BEACH GLASS BOOKS was begun in 2010 by award-winning Author Lindsay McAllister Zarse to publish her first children’s book, The Magic of Topsail Island. The Beach Glass Books logo, a stylized image of a wave breaking over an open book, was created by artist/illustrator Brian Martin, who also illustrated The Magic of Topsail Island. The two later collaborated on two other children’s books, MISSING! A Topsail Turtle Tale and Pirates on Friday.
Several years later author Ray McAllister (RayMcAllister.com) was able to secure the rights to his award-winning non-fiction books about the North Carolina coast, which he brought to Beach Glass. (The opportunity arose when legendary regional publisher John F. Blair, Publisher, had to be merged into another firm with the retirement of its principals.) The company became legally affiliated with Ray McAllister Books LLC and began distributing his beach books and two others. Therein followed the publication of an updated and enlarged second editions of Wrightsville Beach: The Luminous Island and Hatteras Island: Keeper of the Outer Bank, as well as the publication of a new book: Ocracoke: The Pearl of the Outer Banks. Expanded second editions of Topsail Island: Mayberry by the Sea, Wrightsville Beach and Hatteras Island followed.
Meanwhile, Beach Glass began publishing other writer’s works as well, beginning with reprints of two classic Outer Banks books by historian Ellen Fulcher Cloud on the islands of Portsmouth and Ocracoke, Portsmouth: The Way It Was and Ocracoke Lighthouse and The Old Salts. Therein followed beloved Richmond columnist Randy Fitzgerald’s warm and funny collection written with his wife, Barbara, Flights of Fancy; Charlotte attorney Charles Oldham’s gripping true story of a 1905 crime, The Senator’s Son; the poignant memoir, Diary of a Broken Mind, by Anne Moss Rogers on the loss of her son; Roy Robbins’ compelling love and murder story, North: A Novel; a classic collection of humor pieces by the legendary Jack Sandberg, Uncle Jack’s Outer Banks; Oldham’s powerful story of mutiny, murder, and race, Ship of Blood; Zarse’s magical fourth children’s book, with artist Stuart Parks, The Gold Hole Quest, and a memoir by acclaimed author Philip Gerard, Words & Music: An Album of a Life in Story and Song. More titles are planned for 2025.
For guidelines on having manuscripts considered for publication by Beach Glass Books, please see SUBMISSIONS.