Author: miriam-polli

  • The SHORTS Book Awards 2022 CIBA WINNERS for Short Stories and Essays

    The SHORTS Book Awards 2022 CIBA WINNERS for Short Stories and Essays

    The Short Story Awards recognize emerging talent and outstanding works in Short Stories, Essays, Novelettes, and Novellas. The Short Story Awards is a division of the Chanticleer International Book Awards program.

    The Chanticleer International Book Awards program discovers today’s best works. The Short Stories Awards discovers the Best New Shorts in Fiction and Narrative Non-Fiction. These books have advanced to the next judging rounds. We will put them to the test and choose the best among them.

    NOTE: We are posting the Novellas and Collected Works in a different post. These are Short Stories and Essays

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

    This is the OFFICIAL 2022 LIST of the SHORTS BOOK AWARDS First Place Category Winners and the SHORTS Grand Prize Winner.

    Congratulations to the FIRST PLACE CATEGORY WINNERS of Individual Short Stories, Novellas, and Essays Awards,  a division of the 2022 CIBAs.

    Join us in celebrating the following authors and their works!

    • Mike Murphey – Old Man Baseball

    • J.L. Oakley – Sons and Streams

    • Leslie Wibberley – The Poison Garden

    • Miriam Polli – Agathos

    • Ray Dionne – Harvest Day

    The Grand Prize Winner for the CIBA 2022 Short Story Awards is:

    Old Man Baseball

    by Mike Murphey

    The Grand Prize for Short Stories and Essays in the Shorts Awards for Old Man Baseball by Mike Murphey

    PROMOTING OUR AUTHORS! 

    Attn CIBA Winners: More goodies and prizes will be coming your way along with promotion in our magazine, website, and advertisements in Chanticleer Int’l Book Awards long-tail marketing strategy. Welcome to the CIBA Hall of Fame for Award Winners!

    This post has been posted on the Chanticleer Facebook Page. We try to tag all authors listed here in the Facebook post. However, for Facebook to allow us to tag an author, that author must LIKE our page and Follow Chanticleer Reviews.

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

    To ALL the WINNERS: You will receive an OFFICIAL EMAIL NOTIFICATION with Digital Badges and more information.

    Grand Prize Division Winners will receive a customized digital badge. When we receive it from our graphic artist, we will also post here and in the Grand Prize Division Winners Official Posting.

    Thank you for participating in the 2022 CIBAs! We are looking forward to reading your future entries.

    Team Chanticleer!

     

     

  • SPOTLIGHT on CHATELAINE and Its Hall of Fame Authors – Romance Novels & Romantic Fiction in all its Forms!

    SPOTLIGHT on CHATELAINE and Its Hall of Fame Authors – Romance Novels & Romantic Fiction in all its Forms!

    Chanticleer Book Reviews is seeking today’s best books featuring romantic themes and adventures of the heart, historical love affairs, perhaps a little steamy romance, we will put them to the test and choose the best among them.

    Find out more about the stunning beauty that Dante Rossetti painted, Jane Morris, at the end of this blog post.

     

    Do you have a romance novel or manuscript ready for readers?

    Do you want to see how it stands up to others in its category?

    Then don’t delay! The CHATELAINE Book Awards division is accepting submissions from both recently published and complete manuscripts in romance and romantic fiction. But this year we’ve moved our deadline – to keep you on your toes!

    The new deadline for the Chatelaine Awards is AUGUST 31, 2020

    That’s right, the last day for submissions into the 2020 Chatelaine Book Awards is August 31, 2020. So, if you love Piña Coladas – and getting caught in the rain… I mean, if you like writing about those things, and other things having to do with matters of the heart, including these:

    The Chatelaine Awards Categories are:|
    Contemporary Romance
    Historical Romance
    Adventure & Suspense
    Romantic Steamy/Sensual (Not Erotic)
    Inspirational/Restorative

    Send them in today! What are you waiting for?

    Click here for more information and submission form! 

    Don’t Delay! Enter Today! 

    Insiders’ Tip: Other genre divisions of the Chanticleer International Book Awards have romance categories as well. Multiple submissions of the same work to a variety of  CIBA writing competitions divisions are accepted. Check out our divisions here. 

     

     

     

     

    Please join us in congratulating and reading these top works in this diverse range of all reads Chatelaine: Romance, Chick-Lit,  Women’s Fiction, Inspirational, Suspenseful, and, of course, Steamy and Sensual in the
    CHATELAINE HALL of FAME!


    Nicola Slade took home the Chatelaine Grand Prize Ribbon in 2018 for The House at Ladywell.

    Congratulations to the 2018 CHATELAINE Book Awards for Romantic Fiction  First in Category Winners!

     


    Leigh Grant’s MASK OF DREAMS  took home the Chatelaine Grand Prize Ribbon for 2017.

    The First Place Category Winners of the CIBA 2017 CHATELAINE Awards:

     

     

     

     

     


      M.A. Clarke Scott’s The ART of ENCHANTMENT took home the 2016 Chatelaine Grand Prize.

     

    The First Place Category Winners of the CIBA 2016 CHATELAINE Awards:

     


    Nicole Evelina’s DAUGHTER of DESTINY took both the Chatelaine Grand Prize and the OVERALL Grand Prize winner for 2015.


     

    The First Place Category Winners of the CIBA 2015 CHATELAINE Awards:

     


    Janet Shawgo’s FIND ME AGAIN won the 2014 Chatelaine Grand Prize.

    Find Me Again Janet Shawgo

    The First Place Category Winners of the CIBA 2014 CHATELAINE Awards:


    Kate Vale’s CHOICES was awarded the 2013 Chatelaine Grand Prize and took home the OVERALL Grand Prize for best book of the year!

     

    The First Place Category Winners of the CIBA 2013 CHATELAINE Awards:

    • Historical Romance: The Lily and the Lion by Catherine T. Wilson & Catherine A. Wilson
    • Southern Romance: Swamp Secret by Eleanor Tatum
    • Mystery: The Hourglass by Sharon Struth
    • Jane Austen Inspired: Pulse and Prejudice by Colette Saucier
    • Paranormal: Crimson Flames by Ashley Robertson
    • Christian Inspirational Romance: Chasing Charlie by C. M. Newman
    • Restorative: A Path through the Garden by Nancy LaPonzina
    • Classic Bodice Ripper: To Dare the Duke of Dangerfield by Bronwen Evans

     Who will win the CHATELAINE Book Awards Blue Ribbons for 2020?

    The judging rounds will commence in August! Submit your works today!

    The last day for submissions into the 2020 Chatelaine Book Awards is August 31, 2020. Winners will be announced at our CAC21 conference – scheduled for April

    Click here for more information and submission form! 

    Don’t Delay! Enter Today! 

    And remember our Insiders’ Tip: Other genre divisions of the Chanticleer International Book Awards have romance categories as well. Multiple submissions of the same work to a variety of  CIBA writing competitions divisions are accepted. Check it out here!


    A little information about the Chatelaine Book Awards icon:

    Romance Fiction Award

     

    We feel that Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s Pre-Raphaelite painting of Jane Morris (muse and wife of William Morris) in a Blue Silk Dress captures the many moods of the Chatelaine division of the Chanticleer International Book Awards.  Jane Morris (nee Jane Burden—little is known about her childhood but that it was poor and deprived) was known for her keen intelligence. William Morris fell in love with her when she sat for him as a model. She was privately tutored to become a gentleman’s wife upon their engagement. It is said that she was the inspiration for George Bernard Shaw’s character Eliza Dolittle of My Fair Lady fame. The Blue Silk Dress was painted in 1868 by Rossetti and it currently resides in the Society for Antiquaries of London.  She was 29 when Rossetti painted it. Rossetti and Jane Morris became closely attached until his death in 1882. To read more about the fascinating Jane Morris, click on this Wikipedia page.

  • IN a VERTIGO of SILENCE by Miriam Polli

    IN a VERTIGO of SILENCE by Miriam Polli

    Debut novelist Miriam Polli has written an interwoven, multi-generational story, spanning four decades from the 1920s to the 1960s, of a grandmother who is a first-generation Polish American immigrant, her daughters, and her granddaughter.

    The novel moves back and forth in time, juxtaposing the granddaughter Emily’s story with those of her mother, her aunts, and her grandmother. As you are drawn into the lives of each of these women and the choices they made, you slowly begin to realize the impact on each successive generation and in particular, on Emily.

    As the grandmother is dying, a terrible family secret, one that dates from when Emily was just six weeks old, comes to light. How will this secret affect Emily’s life, once the truth is revealed?

    This novel deals with difficult subjects, such as alcoholism, abuse, and mental illness, which can damage a family in ways that only become clear after decades. It is an intimate, touching portrait of the daily lives of resilient women who are forced to cope with these problems during a time when such diseases were little understood.

    It is also a heart-warming, emotional depiction of the relationship between the matriarch of the family, the grandmother Marishka, and the granddaughter Emily. Polli has gifted us with exquisitely drawn characters who instantly become real people to us, drawing us into the beauty and tragedy of their lives.

    Readers who enjoy novels spanning several generations of a family, providing glimpses into its collective consciousness, will enjoy this lovingly rendered story with its themes of cruelty, loss and ultimately, tenacity. Anyone who has experienced the fractures that can occur over time in a family will be deeply moved by the stories of these strong, intelligent women.

    In a Vertigo of Silence by Miriam Polli resets the bar of excellence for debut literary women’s fiction.