbird, 2017 First Place, single short storyThe Time of His Life, 2018 First Place, single short story (First published in anthology, Rehoboth Reimagined, by Rehoboth Beach Writers Guild, 2017.)Not in My World, 2018 Third Place, single short story A Beautiful Present: The Gift of Living in the Moment, 2018 Third Place, single short story (First published in Delaware Beach Life magazine, May 2017.)Think Small, 2019 Honorable Mention, single short story, (First published in Delaware Beach Life magazine, Holiday Issue, 2018)The Divine Feminine: An Anthology of Seaside Scribes, 2018 Second Place, Book Edited by EntrantShe Writes: Visions and Voices of Seaside Scribes, 2019, Second Place, Book Edited by EntrantWanderlust: A Wartime Search for Hope and Home, 2021 First Place, Adult Fiction, Novels Under a Jungle Moon: A Novel, 2022 Second Place, Adult Fiction, Novels Rising Women Rising Tides: Stories of Women, Water, And Wisdom, 2022 Second Place, Collection of Short Stories Written By Entrant.National Federation of Press Women Communications Contest Nationwide AwardsWanderlust: A Wartime Search for Hope and Home, Honorable Mention.Flight of the Songbird, 2017 Second Place, Single Short Story, Read more about this authorRead less about this author