We are excited and honored to officially announce the Grand Prize Winner and the First Place Category Winners for the 2017 Gertrude Warner Book Awards for Middle-Grade Readers Novels at the fifth annual Chanticleer Authors Conference and Chanticleer Book Awards Ceremony. This year’s ceremony and banquet were held on Saturday, April 21st, 2018 at the Hotel Bellwether by beautiful Bellingham Bay, Wash.
We want to thank all of those who entered and participated in the 2017 Gertrude Warner Book Awards for Middle-Grade Readers, a division of the Chanticleer International Book Awards.
When we receive the digital photographs from the Official CAC18 photographer, we will post them here and on the complete announcement that will list all the genres and the Overall Grand Prize Winner for the 2017 Chanticleer International Book Awards. Please check back!
Click here for the link to the2017 Gertrude Warner Shortlisters!An email will go out within three weeks to all Shortlisters with links to digital badges and how to order Shortlister stickers. Congratulations to the 2017 Gertrude Warner SHORTLISTERS!
Susan Faw, the author of the 2016 Dante Rossetti Grand Prize Winner, Seer of Souls, announced the First Place Award Winners and the Grand Prize Winner for the 2017 Gertrude Warner Book Awards at the Chanticleer Awards Banquet and Ceremony.
Congratulations to the First Place Category Winners of the 2017 Gertrude Warner Book Awards for Middle-Grade Books.
An email will go out to all First Place Category Winners and Grand Prize Winners with more information, the timing of awarded reviews, links to digital badges, and more by May 21st, 2018 (four weeks after the awards ceremony). Please look for it.
2017 Gertrude Warner Book Awards for Middle-Grade Readers First in Category Winners are:
The Supernatural Pet Sitter by Diane Moat
Bryce Bumps His Head by Robert D. Calkins
Brainwashed: The Crime Travelers Series by Paul Aertker
The Queen and Knights of Nor by Rebekah Stelzer/R.L.Stelzer
Lucky Rocks by Murray Richter
Flowerantha by Bek Castro
The Strange Case of Mr. Beets by A Pharmacist on a Yak (Anand Vora)
And now for the 2017 Gertrude Warner Grand Prize Book Award Winner for Middle-Grade Fiction:
Here is a novel of utmost despair, but also the determination of the human spirit to do what is right and survive in the face of grave danger. Set in Northern Florida in the 1920s, A Seeping Wound by Darryl Wimberly centers on the nefarious activities of the Blue Turtle Turpentine Camp, one woman’s life in that camp, and a young veteran’s search for his missing sister.
Still suffering from wounds inflicted during the Great War, Prescott (Scott) Hampton arrives in Cross City, Florida determined to find his sister Sarah, and her husband Franklin Breaux. The Hampton family has not heard from Sarah in months and Cross City was the last town she posted a letter from. Scott quickly discovers a deeply embedded system of graft involving the Bucknell Timber & Turpentine Company, local law enforcement, and the county judge. Judge Hiram Sheppard runs his courtroom exactly as he sees fit—no defendant is allowed to testify on their own behalf, no written records are taken, and all debtors are sent to the Blue Turtle Turpentine Camp.
Scott suspects something along these lines may have happened to his sister and questions Judge Sheppard as to whether or not he can recall Sarah passing through his courtroom. The judge merely shrugs and advises Scott not to stick his nose where it doesn’t belong. After all, men have died for lesser things. Scott disregards this barely veiled threat and buys horses and gear to search for his sister himself in the Florida wilderness.
Sarah Breaux, Scott’s sister, and her husband Frank are indeed at the Blue Turtle Turpentine Camp. They answered a newspaper advertisement and were conned into believing they would be getting involved in honest work, not indentured servitude, and are now suffering horribly. Frank has been thrown into The Box—a four-foot square, four-foot tall prison cell open to the elements and Sarah has no idea when he may be released. The camp is run by some of the foulest, most sadistic men in existence. The captain of the camp, however, is the worst of all.
Captain Henry Riggs is an evil man. He is a ruthless, vengeful pedophile and he runs his turpentine camp like a cotton plantation in the old Deep South. Whippings are given out with ‘Black Auntie,’ men are forced to drink and gamble away what little wages they’ve made every Sunday, and the women of the camp are put on the ‘schedule.’ The schedule is a euphemistic term for the enforced prostitution almost every woman in the camp must endure. The captain, of course, takes his cut and leaves the women with hardly any money or medical care to see to their injuries or other needs.
The one person who is able to see to the needs of the sick and injured is Martha LongFoot, the camp’s medicine woman. Half Muscogee, half African, she is a striking woman. She is repeatedly referred to as ‘injun’ and ‘it’ and other harsher epithets. She’s easily taller than most men, with bronze skin and long black hair…on the half of her face and head where she hasn’t been burned. The other side of her profile is horribly mutilated and has never fully healed from when she poured boiling rosin on her own face as a young teenager to avoid being forced into prostitution by Captain Riggs.
Martha’s oath as the camp medicine woman to do no harm continually comes into conflict with the reality of the world she lives in. She is witness to the greatest atrocities inflicted on those who are forced to live and work in the Blue Turtle Turpentine Camp and she also must care for her jailors when they themselves are sick or injured. She takes her oath as a healer very seriously, despite multiple opportunities to just let the evil men who run the camp die of their wounds and illnesses.
The fates of the Breaux and Martha connect as Scott circles ever closer to the camp and his sister’s whereabouts. Martha, Sarah, and Scott must each walk a very precarious line if they want to survive and ultimately must depend on each other to get out alive.
A Seeping Wound is a thoroughly researched work of historical fiction told in alternating viewpoints. There are lush descriptions of the wilderness and the environment and these descriptions succeed in making the setting a character itself. This is a land and an era where black men and women are still viewed as nothing more than property and readers who are sensitive to racism, rape, and epithets may want to pick a different novel. A Seeping Wound represents all these darker issues with stark, unforgiving language.
As is to be expected with a story as harsh and unrelenting as this one, the ending is bittersweet. Salvation arrives, but whether or not it is too late is up to the reader. This novel is sure to be appreciated by historical fiction fans given the copious and dedicated research that has gone into writing it, the diverse viewpoints, and the unusual setting.
Reviewers Note: Not suitable for children or teenagers. This novel contains many emotional triggers and depicts graphic violence and rape.
We are excited and honored to officially announce the Grand Prize Winner and the First Place Category Winners for the 2017 M&M Book Awards for Novels at the fifth annual Chanticleer Authors Conference and Chanticleer Book Awards Ceremony. This year’s ceremony and banquet were held on Saturday, April 21st, 2018 at the Hotel Bellwether by beautiful Bellingham Bay, Wash.
We want to thank all of those who entered and participated in the 2017 M&M Book Awards for Mystery Novels, a division of the Chanticleer International Book Awards.
When we receive the digital photographs from the Official CAC18 photographer, we will post them here and on the complete announcement that will list all the genres and the Overall Grand Prize Winner for the 2017 Chanticleer International Book Awards. Please check back!
Click here for the link to the 2017 M&M Shortlisters! An email will go out within three weeks to all Shortlisters with links to digital badges and how to order Shortlister stickers.
Congratulations to the 2017 M&M SHORTLISTERS!
Pamela Beason,the author of the 2012 M&M Grand Prize Winner, The Only Witness: A Neema Mystery, announced the First Place Award Winners and the Grand Prize Winner for the 2017 M&M Book Awards at the Chanticleer Awards Banquet and Ceremony.
Congratulations to the First Place Category Winners of the 2017 M&M Book Awards for Mystery Novels.
An email will go out to all First Place Category Winners and Grand Prize Winners with more information, the timing of awarded reviews, links to digital badges, and more by May 21st, 2018 (four weeks after the awards ceremony). Please look for it.
2017 M&M Book Awards for Mystery Novels First in Category Winners
A Ring of Truth by Michelle Cox
Cut by Amy S. Peele
Suppose by D. J. Adamson
Coronado’s Trail: An Arizona Borderlands Mystery by Carl and Jane Bock
Deadly Proof: A Victorian San Francisco Mystery by M. Louisa Locke
Fairfield’s Auction by Betty Jean Craige
Unsightly Bulges, A Trailer Park Princess Cozy Mystery by Kim Hunt Harris
And now for the 2017 M&M Grand Prize Book Award Winner for Mystery Novels:
We are excited and honored to officially announce the Grand Prize Winner and the First Place Category Winners for the 2017 JOURNEY Book Awards for Narrative Non-fiction Books at the fifth annual Chanticleer Authors Conference and Chanticleer Book Awards Ceremony. This year’s ceremony and banquet were held on Saturday, April 21st, 2018 at the Hotel Bellwether by beautiful Bellingham Bay, Wash.
We want to thank all of those who entered and participated in the 2017 Journey Book Awards for Narrative Non-fiction, a division of the Chanticleer International Book Awards.
When we receive the digital photographs from the Official CAC18 photographer, we will post them here and on the complete announcement that will list all the genres and the Overall Grand Prize Winner for the 2017 Chanticleer International Book Awards. Please check back!
Click here for the link to the 2017 Journey Shortlisters! An email will go out within three weeks to all Shortlisters with links to digital badges and how to order Shortlister stickers.
Christine Smith,the author of the 2014 JOURNEY Grand Prize Winner, More Faster, Backwards: Rebuilding David B, announced the First Place Award Winners and the Grand Prize Winner for the 2017 Journey Book Awards at the Chanticleer Awards Banquet and Ceremony.
Congratulations to the First Place Category Winners of the 2017 Journey Book Awards for Narrative Non-fiction.
An email will go out to all First Place Category Winners and Grand Prize Winners with more information, the timing of awarded reviews, links to digital badges, and more by May 21st, 2018 (four weeks after the awards ceremony). Please look for it.
2017 Journey Book Awards for Narrative Non- Fiction First in Category Winners
Broken Places by Rachel Thompson
Getting to Heaven by Going Through Hell by Dr. Scot Hodkiewicz
Inside: One Woman’s Journey Through the Inside Passage by Susan M. Conrad
Immunity by Donna LeClair
Refractionby Bruce Rettig
Fishing With Hyenas by Theresa Mathews
And now for the 2017 JOURNEY Grand Prize Book Award Winner for Narrative Non-Fiction:
Inside: One Woman’s Journey Through the Inside Passage
Brock Harker, World War II fighter pilot returns home to the Pacific Northwest on leave. He’s searching for a little peace once he finds his half Japanese wife who vanished while he was away. What he finds is Murder Beside The Salish Sea by author Jennifer Mueller, who artfully pulls Brock into an intriguing plot that hides the darkest of secrets.
Working as a pilot for the Flying Tigers in China, Brock earned the distinguished Order of the Cloud and Banner from the Chinese. After Pearl Harbor, he joins the Air Corps as a bomber pilot. Brock would say that flying was the one good thing his dad taught him, and he’d learned it so well he swore he could dogfight when he was ten years old. He should have been dead many times during these World War II years, but what has him frightened most is Amy’s disappearance. Half Japanese/American women have to watch themselves now. His heart broke when her letters stopped, and the letters he sent went unanswered. Now he’s determined to find her or find out what happened to her.
The search begins at his father’s home, the only family he has left. They parted years ago on the worst of terms, in large part because of his racist father’s hatred for Brock’s beloved Amy. Now, will his father greet Brock after all these years, or throw him away again? Brock reacquaints himself with his hometown of Bellingham, friends and other people he had known before, and meets military personnel on the nearby base. Several of these people become suspects in the ensuing murders. Brock is also accused by the police in his father’s murder. Brock applies wartime tactics and a little help from his friends to track and capture the murderer. Only then are devastating secrets revealed that may be unbearable for this war hero.
This thrilling, historical mystery that’s steeped in sweet romance tugs at a sense of adventure. The story travels across plot twists like an army jeep driving the diverse, Pacific Northwest landscape, from the Cascade Mountains to sandy beaches, and along the Straits to the Ocean. Hang on because just when the reader thinks the plot ahead is recognizable, there’s another curve and the view completely changes.
With Murder Beside The Salish Sea, Jennifer Mueller brings to life an important time in history, while weaving in poignant, personal drama. As Brock’s beloved wife Amy once said to him, “We endure what we cannot change.”
When the stress of Manhattan Wall Street builds, James Hensley retreats to the solace of the wood at Oberon Woods, New Hampshire for a two-week respite. He’s hoping to shake off the responsibilities of his job as a financial market forecaster and find some peace and quiet indulging his private passion for painting. The rat race of the city has been replaced with fresh air, pastoral scenery, and inspiration. As he works to bring the setting to life on the canvas, his co-worker’s teasing words ring in his ears – something about having a summer romance amidst the beauty of woods and water. He shuts out that thought and continues with his paints.
As if on cue, the Burnett sisters arrive and James’ plans for an uneventful sojourn in the country take a turn. The older sister, Sophie, is a brunette beauty, sensitive, quiet, and a reader and writer of poetry. She often carries an anthology of Emily Dickinson’s poetry with her.
In contrast, younger sister Kelly is a vivacious blond, chatty and flirtatious, the yang to her sister’s yin. The sisters are well-educated and affluent, living in their parents’ co-op on Park Avenue. Sophie works as the editor of a law review journal and Kelly does secretarial work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Neither job pays well, but that’s of little consequence because there’s plenty of family money.
Of course, James can’t help but notice the sisters – and he soon learns they have boyfriends. Sophie is dating a Harvard Law School grad who works in mergers and acquisitions, and Kelly is dating a wealthy socialite boy who loves to party. So much for a summer romance.
Looks can be deceiving, though, and soon it becomes clear that the sisters’ romantic entanglements are far from perfect. Before his two-week vacation is finished, James will be attracted to both sisters. He paints them, and by doing so discovers the truth about himself.
This is a very romantic, seductively charming novel that celebrates nature and affirms the therapeutic value of nature. Here, author Yorker Keith gifts us with alluring, enchanting prose. We inhale crisp mountain air and easily envision Keith’s Arcadian wonderland. The novel includes several poems of Emily Dickinson’s as well as Sophie’s original poetry. The selections are perfect prose accompaniments for romance blooming in a resplendent countryside. Keith, in many ways, has “painted” this novel; it remains in the reader’s mind as a series of scenes rendered with the patient and astute eye of an artist.
“One man escapes to the quiet of the Oberon Woods only to be seduced by two young women of exceptional quality; as he paints each stunning beauty, he discovers more about himself and learns to trust his heart in Yorker Keith’s latest literary romantic novel.” – Chanticleer Reviews
“Seductively charming and romantic literary novel set in an Arcadian wonderland.” – Chanticleer Reviews
We are excited and honored to officially announce the Grand Prize Winner and the First Place Category Winners for the 2017 CYGNUS Book Awards for Science Fiction Novels at the fifth annual Chanticleer Authors Conference and the sixth annual Chanticleer Book Awards Ceremony. This year’s ceremony and banquet were held on Saturday, April 21st, 2018 at the Hotel Bellwether by beautiful Bellingham Bay, Wash.
We want to thank all of those who entered and participated in the 2017 Cygnus Book Awards for Science Fiction, a division of the Chanticleer International Book Awards.
When we receive the digital photographs from the Official CAC18 photographer, we will post them here and on the complete announcement that will list all the genres and the Overall Grand Prize Winner for the 2017 Chanticleer International Book Awards. Please check back!
Click here for the link to the 2017 Cygnus Shortlisters! An email will go out within three weeks to all Shortlisters with links to digital badges and how to order Shortlister stickers.
James Wells, the author of the 2015 Cygnus Grand Prize Winner, The Great Symmetry, announced the First Place Award Winners and the Grand Prize Winner for the 2017 CYGNUS Book Awards at the Chanticleer Awards Banquet and Ceremony.
Congratulations to the First Place Category Winners of the 2017 Cygnus Book Awards for Science Fiction.
An email will go out to all First Place Category Winners and Grand Prize Winners with more information, the timing of awarded reviews, links to digital badges, and more by May 21st, 2018 (four weeks after the awards ceremony). Please look for it.
2017 Cygnus Book Awards for Science Fiction First in Category Winners
First Command by Michael Simon
The Last Detective by Brian Cohn
Oort Rising by Magnus Victor
The Future’s Dark Past by John Yarrow
Breaching The Parallel by MW Anderson
Strain of Resistance by Michelle Bryan
Honorable Mentions:
Children of the New World by Alexander Weinstein (a short story collection)
The Power of Three: The Novel of a Whale, a Woman, and an Alien Child by Cathy Parker
And now for the 2017 CYGNUS Grand Prize Book Award Winner for Science Fiction:
Jamie Ford, the acclaimed author of Hotel at the Corner of Bitter and Sweet and his latest, Love and Other Consolation Prizes, taps into his personal reservoir of life’s lickings to weave a rich tapestry of emotions in his writing.[/fusion_text][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]
Chanticleer: Give me a little bit about your background – Who is Jessica Morrell?
Jessica Morrell: I’m the author of six traditionally-published books, five which teach authors how to write. I’ve written hundreds of columns, articles, blog posts, and my work appears in 8 anthologies about writing. I’ve been teaching writers for more than 25 years and work as a developmental editor. This means a writer or author sends me a manuscript and I dissect it and then help him or her put it back together so it’s publishable. I bring a discriminating, ruthless eye to manuscripts, and fix plot holes and wayward dialogue and everything in between. I learn each time I work on a manuscript and some days my brain feels close to bursting. I love what I do.
Chanticleer: Tell me a little bit about the Master Class you will be offering next Sunday during #CAC18, Learning from the Greats. Who would benefit most from taking this class?
Jessica Morrell: Any fiction writer can benefit from this workshop. Writers have 2 main tasks: writing whenever possible and reading often. But reading as a writer requires a special focus and analysis. You need to understand why authors make choices and decisions along the way; why their details are important, how the ending resonates or doesn’t quite satisfy. Close reading teaches us narrative and scene structure, how to create authentic dialogue, how to insert tension and subtext, and how themes underscore drama.
Chanticleer: This is going to be an important class for all authors. Tell me, what’s the best way to prepare for this class?
Jessica Morrell: The workshop will open by outlining the many techniques that writers have at their disposable. From there we’ll be discussing Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbirdand 3 contemporary short stories (Silver Water, Amy Bloom, For Something to Do, Elmore Leonard, and Stone Mattress, Margaret Atwood.)
Chanticleer: At the end of this article, Jessica has provided us with titles and links to these stories. It would be wise to familiarize yourself with these works before class next Sunday. So, Jessica, why these authors? Why these books?
Jessica Morrell: Mockingbird, also a film, has remained a beloved American classic over the decades. We’re going to dissect why it’s so esteemed and memorable. The other authors Elmore Leonard, Amy Bloom, and Margaret Atwood are simply fabulous writers with techniques we can all emulate. Or at least try to.
Chanticleer: Jessica, our attendees will learn so much from your workshops. Your classes are unlike any other I’ve seen. You really do put authors to work – and the payoff is exponential!
Jessica Morrell: To paraphrase Stephen King, reading is your job. Or a big part of your job. If you breeze through stories without thought or analysis, you’re missing both the joys of insider knowledge and the lessons you’ll always need. Reading inspires and is a cheap, private pleasure. And because writers never stop learning.
Learning from the Greats
A Master Writing Craft Class taught by Jessica Morrell
To succeed as a writer you need to write a lot and read from a writer’s perspective. Without this level of analysis writers simply don’t have all the tools at their disposal. In this workshop, we’ll work together to uncover the secrets of great authors, reveal the intricacies of craft, and trace authors’ influences and habits. We’ll further analyze how great authors reflect their time period and find fresh ways to manipulate language.
Amy Bloom has been a fresh, urgent voice in American fiction since her first collection of short stories; Come to Me was published in 1998. Bloom is also a novelist, but her short stories are particularly insightful in their brevity and often track marginalized people and uncomfortable issues like sexual identity and mental illness. A former psychotherapist, she brings keen insights into her characters, imbuing them with tiny, yet penetrating brushstrokes that nail their struggles and psyches. Writers can learn her art of compression, her authentic character voices, featuring flawed but fascinating characters.
An American classic, To Kill a Mockingbird is the story of a Southern family and small-town embroiled in a racially-charged scandal and trial. Readers can learn so much from the story—a searing history lesson, how to teach your kids valuable life lessons, how outsiders and kids see society. Through analysis, writers can learn how to capture a child’s sensibility, how to teach morality without being preachy or gooey, and how to stage a surprise ending. Other techniques we’ll study: the role of the narrator POV, writing a compelling static character, and how coming-of-age meets character arc with young characters.
Elmore Leonard was a wildly popular writer who wrote more than 40 novels, dozens of short stories, movie adaptations, and a popular TV series including, Justified. Stephen King called him, “The great American writer,” and The New York Times called him, “The greatest crime writer of his time, perhaps ever.” He’s known for tightrope tension, crackling, realistic dialogue, and memorable, bad ass characters up to their ears in serious trouble. But a closer look reveals other techniques worthy of emulating: how to depict pathos in a character, how honor and morality can found in unexpected places, how subtext works in a dialogue scene, how to stage twists, and how conflict is layered and always simmering.
Besides her many novels, some now turned into televisions series, Atwood is a prolific short story writer. In this story, a woman meets an old friend 50 years after their high school days, she plots his murder. Or will she go through with it? We’re going to analyze this story for its delicious use of details, suspense, and subtext, along with her deft inclusion of backstory, and an overall tone of disquiet. We’ll discuss how Atwood pulls us in from the first sentence: “From the onset, Verna never intended to murder anyone. What she had in mind was a vacation, pure and simple.”
The daughter of an abstract painter, Alyson is truly an artist, using her words like brush strokes. Following up her international best sellers, The Velvet Hour and The Lost Wife comes her latest novel, The Garden of Letters, set in Positano, a tranquil seaside village that finds WWII at its port and two random people forge a unique relationship under the threat of life and death.