Publishing on January 26, 2026: Morning of a Crescent Moon, Indigo River Publishing
In Morning of a Crescent Moon, N. J. Schrock renders the tumult of the 1898 Battle of Virden with a storyteller’s grace, fusing historical truth with imagined lives. Against the backdrop of labor unrest and the gathering storm of violence, Cate Merry—a young woman scarred by war and seeking renewal—steps into a town divided by strikes and shadows. There she encounters Noah McCall, a miner bound by duty to his siblings and by circumstance to the perils of the pit. As Virden braces for conflict, their stories entwine with the fates of families, workers, and townsfolk caught in the crosscurrents of justice, sacrifice, and survival. Both elegy and love story, the novel gives voice to the ordinary people whose courage and longing shaped one of America’s fiercest struggles for dignity.
Order the book at any bookseller: Amazon, Barns & Noble, Bookshop, or your favorite seller.
Indigo River Publications are distributed by Simon & Schuster.
“Droids Like White Elephants” wins Second Place in the 2025 SouthWest Writers contest for short science fiction.
My short science fiction story, “Droids Like White Elephants,” just won second place in the SouthWest Writers 2025 writing contest. It is now part of the anthology of winning stories in Beyond Boundaries: https://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Boundaries-SouthWest-Writers/dp/B0FQ664NTJ/
In August 2025, my story “The Traveling Matches” published in Guideposts Too Amazing for Coincidence: True Stories of Gods Mysterious Ways.
Devotionals in Guideposts Strength and Grace Magazine
I have devotionals published through Guideposts Strength and Grace Magazine and Pray a Word a Day.
The magazine is available at https://www.shopguideposts.org/magazines/strength-and-grace-magazine.html
Incense Rising
Incense Rising, published by Indigo River and available through Amazon or Indigo River Publishing
Synopsis
Névé is a young woman who rescues things like dogs, sugar beets, and a scientific theory, which is in the possession of a fugitive scientist named Incense Rising. Incense is wanted by the Central Bureau of Intelligence for work she did with her murdered uncle. As Névé and Incense gather allies and dodge assassins, they will learn the harsh truths about their world, where consumerism has invaded every aspect of their lives, and the political system protects itself by making people and information disappear.
Short Stories
“The Silver Strands of Alpha Crucis-d” was on the 2016 Nebula Awards reading list
Excerpt:
“Every morning and every evening, we stop what we’re doing to watch the silver strands. We try to describe them, to put them into words, but we never come close. They float in the sky, or they dance in a concerted manner, not random, but organized. And they create a sound that resembles wind chimes, if chimes could hum. We feel their undulating resonance in our bones and call it murmuring. The description seems fitting because when they dance, they behave like a murmuration of starlings. But instead of black winged creatures, these are silver filaments. Mid-day when they aren’t dancing, they reach from close to the ground to high into the atmosphere, swaying like a shear curtain before an open window. Watching them has become our daily ritual…..”
Read the full text Here.
Recently, “The Silver Strands…” published in Italian in Fantascienza.com.
NonFiction
Still Points Arts Quarterly, Issue Number 22
Still Point Arts Quarterly, Summer 2016
“Meeting Henry”
Excerpt:
“Standing near Henry’s grave, I realized where I’d met him. And our meeting was not at all what I expected. I thought that he would be hard to find. But he found me. The coincidences of the last few days began to make sense as I stood at his graveside, shaded by palm and cypress trees …. I know that life is a type of journey, and what I learned from my conversations with Henry is to slow down and enjoy the process of getting there, especially with good food, good company, and a sense of humor…”
Business & Technical
Chapter 24, “Asking the Right Questions,” in Cultures of Copyright
“Asking the Right Questions”
Excerpt:
“During the last half of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first century, society’s products have been increasingly intellectual products enabled by changes in technology. The ability to produce and share intellectual products globally has changed human relations in fundamental ways and brought about a global cultural climate change. Wealth created from intellectual products is known as intellectual capital, and legally protected intellectual capital is intellectual property. The holders of wealth use intellectual property as an exchangeable commodity on a global scale and finance its production, but not indiscriminately…”
Poetry
Ruminate Magazine, Summer 2013.
Sonnet on a Wednesday Morning
Stray gusts gave live oak leaves a white noise sway,
while in the bay sails slapped against a mast.
Lost leaves between the tree and sidewalk passed,
and prow sent patterned ripples far away.
Some fallen wet leached tannin on the gray
as waves reflected sky but could not last.
I saw one form of leaf in concrete cast
and watched the wake take hours to decay.
*
My mother talks of Grandma now much more.
So many memories, stories from the past,
dissolving—how like wake upon the shore.
Dementia claims her yesterdays at last.
My sons so soon become young men before
new walks are poured; leaves fall; more forms are cast.
N. J. Schrock 