Author: george-marino

  • The 2025 Harvey Chute Awards Hall of Fame for Business & Finance

    The 2025 Harvey Chute Awards Hall of Fame for Business & Finance

    Book Business in Book Awards

    ***Submit your book today!***

    You have until September 30th to submit your book to the 2025 CIBAs!

    Three Black stripes on a yellow badge CIBA Badge

    Let’s take a look at the Grand Prize Winners for the Harvey Chute Award!

    Stop Worrying About Money Cover

    Stop Worrying About Money
    By Jacqui Clarke

    Stop Worrying About Money by Jacqui Clarke serves as a lucid and candidly insightful guide to understanding the cornerstones of financial literacy, whether for a working professional, business owner, or anyone seeking to better manage their savings and investments.

    This practical and insightful approach to financial awareness endeavors to decode the mystifying fundamentals of financial freedom, wealth management, and money psychology. Rather than merely presenting facts on numbers and investments, it adopts a holistic perspective, covering principles of earning, understanding, and wisely managing money.

    Written by an experienced professional and fiscal guardian to many, Clarke’s Stop Worrying About Money paves a clear and accessible roadmap for navigating the often-chaotic terrain of financial planning.

    The book begins by exploring how upbringing and personal experiences shape a person’s financial habits.

    Read More Here

    Using Behavioral Science in Marketing
    By Nancy Harhut

    The Full Review for this book is forthcoming:

    Increase engagement, response rates and the ROI of marketing initiatives with this step-by-step guide to harnessing hardwired consumer behavior and instinctive responses.

    Using Behavioral Science in Marketing shows how to apply behavioral science principles in key areas of marketing, including marketing communications, email, direct mail and ad campaigns, social media marketing and sales funnel conversion strategies. Highly practical and accessible, it includes case studies and examples from AT&T, Apple, Spotify and The Wall Street Journal showing how these approaches have been used in practice.

    Using Behavioral Science in Marketing also reveals how to increase consumer involvement and engagement, convey exclusivity and desirability, and prompt customer action and loyalty with scientifically proven principles such as autonomy bias, storytelling, and the Von Restorff effect.

    Featuring common mistakes to avoid and key takeaways at the end of each chapter, it’s also accompanied by downloadable checklists and an interactive template to use in practice. In a highly competitive space, where even an incremental advantage can result in significant uplifts, this is a crucial resource to create stand out and successful marketing-especially for marketers in highly regulated or highly competitive environments.

    Buy it here!

    Reconfigurement Cover

    Reconfigurement
    By E. Alan Fleischauer

    A guide to achieving financial freedom in retirement, E. Alan Fleischauer’s bestseller Reconfigurement™ reveals a roadmap guided by the Mantra, “Navigate, Customize, and Thrive.”

    Advances in medicine, nutrition, and longevity planning now offer unparalleled possibilities to live longer, higher-quality lives. However, looming over this rosy image is a genuine concern: the financial ramifications of a longer retirement term. More alarming is that a sizable portion of the American populace is not harnessing their 401(k) retirement plans.

    In light of this scenario, can traditional investment programs with fraying safety nets, such as pensions, remain viable? Reconfigurement combines the emotional fulfillment of making retirement dreams a reality with practical guidance that rejects the notion of a set retirement age of 65. This work’s personal tales and sound financial guidance entice readers away from the constraints of traditional retirement approaches.

    Read More Here

    Balancing the Books Cover Image

    Beyond Balancing The Books: Sheer Mindfulness for Professionals in Work and Life
    By George Marino

    George Marino, a practicing CPA and Mindfulness Coach, explores the possibilities for sustainable positivity in one’s work-life through mindfulness principles and practices in his new book, Beyond Balancing the Books: Sheer Mindfulness for Professionals in Work and Life.

    It would be difficult to find a profession more fraught with detail, deadlines, and distress than a typical CPA. Applying to that particular realm the idea of mindful meditation is a challenge that author Marino has taken on because it is a process he has lived. He opens his book by comparing two CPAs and their approaches to life and work-life.

    Read More Here

     

    Edge Cover

    Edge: Turning Adversity into Advantage
    By Laura Huang

    Edge: Turning Adversity into Advantage by Laura Huang is a valuable mixture of business strategy, science, and examples, all directed to help readers develop their unique skills and strengths.

    Author Laura Huang takes readers through her own journey to becoming an award-winning Harvard Business School professor. Along with real-world examples of both successful entrepreneurs and up-and-coming business students, she lays out a four-part guide on how to create your personal edge.

    Creating your own edge is essential to getting ahead in life no matter who someone is or where they come from. Huang herself is a child of immigrants and was one of a few female engineering students at her university. She had to navigate her own specific challenges, figuring out what worked for her and what did not.

    Instead of being in business to invent or promote the next big thing, Huang is in the business world for its rich research opportunities.

    Read More Here


    Now that you’re set on your next reads, what are you waiting for? The only way to join this amazing list of Harvey Chute Winners is to submit today!

    Those who submit and advance will have the chance to win the Overall Grand Prize of the CIBAs and $1000!

  • The 2022 HARVEY CHUTE CIBAs Finalists for Business and Enterprise Non-fiction

    The 2022 HARVEY CHUTE CIBAs Finalists for Business and Enterprise Non-fiction

    A yellow badge with three black lines that says "Harvey Chute Awards" across the bottomThe HARVEY CHUTE Book Awards recognize emerging talent and outstanding works in the genre of Business and Enterprise Non-fiction. The Harvey Chute Book Awards is a genre division of the Chanticleer International Book Awards (The CIBAs).

    Chanticleer International Book Awards is looking for the best books featuring motivational, strategy, technology guides, social media, finance, investing & money, communications, marketing, business, and economics. We will put these books to the test and choose the best among them. See our full list of Non-Fiction Divisions here. 

    These titles have moved forward in the judging rounds from the 2022 Harvey Chute Non-Fiction Short List to the 2022 Harvey Chute Book Awards Finalists. All FINALISTS will be announced and recognized at the Chanticleer Authors Conference (CAC23).

    The First Place Category Winners, along with the CIBA Division Grand Prize winners, will be selected from the 25 CIBA divisions’ Finalists.

    We will announce the 1st Place Category winners and Grand Prize Division Winners at the CIBAs Banquet and Ceremony on Saturday, April 29th, 2023 at the luxurious Hotel Bellwether in Bellingham, Wash. sponsored by the 2023 Chanticleer Authors Conference

    These titles are in the running for the First Place and Grand Prize Winners for the 2022 Harvey Chute Book Awards novel competition for Business, Finance, and Enterprise Non-Fiction!

    Join us in cheering on the following authors and their works in the 2022 CIBAs.

    • J.W. Huebner – The Irrelevant Old Brand: A Business Fable About Taking Your Brand from Mediocre to Must-Have
    • Melina Palmer – What Your Customer Wants and Can’t Tell You
    • Melina Palmer – What Your Employees Need and Can’t Tell You
    • Joanne Griffin & Declan Foster – Humology
    • Christopher H. Volk – The Value Equation: A Business Guide to Wealth Creation for Entrepreneurs, Leaders and Investors
    • Mitzi Perdue – Mark Victor Hansen, Relentless: Wisdom Behind the Incomparable Chicken Soup for the Soul
    • Morag Barrett – You, Me, We: Why we all need a friend at work (and how to show up as one!)
    • Chad Carr – The Art and Science of Culture: The Power of Seeing What’s Hidden
    • Edmund Yeung – Winning Your Biggest Paycheck
    • E. Alan Fleischauer – Reconfigurement
    • Louise Carnachan – Work Jerks: How to Cope with Difficult Bosses and Colleagues
    • Asha Aravindakshan – Skills: The Common Denominator
    • Donna McCart Welser – Rue’s Butterfly
    • Jeff Kavanaugh and Corey Glickman – Practical Sustainability: Circular Commerce, Smarter Spaces and Happier Humans

    PROMOTING OUR AUTHORS! 

    This post has been posted on the Chanticleer Facebook Page. We try to tag all authors listed here in the FB post. However, for FB to allow us to tag an author, that author must LIKE our page and Follow Chanticleer Reviews. FB rules — not ours.

    Please click here to visit our page to LIKE, COMMENT, and SHARE on Facebook.

    Additionally, we also post on Twitter. Chanticleer Twitter’s handle is @ChantiReviews

    Or click here to go directly to Chanticleer’s Twitter feed.

    Good luck to all as your works move on the next rounds of judging.

    Blue and Gold badge for the Finalists of the Harvey Chute Business Nonfiction Award

    The Grand Prize Winner for the CIBA 2021 Harvey Chute Awards is George Marino for Beyond Balancing the Books

    Balancing the Books Cover Image

    Click here to see the 2021 Harvey Chute Book Award Winners for Business & Finance Non-Fiction

    We are now accepting submissions into the 2023 Harvey Chute Book Awards for Business & Finance. The 2023 CIBA winners will be announced at CAC 2024. 

    Please click here for more information.

    See our Full List of Non-Fiction Divisions here!

    Winners will be announced at the 2022 CIBA Awards Ceremony that is sponsored by the 2023 Chanticleer Authors Conference.

    April 27 – 30, 2023! Register Today!

    Seating is Limited. The esteemed WRITER Magazine (founded in 1887)  has repeatedly recognized the Chanticleer Authors Conference as one of the best conferences to attend and participate in for North America.

    Join us for our 11th annual conference and discover why!

    A Collage of Speakers and Blue Ribbon Winners for CAC23

  • The 2022 HARVEY CHUTE CIBAs Short List for Business and Enterprise Non-fiction

    The 2022 HARVEY CHUTE CIBAs Short List for Business and Enterprise Non-fiction

    Business, Technology, and Enterprise Non-Fiction Guides and How-To Book Awards | Chanticleer Book Reviews

    The HARVEY CHUTE Book Awards recognize emerging talent and outstanding works in the genre of Business and Enterprise Non-fiction. The Harvey Chute Book Awards is a genre division of the Chanticleer International Book Awards (The CIBAs).

    Chanticleer International Book Awards is looking for the best books featuring motivational, strategy, technology guides, social media, finance, investing & money, communications, marketing, business, and economics. We will put these books to the test and choose the best among them. See our full list of Non-Fiction Divisions here. 

    These titles have moved forward in the judging rounds from all 2022 Harvey Chute Non-Fiction entries to the 2022 Harvey Chute Book Awards SHORT LIST.  Finalists will be selected from the Short List. All FINALISTS will be announced and recognized at the Chanticleer Authors Conference (CAC23).

    The First Place Category Winners, along with the CIBA Division Grand Prize winners, will be selected from the 25 CIBA divisions’ Finalists.

    We will announce the 1st Place Category winners and Grand Prize Division Winners at the CIBAs Banquet and Ceremony on Saturday, April 29th, 2023 at the luxurious Hotel Bellwether in Bellingham, Wash. sponsored by the 2023 Chanticleer Authors Conference

    These titles are in the running for the Finalists Level of Achievement for the 2022 Harvey Chute Book Awards novel competition for Business, Finance, and Enterprise Non-Fiction!

    Join us in cheering on the following authors and their works in the 2022 CIBAs.

    • J.W. Huebner – The Irrelevant Old Brand: A Business Fable About Taking Your Brand from Mediocre to Must-Have
    • Melina Palmer – What Your Customer Wants and Can’t Tell You
    • Bruce Graham – Unemployment and You
    • Melina Palmer – What Your Employees Need and Can’t Tell You
    • Joanne Griffin & Declan Foster – Humology
    • Christopher H. Volk – The Value Equation: A Business Guide to Wealth Creation for Entrepreneurs, Leaders and Investors
    • Mitzi Perdue – Mark Victor Hansen, Relentless: Wisdom Behind the Incomparable Chicken Soup for the Soul
    • Morag Barrett – You, Me, We: Why we all need a friend at work (and how to show up as one!)
    • Chad Carr – The Art and Science of Culture: The Power of Seeing What’s Hidden
    • Edmund Yeung – Winning Your Biggest Paycheck
    • E. Alan Fleischauer – Reconfigurement
    • Louise Carnachan – Work Jerks: How to Cope with Difficult Bosses and Colleagues
    • Asha Aravindakshan – Skills: The Common Denominator
    • Donna McCart Welser – Rue’s Butterfly
    • Jeff Kavanaugh and Corey Glickman – Practical Sustainability: Circular Commerce, Smarter Spaces and Happier Humans

    PROMOTING OUR AUTHORS! 

    This post has been posted on the Chanticleer Facebook Page. We try to tag all authors listed here in the FB post. However, for FB to allow us to tag an author, that author must LIKE our page and Follow Chanticleer Reviews. FB rules — not ours.

    Please click here to visit our page to LIKE, COMMENT, and SHARE on Facebook.

    Additionally, we also post on Twitter. Chanticleer Twitter’s handle is @ChantiReviews

    Or click here to go directly to Chanticleer’s Twitter feed.

    Good luck to all as your works move on the next rounds of judging.

    The Grand Prize Winner for the CIBA 2021 Harvey Chute Awards is George Marino for Beyond Balancing the Books

    Balancing the Books Cover Image

    Click here to see the 2021 Harvey Chute Book Award Winners for Business & Finance Non-Fiction

    We are now accepting submissions into the 2023 Harvey Chute Book Awards for Business & Finance. The 2023 CIBA winners will be announced at CAC 2024. 

    Please click here for more information.

    See our Full List of Non-Fiction Divisions here!

    Winners will be announced at the 2022 CIBA Awards Ceremony that is sponsored by the 2023 Chanticleer Authors Conference.

    April 27 – 30, 2023! Register Today!

    Seating is Limited. The esteemed WRITER Magazine (founded in 1887)  has repeatedly recognized the Chanticleer Authors Conference as one of the best conferences to attend and participate in for North America.

    Join us for our 11th annual conference and discover why!

    A Collage of Speakers and Blue Ribbon Winners for CAC23

  • Part Three of Three Official Postings of the 2021 Chanticleer International Book Awards (#CIBAs) Overall Grand Prize and Division Grand Prize and First Place Category Winners

    Part Three of Three Official Postings of the 2021 Chanticleer International Book Awards (#CIBAs) Overall Grand Prize and Division Grand Prize and First Place Category Winners

    We are deeply honored and excited to continue to announce the 2021 Winners of the Chanticleer International Book Awards (The CIBAs) with our third and final of three official postings.

    CIBA Grand Prize Ribbons!

    The winners were recognized at the CIBA ceremonies held on June 25th, 2022 in-person and by ZOOM webinars  at the luxurious Hotel Bellwether, Bellingham, Wash.

     

    The CIBA announcements were made LIVE with Chanticleerians participating and interacting from around the globe and North America.

    Raising our glasses to cheer the CIBA Winners!

    We want to thank all of the CIBA judges who read each and every entry and then comment, rate, and rank within each of the 25 CIBA Divisions. Without your labors of love for books, the Chanticleer International Book Awards would not exist. THANK YOU!

    A pyramid showing the different levels of CIBA Achievement

     

    We want to thank all of the authors and publishers who participated in the 2021 Chanticleer International Book Awards (the CIBAs). Each year, we find the quality of the entries and the competitiveness of the division competitions increasing exponentially. We added a new level to the judging rounds in 2019—the premier Level of FINALIST per each CIBA Division. The CIBA judges wanted to add the Finalist Level of Achievement as a way to recognize and validate the entries that had outstanding merit but were not selected for the very few First Place Award positions within each genre division.

    This post will recognize the First Place and Grand Prize Winners for the

    Seven Non-Fiction Divisions:

    Journey, Hearten, Harvey Chute, Mind and Spirit, I & I, Military & Frontline and Nellie Bly

    along with the FIRST Winners for the 

    Short Story, and Book Series Awards,

    and concluding with the 

     OVERALL 2021 GRAND PRIZE WINNER 

    for the 2021 Chanticleer International Book Awards 

    For the Cygnus, Ozma, Paranormal, Global Thrillers, M&M, Clue, Little Peeps, Gertrude Warner, and Dante Rossetti Book Awards, please click here for Part 1.

    For the Laramie, Chaucer, Goethe, Hemingway, Chatelaine, Mark Twain, and Somerset Awards, click here for Part 2.


    Journey Narrative Non-Fiction

    The JOURNEY Book Awards for

    Narrative Non-Fiction, Memoirs, and Biographies 

    Grand Prize Winner is

     

    BETTER OFF BALD: A Life in 147 Days

     

    The Journey First Place Category Winners are:

    • Rosie McMahan – Fortunate Daughter: A Memoir of Reconciliation
    • Rosemary Keevil – The Art of Losing It: A Memoir of Grief and Addiction
    • Heather Haldeman – Kids and Cocktails Don’t Mix: A Memoir
    • Kathleen Lockyer – The Broken Wing Dance — Love, loss, trauma and how nature led me back to my wild self
    • C.L. Olsen – The Home for Friendless Children  

    I&I or Instruction & Insight Awards CIBA Badge

     

    The INSTRUCTION and INSIGHT Book Awards

    for How-To Guides, Travel Guides, Cook Books, Self-Help, and Enlightenment

    Grand Prize Winner is 

     

    THE BLACK FOSTER YOUTH HANDBOOK by Angela Quijada-BanksBlack Foster Youth Handbook Cover

    The I & I  First Place Category Winners are:

    • Wendela Whitcomb Marsh – Recognizing Autism in Women and Girls
    • Geraldine Clouston and Susan Weintrob – indieBRAG Eat, Read & Dream Cookbook
    • Jim & Jessica Braz – Baby Out of Wedlock
    • Phoebe Walker – Freedom Found – Productive and Joyful Living In Spite of Chronic Pain
    • M. J. Simms-Maddox, Ph.D. – A Handbook for Emerging and Seasoned Authors        

    Congratulations to the Inaugural 

    AWARD WINNERS for the

    Military and Front Line Book Awards

    of the CIBAs

    The MILITARY & FRONT LINE Book Awards

    for Service to Others Non-Fiction 

    Grand Prize Winner is

    Dear Bob Military & Front Line Grand Prize Badge

    DEAR BOB: Bob Hope’s Wartime Correspondance with the G.I.s of World War II by Martha Bolten with Linda Hope

    Dear Bob Cover

    The Military & Front Line  First Place Category Winners are:

    • Vicki Cody – Fly Safe: Letters from the Gulf War and Reflections From Back Home
    • Grover Nicodemus Street RN, Sandra de Abreu Guidry-Street MD, & Ja-ne de Abreu – Chasing the Surge: Life as a Travel Nurse in a Global Pandemic
    • Margaret Thomson – The World Looks Different Now
    • Burl Harmon – Combat Missions
    • George Farag – Unbecoming My Father’s Son: A Memoir

    Nellie Bly Awards

    The NELLIE BLY Book Awards

    for Investigative and Long Form Journalism Non-Fiction 

    Grand Prize Winner is

    America's Forgotten Suffragists Virginia and Francis Minor Nellie Bly Grand Prize Badge

     

    AMERICA’S FORGOTTEN SUFFRAGISTS: Virginia and Francis Minor
    by Nicole Evelina

    America's Forgotten Suffragists Virginia and Francis Minor Cover

    The Nellie Bly First Place Category Winners are:

    • Dori Jones Yang – When the Red Gates Opened
    • Dr. Kate Dolan – Beating Drug Addiction in Tehran: a Women’s Clinic
    • Abe Streep – Brothers on Three: A True Story of Family, Resistance, and Hope on a Reservation in Montana
    • Janice S. Ellis, Ph.D. – Advancing the Good Society:  Real Advocacy Journalism in Action

    Three Black stripes on a yellow badge CIBA Badge

    The HARVEY CHUTE Book Awards

    for Business & Enterprise Non-Fiction 

    Grand Prize Winner is

    Beyond Balancing the Books Harvey Chute Grand Prize Badge

    BEYOND BALANCING THE BOOKS by George Marino

    Balancing the Books Cover Image

     

    The Harvey Chute First Place Category Winners are:

    • Stan Bernard, MD, MBA – Brands Don’t Win: How Transcenders Change Games
    • Thomas Wideman – Welfare Cheese to Fine Caviar: How to Achieve Your Dreams Despite Your Upbringing
    • Kate Dixon – Pay Up! Unlocking Insider Secrets of Salary Negotiation
    • Cash Nickerson – Negotiating As a Martial Art

    Mind and Spirit Non-Fiction Awards

    The MIND & SPIRIT Book Awards

    for Spirituality and Enlightenment Non-Fiction

    Grand Prize Winner is

    Grand Prize Badge for Enlighten Up by Beth Gibbs

    ENLIGHTEN UP! by Beth Gibbs

     

    The Mind and Spirit First Place Category Winners are:

    • Mike Lutz – Jesus Speaking
    • Reagan J. Pasternak – Griffin’s Heart: Mourning Your Pet With No Apologies
    • Tammy Green – Living Without Skin: Everything I Never Knew About Fierce Vulnerability
    • Starr Regan DiCiurcio – Divine Sparks: Interfaith Wisdom for a Postmodern World    

    The HEARTEN Book Awards

    for Uplifting and Inspiring Non-Fiction

    Grand Prize Winner is

    2021 Heart Grand Prize Badge for DAWGS by Diane Trull and Meredith Wargo

     

    DAWGS: A True Story of Lost Animals and the Kids Who Rescued Them
    By Diane Trull and Meredith Wargo

    Cover of DAWGS

     

    The Hearten First Place Category Winners are:

     


    The SHORT STORY Book Awards

    for the CIBA Short Story Collections

    Grand Prize Winner is

    New York Give me your best or your worst Shorts (collections) Grand Prize Badge

    NEW YORK: Give Me Your Best or Your Worst by Elizabeth Crowens

    New York Give me your best or your worst cover

     

    The Shorts First Place Category Winners are:

     

    • Leah Angstman – Shoot the Horses First
    • Susannah Dawn – I’m Not What I Used To Be, Yet I Am Who I’ve Always Been – Excerpts From My Journey
    • Domenick Venezia – The Edwerd Chronicles
    • Frances Howard-Snyder – Through a Glass Darkly 
    • Helena P. Schrader – Grounded Eagles 

    The SHORT STORY Book Awards

    for Short Stories, Novelettes, and Novellas

    Grand Prize Winner is

    Grand Prize Badge for Toni Ann Johnson's Homegoing

     

    HOMEGOING by Toni Ann Johnson

    Homegoing Cover

    The Shorts First Place Category Winners are:

     

     

    • Gina Detwiler – Before: Jared’s Story
    • M. K. Wiseman – Sherlock Holmes & the Ripper of Whitechapel
    • Elizabeth Wolf – The Royal Foetus: A very short novel based on the very short life of King Louis XVII
    • Lindy Miller – Sleigh Bells on Bread Loaf Mountain
    • Vicky Oliver – A Valentine to my Mothers and Other Dubious Role Models
    • Kourtney Spadoni – In The Underwood

     

    The BOOK SERIES Book Awards

    for Fiction Series

    Grand Prize Winner is

    THE GUINEVERE’S TALE TRILOGY by Nicole Evelina

    The three books in the Guinevere's Tale Trilogy

    Daughter of Destiny, Camelot’s Queen, and Mistress of Legend

     

    The Series First Place Category Winners are:

     

    Ozma Book Awards for Series – Fantasy Fiction

    • M. K. Wiseman – The Bookminder series

    Dante Rossetti Book Awards for Series – Young Adult

    • Pamela Beason – Run for Your Life

    Chatelaine Book Awards for Series – Romantic Fiction

    • Janet K. Shawgo – Look For Me Series

    CLUE Book Awards for Series – Thriller/Suspense

    • Kaylin McFarren – Threads

    Mystery & Mayhem Book Awards for Series – Mysteries / Cozy and Not-so-Cozy

    • Amy S. Peele – A Transplant Medical Murder Mystery series

      Laramie Book Awards for Series – Americana / Western Fiction

      • E. Alan Fleischauer – JT Thomas’s Series – Western series

       


      CONGRATULATIONS to ALL! 

      The 2021 CIBA Overall Grand Prize Winner

      And NOW for the 

      2021 CHANTICLEER INT’L BOOK AWARDS

      BEST BOOK

      and

      OVERALL GRAND PRIZE WINNER

      The Devil Pulls the Strings Book Cover

      THE DEVIL PULLS THE STRINGS

      by J.W. Zarek

      J.W. Zarek will also be awarded $1,000 USD in recognition of her 2021 BEST BOOK of the YEAR – Chanticleer International Book Awards – Sponsored by Chanticleer Reviews & Media. 

      A Chanticleer Review of The Devil Pulls the Strings will be featured in the in the Chanticleer Reviews OnWord Magazine (print and epub) along with other promotional and marketing opportunities along with an interview with the author, J.W. Zarek.

      Thank you J.W. Zarek for participating in the 2021 Chanticleer International Book Awards. We look forward to receiving future work in our CIBAs.

      CONGRATULATIONS J.W. Zarek! 

      Six Grand Prize Winners with J.W. Zarek, the 2021 Overall Grand Prize Winner!

      From all of us at Chanticleer International Book Awards and Chanticleer Reviews. 

      Looking for your Division? Check out our previous posts:

      For the Cygnus, Ozma, Paranormal, Global Thrillers, M&M, Clue, Little Peeps, Gertrude Warner, and Dante Rossetti Book Awards, please click here for Part 1.

      For the Laramie, Chaucer, Goethe, Hemingway, Chatelaine, Mark Twain, and Somerset Awards, click here for Part 2.


      THANK YOU to VCAC21 SPONSORS and FRIENDS

       

      And to FRIENDS of CHANTICLEER REVIEWS:

      Cathy Ace, J.D. Barker, Robert Dugoni, Chris Humphreys, Bradley Metrock, Jessica Morrell, Scott Steindorff, and Paul Hanson of Village Books


       

      We will post more photographs and information. Do check back and subscribe to the Chanticleer Reviews e-news letter.

      We have exciting news for the Chanticleer Community on the horizon so do stay tuned!  

      You know you want a coveted Chanticleer Reviews Blue Ribbon! 

      Submit your works (manuscripts or novels published after or on January 1, 2019, are accepted) to the prestigious Chanticleer International Book Awards today! Entries are being accepted into the 2022 CIBAs in all 18 fiction divisions and seven non-fiction divisions. 

      Be sure to register early for the 11th Chanticleer Authors Conference that will start on April 23rd, 2023 with the 2022 CIBA banquet and ceremony scheduled to take place on Saturday, April 25th, 2023 at the luxurious Hotel Bellwether in Bellingham, Wash.

      Be well. Stay Healthy. Take Care!

      An email will go out to all 2021 CIBA award winners prior to October 30, 2022, with instructions, links, and more information about the awards packages. We appreciate your patience. As stated many times before “One does not need to be present at the CIBA ceremony and banquet to win. But it sure is a lot more fun!”

      As always, please contact us at Chanticleer@ChantiReviews.com with any questions, concerns, or suggestions!

      We need good books, now more than ever!

      The Chanticleer Reviews Team

    • Labor Day 2021 | Celebrating Workers in the US and some of our Favorite Reads

      Labor Day 2021 | Celebrating Workers in the US and some of our Favorite Reads

      Hello Chanticleerians and we hope you are enjoying your Three Day Weekend for Labor Day!

      For many of us who write, it’s a full time job on top of the day job we already have. And, as writing is a full time business, we deserve a little recognition for all the work we put in on top of any other labor we already do. Let’s look at the history of Labor Day and some stories that remind us how far we’ve come, and others that show us possibly how far we may be able to go!

      First off, while Grover Cleveland officially signed Labor Day into law in 1894, people aren’t sure if it was Peter McGuire or Matthew Maguire, the cofounder of the American Federation of Labor and a secretary of the Central Labor Union respectively, who actually began the holiday.  While there are more Maguires there than in the new Spiderman movie, there is no confusion on why Labor Day started. You can learn more from the Department of Labor here.

      While Tobey Maguire was a great Spiderman, that’s not who were talking about here.

      Labor Day is a celebration of the achievements, both social and economic, of workers in the United States. The holiday recognizes the contributions these workers make to the nation’s prosperity and well-being. Now, more than ever, it’s clear that our essential workers deserve recognition, celebration, and a thriving wage.

      In describing the need for Labor Day, History.com says:

      People of all ages, particularly the very poor and recent immigrants, often faced extremely unsafe working conditions, with insufficient access to fresh air, sanitary facilities and breaks.

      Remembering Labor Day is a great way to remind ourselves that conditions can always be better for workers across the board.

      The Starting of Labor Day on DS9
      The Ferengi Rom facing down his brother Quark and forming a union in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’s episode “Bar Association”

      When we think of the history of labor in this country, ways people can make a difference right now, and where we might be going, there’s a whole world of books that opens up to us! Here are just a few that we recommend!


      Working Fiction

      Infants of the Brush
      By A.M. Watson

      A little boy is sold into an apprenticeship as a chimney sweep in eighteenth-century London, and soon learns the horrors of that profession.

      Six-year-old Egan lost his father from an accident at sea, and now, may lose his little sister from illness. The only way his penniless mother can save her daughter is to sell Egan into an apprenticeship in order to purchase medicine. As a small boy, he will make an ideal “broomer;” a businessman named Armory gladly takes Egan into the fold. Under Armory’s absolute dictatorship he will sleep with other wretched boys on soot sacks, eat gruel, get bloody beatings for the slightest infraction, and risk his life almost daily.

      Continue Reading here…

      The Selah Branch
      By Ted Neill
      First Place Winner in Cygnus Awards

      The Selah Branch combines two surprising stories into one enthralling whole.

      It begins with a ripped from the headlines feel, diving deeply into issues of race, class, poverty, and hopelessness in Selah Branch, WV. A town whose brighter future of uplift, integration, opportunity, and prosperity was wiped out one summer night in 1953 when a chemical explosion destroyed the promising university town and replaced it with a hazardous waste site. Like Chernobyl, only with a smaller footprint and chemical residue substituting for nuclear waste. But just as deadly.

      The story views Selah Branch through the eyes of Kenia Dezy, an African-American public health student on a summer practicum. She’s to determine if a simple app can steer people towards healthier food choices and better health outcomes in a town empty of jobs, filled with poverty and hopelessness, marooned in the middle of a food desert.

      Continue Reading here…

      Where we are now

      Beyond Balancing the Books
      By George Marino, CPA, CFP

      Balancing the Books Cover Image

      George Marino, a practicing CPA and Mindfulness Coach, explores the possibilities for sustainable positivity in one’s work-life through mindfulness principles and practices in his new book, Beyond Balancing the Books: Sheer Mindfulness for Professionals in Work and Life.

      It would be difficult to find a profession more fraught with detail, deadlines, and distress than a typical CPA. Applying to that particular realm the idea of mindful meditation is a challenge that author Marino has taken on because it is a process he has lived. He opens his book by comparing two CPAs and their approaches to life and work-life.

      Continue Reading here…

      Welfare Cheese to Fine Caviar
      By Thomas Wideman

      Welfare Cheese to Fine Caviar Book Image

      Thomas Wideman, the author of this dynamic self-help manual, Welfare Cheese to Fine Caviar: How to Achieve Your Dreams Despite Your Upbringing, rose from poverty and dismay to a life of security and personal achievement through techniques he shares with readers who can incorporate them into their own life plans.

      Wideman came from an impoverished African American family wracked by confusion, chaos, and, at times, criminality. His mother had three sons by three fathers, and he would come to know his own father only peripherally, eventually learning that the man murdered people and subsequently died in prison. The boy grew up in tough neighborhoods and ate “welfare cheese” (a block of pre-sliced heavy American cheese that supposedly melted well). Every month, making ends meet became more and more difficult. In an early chapter of this finely woven chronology, we see him taking food from trains parked along the railroad tracks and running from the authorities. In this, as in each new chapter, he speaks of confronting severe issues and finding ways to resolve them. In the case of the theft and other childhood incidents of fighting, experiencing bullies, and battling racism, he speaks of making up his mind that “my circumstances need not be my limitation.”

      Continue Reading here…

      Where We Might Go

      Narada’s Children
      By Woody Carter, PhD

      A colorful fable resonates with contrasting modalities of mysticism and social action, exploring how culture and religion can separate us or bind us together.

      Narada is a traveler and a stranger when he first meets the lovely Hohete and her people in the ancient city of Ja’Usu. Given water, food, and shelter by Hohete’s family, Narada is sharply questioned by village elders who are stymied by his forthright statement that he is a representative of a deity named The Great Mystery. So they conspire to remake him as a storyteller, to reduce his power and profit from his talent for spinning yarns by selling refreshments to his audience.

      Narada’s Children


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    • Beyond Balancing the Books: Sheer Mindfulness for Professionals in Work and Life by George Marino, CPA/CFP – Mindfulness, Healthy Lifestyles, Positive Transformation

      Beyond Balancing the Books: Sheer Mindfulness for Professionals in Work and Life by George Marino, CPA/CFP – Mindfulness, Healthy Lifestyles, Positive Transformation

      George Marino, a practicing CPA and Mindfulness Coach, explores the possibilities for sustainable positivity in one’s work-life through mindfulness principles and practices in his new book, Beyond Balancing the Books: Sheer Mindfulness for Professionals in Work and Life.

      It would be difficult to find a profession more fraught with detail, deadlines, and distress than a typical CPA. Applying to that particular realm the idea of mindful meditation is a challenge that author Marino has taken on because it is a process he has lived. He opens his book by comparing two CPAs and their approaches to life and work-life.

      Larry wakes up early, already stressed by the problems facing him at the office. Whenever he’s alone, he reaches for the nearest device to fill the silence; he is a Type A personality, driven and competitive. However, work increases his inner anxieties, fears, and self-doubts. Amy, by contrast, wakes at her usual time, feeling rested, starting the day with a positive mantra, enjoying breakfast with her family, and looking forward to the possibilities of helping others through her work skills, focusing on the client’s needs and feelings. Through these examples and many others, Marino illustrates basic tenets and techniques of mindfulness, a practice that, among other benefits, can reduce physical symptoms of stress.

      Marino has designed his mindfulness-based template around the phrase “beyond balancing the books,” or the three B’s.

      “Beyond” signifies the stillness and peacefulness that result from reining in the thought process by simply becoming aware of one’s surroundings. “Balancing” refers to the blending of “human” and “being,” that is, of one’s typical human physical state and the possibilities of a mental or spiritual realm that exists and can intermingle with, and enhance, one’s physical existence. “The books” represents our “accounting for what really counts” – finding higher purpose. Simple exercises, such as three minutes of deep breathing, provide a start in the right direction. Marino expands the practices to help readers examine their true feelings about troublesome situations. Doing so helps his clients to accept and allow their feelings to meld into larger, positive goals.

      Marino has a second career as a life coach, where he counsels those in his own profession and those outside of the accounting world. At One Heart Coaching, LLC, he employs images of the accountant’s crucially essential work tasks of preparing taxes and assisting in business management. His book is filled with a wide variety of wisdom, from the classical – Sufi poet Hafiz, Shakespeare, modern writer Eckhart Tolle (The Power of Now). Discovering and practicing mindfulness changed Marino’s life, and he desires to help as many individuals as possible.

      Readers will benefit from the many supplemental resources such as a “Mindfulness at Work Questionnaire for Professionals” and a reading list for further study. Marino’s guidebook is a rich mine of helpful advice for anyone seeking a calmer, more spiritually focused approach to life’s dilemmas. Highly Recommended!

       

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