Retired Educator Turned Indie Novelist Bernard J. MacDonald Sees 2026 Revival of Backlist Exploring Love, Loss and Second Chances
After 30+ years in special education, MacDonald's fiction returns to bookshelves with new editions of Zion and Infidel: Kafir, plus a 2026 Eric Hoffer Book Award finalist nod
SAINT AUGUSTINE, FL, August 06, 2026 -- Bernard J. MacDonald spent more than three decades in classrooms before he ever published a novel — teaching special education in Gresham, Oregon, then training educators across Florida. That decades-long career quietly shaped the fiction he began publishing in 2010, starting with Missing You, a love story set against the fog of Alzheimer's disease.
Since then, MacDonald has built a small but resonant catalog: Meet Me In Sedona (2011), which follows a heartbroken man into the red-rock country of the American Southwest; Infidel: Kafir (2012), a cross-cultural romance testing family honor against forbidden love; and Zion: Trails End (2020), the story of a terminally ill retired firefighter who interrupts his own end to rescue a stranger — and finds an unexpected second chance at life alongside her.
In 2026, that backlist is finding new readers. Writers Way Solutions has released updated editions of both Infidel: Kafir and Zion, the latter retitled Zion: End of Trail, and MacDonald recently discussed Infidel on the Writers Way Podcast. The book was also named a finalist in the 2026 Eric Hoffer Book Award.
Across all four novels, MacDonald returns to the same emotional territory: characters facing grief, illness, or cultural pressure, set against the wide-open landscapes of the American West that MacDonald knows firsthand through his own hiking and camping. It's fiction that reads like a second act — shaped less by literary ambition than by a career spent helping people navigate hard things.
MacDonald now lives in Saint Augustine, Florida, where he continues to write.
Bernard J. MacDonald is an American novelist and retired special education teacher and trainer with more than 30 years in education. He is the author of four novels — Missing You, Meet Me In Sedona, Infidel: Kafir, and Zion: Trails End (reissued in 2026 as Zion: End of Trail) — exploring themes of love, healing, and resilience against the backdrop of the American West. He lives in Saint Augustine, Florida.
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