Chanticleer Book Reviews

Author: donna-cameron

Spotlight on the 2021 Hearten Book Awards for Uplifting and Inspiring Non-Fiction
Hearten – “To Make More Cheerful or Confident”

Life is full of ups and downs, but you know that it’s those things that inspire and uplift us, that hearten us so we can make it through each day and onto the next. This doesn’t mean every day is easy, but it does follow the idea that every cloud has a silver lining.

You can do it! Submit to the Hearten Awards before the end of November!

The Hearten Awards came into existence thanks to the Journey Awards. In addition to burgeoning submissions of narrative Non-Fiction and Memoirs, our six Non-Fiction Awards have been exploding in popularity. The competition has never been steeper, and the time to submit has never been better. You can see the full list of Non-Fiction Awards here.

We saw the Hearten Awards as a necessary addition due to the high number of stories we receive that inspire us to live a life full of love and joy as best we can. These stories are heartwarming, empowering, and help show us a world where we are our best selves.

Tenets of Uplifting Fiction

While this fiction often has religious undertones, that isn’t alway the case, and even when there is religious inspiration at work in the text, it doesn’t proselytize or distract from the narrative at hand. The work is still meant to engage and delight readers with or without a faith background.

Handholding is a-okay in Heartwarming Non-Fiction

What the work does not include is violence, profanity, or explicit sexual content. Despite this, the emotional impact and journey taken in most inspirational texts can often lead the reader to tears, so don’t take that light-heartedness lightly. Also, don’t count out romance! Inspirational fiction has it all!

Tastes Like Chicken

Part of the inspiration for this Awards Division was the Chicken Soup for the Soul series. Other popular examples are Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert, You are a Badass by Jen Sincero, or The Secret by Rhonda Byrne. Interested in reading more about the ins and outs of inspirational fiction? Check out this article from DIYMFA.

If you love writing inspirational fiction or are interested in learning to write more of it, reading it is a great way to learn more. Here are heartwarming books that we’ve read and would recommend!

A YEAR of LIVING KINDLY
By Donna Cameron
First Place Winner in I&I Awards

Donna Cameron’s guide, A Year of Living Kindly: Choices That Will Change Your Life and the World Around You, invites readers to live more richly, thoroughly, and fruitfully.

Perhaps the best way to enjoy Cameron’s guide to kindness is to drink it in slowly, for a year, as its structure suggests. Savoring one of its 52 meditations – thoughtful, introspective, resonate, and wide-ranging discussions – each week. She turns to a new topic grouping with the advent of each new month, traversing the four parts, the “seasons,” as the year progresses.

Keep reading here

WALTZING A TWO-STEP
By Dan Juday

Dan Juday’s memoir Waltzing A Two-Step is a humble and compassionate look at his formative years.

Born a few years after the second world war, Dan experiences a peaceful and happy childhood in rural Indiana, moving frequently before the family settles on a rural area of land named Springwood in Clinton County, Indiana. The Juday family were devout Catholics and enrolled Dan and his siblings in Catholic schools until the family moved to Springwood. Public school became the only option for the siblings. There Dan does his best to fit in but his status as a minority Catholic in a mostly Protestant community in the 1950s brings its own challenges.

Keep reading here

THE BREAST IS HISTORY
By Bronwyn Hope

A realistic, up-close look at life as a cancer patient and survivor. The Breast Is History is a strong tool of hope and humor in the darkest days of any woman’s life.

In September 2011, Bronwyn Hope received her initial diagnosis of breast cancer; by March 2013 she had had both breasts removed, had gone through numerous chemo and radiation treatments, taken thousands of pills, and come out of it with a gritty, positive philosophy.

Keep reading here

ODYSSEY of LOVE
By Linda Jämsén

Odyssey of Love: A Memoir of Seeking and Finding by Linda Jämsén is an utterly charming Eastern European take on Eat – Pray – Love.

This odyssey begins with its 40-something author exchanging her job and dead-end relationship in Boston for two years in Budapest. The goal? To explore new career opportunities, live an adventurous life as an American expat in Europe, and, possibly, hopefully, find her soulmate.

Keep reading here

Have a book that Inspires and Uplifts? Submit by the end of November for the 2021 CIBAs!

See the 2020 Hearten Award Winners Here!

Looking to submit to our other Non-Fiction Divisions? See them all here!

When you’re ready, did you know that Chanticleer offers editorial services? We do and have been doing so since 2011.

Our professional editors are top-notch and are experts in the Chicago Manual of Style. They have and are working for the top publishing houses (TOR, McMillian, Thomas Mercer, Penguin Random House, Simon Schuster, etc.).

If you would like more information, we invite you to email Kiffer or Sharon at KBrown@ChantiReviews.com or SAnderson@ChantiReviews.com for more information, testimonials, and fees.

We work with a small number of exclusive clients who want to collaborate with our team of top-editors on an on-going basis. Contact us today!

Chanticleer Editorial Services also offers writing craft sessions and masterclasses. Sign up to find out where, when, and how sessions being held.
- A great way to get started is with our manuscript evaluation service, with more information available here.
- And we do editorial consultations for $75. Learn more here.
- If you’re confident in your book, consider submitting it for a Editorial Book Review here or to one of our Chanticleer International Awards here.
And remember! Our 10th Anniversary Chanticleer Authors Conference (CAC22) will be April 7-10, 2022, where our 2021 CIBA winners will be announced. Space is limited and seats are already filling up, so sign up today! CAC22 and the CIBA Ceremonies will be hosted at the Hotel Bellwether in Beautiful Bellingham, Wash. Sign up and see the latest updates here!

Writer’s Toolbox

Thank you for reading this Chanticleer Spotlight Article.

Important Links from this Article

Beyond Janette Oke: A Look at Inspirational Fiction

The traditional publishing tool that indie authors can use to propel their writing careers to new levels? The Seven Must-Haves for Authors – Unlocking the Secrets of Successful Publishing Series by Kiffer Brown
November 30, 2021
A YEAR of LIVING KINDLY: Choices that will Change Your Life and the World Around You by Donna Cameron – Spiritual Growth Self-Help, Happiness Self-Help, Communication and Social Skills

Donna Cameron’s guide, A Year of Living Kindly: Choices That Will Change Your Life and the World Around You, invites readers to live more richly, thoroughly, and fruitfully.

Perhaps the best way to enjoy Cameron’s guide to kindness is to drink it in slowly, for a year, as its structure suggests. Savoring one of its 52 meditations – thoughtful, introspective, resonate, and wide-ranging discussions – each week. She turns to a new topic grouping with the advent of each new month, traversing the four parts, the “seasons,” as the year progresses.

Of course, as Cameron will tell you, living a year of kindness is not, in the end, enough; it’s a journey suited to a lifetime. But the habit of it, the joy of it, can take root throughout a year.

Based on the experiences of its author, the book’s foundation lies in the work of a lifetime of nurturing nonprofits and championing causes from the varied perspectives of executive, consultant, trainer, and volunteer. The guide incorporates observation and situates itself also in research. In and among her insights, Cameron weaves the thoughts, studies, and findings of cultural anthropologists, philosophers, physicians, psychologists, investigative journalists, mindfulness experts, and other teachers. The source notes at the back are modest enough to be accessible to those outside academia, yet extensive enough to show sinew.

So that readers might more easily incorporate these habits of thought into their own lives, each meditation ends with a Kindness in Action exercise. Together, these exercises are the passageways to reshaping ourselves.

The four seasons – Discovery, Understanding, Choosing, and Becoming – mirror the natural contours of such a journey.

In Discovery, we learn about kindness: what it is and what it isn’t, the health benefits that being kind grants, how we might begin to be truly warm and caring. In Understanding, we learn the barriers to kindness – from within and without – and delve more deeply into opening ourselves to this way of encountering the world. In Choosing, we explore the courage that kindness can take, the roles of vulnerability and curiosity – yes, curiosity – play, and what it means to extend compassion to all, including standing up to bullies, online and off. In Becoming, we settle in to look soberly at the challenges, at what we might do to create a kinder world, and at what it means to live in kindness every day.

This structure makes for a powerful presentation and easy entry into the eddies and currents of these gently meditative discussions. But it is not, as Cameron herself notes, necessary to follow a linear path. A reader could just as quickly open the book and flip to any point within it to encounter something rich and thought-provoking to ponder that day, that week, that month.

In this journey to kindness, we might each of us follow whichever path calls to us.

Giving our whole selves to kindness helps us to become whole.

A Year of Living Kindly is a generous book brimming with open good-heartedness and calm practicality, with guidance firm yet gentle. Wise, yet itself kind. Cameron undertakes her journey from a position many would recognize – not so much unkind as hurried, distracted, disengaged. Perhaps in the habit of being, when the situation calls for it, “nice.” Civil, not especially warm. Cautious, not connected.

Cameron invites us instead to be open to the world. To be generous with our time and our talent, in word, deed, and spirit. To be aware of and awake to others. To be fully present. To be, fully.

She invites us to embrace kindness as a way of embracing life. Adopting the “mantle of kindness,” she says, will enable each of us to enjoy more entirely in the abundance of our own lives and in the richness the world has to offer. Such a journey connects us more deeply with ourselves and others, enabling us to live our best lives. And such kindness spreads. When we give so wholly of ourselves, others tend to take that gift and pass it along.

The case she makes is compelling. The message, timely. It’s an invitation that’s difficult to resist, particularly in the company of such a guide. In the world it seems we’ve all been hurtling toward in the past five years or so, Donna Cameron’s steady voice and clear-eyed vision is a balm for the soul.

Perhaps, just perhaps, with enough kindness, we might indeed remake neighborhoods, remake communities, and transform the national temper. A Year of Living Kindly placed 1st in Category in the CIBA 2019 Instruction and Insight Awards for Non-Fiction How-To manuals.

June 30, 2021
I & I Book Awards for the Best Non-Fiction Guide Books and How-To Books – 2019 CIBAs
Congratulations to the First Place Category Winners and the Grand Prize Winner of the I & I Book Awards for Non-Fiction Guides and How-To Books, a division of the 2019 CIBAs.

The CIBAs Search for the Best in the I & I Book Awards!

Chanticleer International Book Awards is looking for the best books featuring HOW-TO, Guidance, Travel Guides, Cookbooks, Instruction, Insight, Self-Help, and more.We love them all.

The 2019 I & I Book Awards First Place Category Winners and the I & I Grand Prize Winner were announced at the Virtual Chanticleer Authors Conference that was broadcast via ZOOM webinar the week of September 8-13, 2020 from the Hotel Bellwether in Bellingham, Washington.

Gail Avery Halverson, author of The Skeptical Physick, 2019 Chatelaine Grand Prize Winner and Chaucer 1st in Category Winner for the same title.

This is the OFFICIAL 2019 LIST of the I & I Book Awards First Place Category Winners and the I & I Grand Prize Winner.

Congratulations to All!
- Margaret A Hellyer – A Home on the South Fork
- Ellen Notbohm – Ten Things Every Child with Autism Wishes You Knew
- Donna Cameron – A Year of Living Kindly: Choices That Will Change Your Life and the World Around You
- Brad Borkan and David Hirzel – When Your Life Depends on It: Extreme Decision Making Lessons from the Antarctic
- Donald M. Rattner – My Creative Space: How to Design Your Home to Stimulate Ideas and Spark Innovation, 48 Science-based Techniques
- Carole Bumpus – Searching for Family and Traditions at the French Table, Book One, Savoring the Olde Ways Series
- Lisa Boucher – Raising The Bottom: Making Mindful Choices in a Drinking Culture
- Ryan M. Chukuske – Bigfoot 200: Because, You Know, Why the #@&% Not?
The I & I Book Awards
2019 Grand Prize Winner is:

Ten Things Every Child with Autism Wishes You Knew

by Ellen Notbohm

This is the original badge for the 2018 I & I Grand Prize Winner – Explore Europe on Foot by Cassandra Overby.

How to Enter the I & I Book Awards?

We are accepting submissions into the 2021 I & I Book Awards until September 30, 2021.

The 2020 I & I Book Awards winners will be announced at CAC 21 on April 17, 2021.

Don’t delay! Enter today!

A Note to ALL the WINNERS: The coveted CIBA Blue Ribbons will be mailed out starting in October. We will contact you with an email to verify your mailing address and other items. We thank you for your patience and understanding.

If you have any questions, please email info@ChantiReviews.com == we will try our best to reply in 3 or 4 business days.
October 2, 2020