Whew! It’s been a busy couple of weeks, but so, so wonderful!
The 2025 Chanticleer Authors Conference (CAC25) and International Book Awards’ (CIBA) banquet and ceremony was a great success, with authors from around the world joining us to network, learn, and celebrate the best books of the year!
CAC25 brings together writers at all levels in their careers to Bellingham, WA each year for four days of Masterclasses, workshops, sessions, and panel discussions. Writers from as far away as Cape Town, South Africa, Sydney, Australia, Mumbai, India, NYC, London, and across North America along locals from our fair city and the PNW who joined us for a beautiful weekend at the Bellingham Yacht Club on Bellingham Bay. We couldn’t have asked for a better weekend—cool sea breezes and warm sunshine made the perfect backdrop to this amazing annual event that culminated with special Chanticleer author events at Village Books, Fairhaven on Sunday.
J.D. Barker, J.W. Donaley, Paul Hanson at a panel discussions called “Changes in the World of Publishing and Content”
A Steller Lineup of Presenters at this Sold Out Event!
The event started with Book Doctor, Senior Editor, and Dialog Expert Christine Fairchild teaching her masterclass on craft, and international bestselling author J.D. Barker and Chanticleer’s own tech guru Andy Brown sharing their knowledge on the ever-changing book marketing landscape in their masterclass “Digital Marketing & Alphabet Soup.”
The next two days were filled with more learning opportunities where CAC authors had the opportunity to learn from experts and specialists such as Damian Fozard, Diane Garland, Tim Facciola, Glen Dahlgren, and Reenita Hora, who generously shared their knowledge and the stories that inspire all weekend. Twenty publishing professionals presented in forty different workshops, panels, and sessions, covering topics as diverse as writing craft, marketing, legal issues, and technology, with a special classes on AI and its effects on the publishing industry.
Award-winning author and screenwriter Kim Hornsby was our Friday keynote speaker, providing us with stories from her path to success on bookshelves and in Hollywood. It was a speech filled with twist, turns, and an abundance of inspiration!
Bestselling International author J.D. Barker is interviewed by Sr. Editor John DeDakis at the Chanticleer Authors Conference 2025.
J.D. Barker delivered the keynote address on Saturday to a packed house of aspiring authors. As the author of an ever-growing list of spine-tingling thrillers, including several co-authored books with James Patterson and praise from the master of horror Stephen King, he kept all of us on the edge of our seats as he explained the innovative, out-of-the-box thinking that has helped him become one of the most successful Indie authors publishing today!
This year we enjoyed a special treat when J.D. Barker sat down for an interview with John DeDakis, former Sr. Editor for the Emmy and Peabody award-winning CNN news program The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer. Questions ranged from exploring his background writing for a pop culture magazine in the 90s where he received advice from none other than the artist Madonna, to his inventive approach to promote his latest release, Something I Keep Upstairs.
2024 Chanticleer Int’l Book Awards Grand Prize Winners
The Chanticleer International Book Awards
The annual CIBA banquet and awards ceremony was a highlight of the conference! Authors from around the world came together to celebrate this year’s best books, with many of the attendees taking home First Place and Grand Prize ribbons. This year’s overall Grand Prize winner was Reenita Malhotra Hora for her novel Vermilion Harvest.
This year was especially fun because we added two new categories to our list of, now, twenty-eight award divisions!
The Fiction and Non-fiction Cover Design awards were a real treat for our judges. The covers represented a broad range of the best cover art we’ve seen throughout the year. It was stiff competition, as so many represented their novels with intriguing images that proved a picture can paint a thousand words.
Looking forward to another year of great books!
Now we all have another year of writing to look forward to, now smarter and recharged by the inspiration and knowledge gained at the Chanticleer Authors Conference. We also have new friendships to grow. That is one of the best things that I take away from the conference. The encouragement, support, and friendship of fellow authors who so generously give their time to help others and value the shared experience of this crazy, sometimes difficult, always inspired world of writing and publishing!
Now it’s time to turn our attention to the 2026 CAC and CIBA Awards!
Thank You to Everyone Who Helped Make CAC25 an Amazing Success!
Writing coach, editor, and award-winning author John DeDakis brings his storytelling and editing know-how to CAC2025!
While telling a story is a feat that belongs to the creative mind, an editor relies on both his creative mind and his logical mind to shape a story. Finding strong and vulnerable points in a story isn’t always an easy job, especially when a deadline looms over your head, but when your career has taken you into a busy newsroom like Sr. Editor John DeDakis, you’ll find your story elevated to its highest level in no time at all!
The Path to Network Newsrooms
John DeDakis knows a lot about shaping a story into its finest form. He began his writing career in 1969 at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, covering the 1970 anti-Vietnam war riot as a journalist for his campus radio station. He went on to receive his Bachelors of Arts in Journalism, then joined the U.S. Army as a Special Events Reporter at The American Forces Network in Europe where, from 1972-74, he had the opportunity to interview many notable people, including legendary film director Alfred Hitchcock.
DeDakis’s career in news reporting continued after his service when he became a reporter for a local NBC affiliate station in Madison, Wisconsin. That move led to the position of General Assignment Correspondent with CBN News in Virginia, and, eventually to his role as CBN’s White House Correspondent during the last three years of Ronald Reagan’s presidency from 1983 to 1988. Through that position he interviewed two Presidents, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan.
Into the Editing Room and Onto the Bookshelves
In 1988, DeDakis took his skills to CNN for a 25-year stint as first a writer, then as the writing supervisor of CNN’s “Daybreak.” He also provided copy edits for the network’s major anchors and became the Senior Copy Editor for the Emmy and Peabody-Award winning news program “The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer.”
DeDakis hasn’t slowed down since leaving the business of broadcast news. Instead, he transitioned into a career as a novelist and turned his attention full time to creating high-intensity thrillers with his indomitable character Lark Chadwick. Introduced in his debut novel, Fast Track, she is the title character in the Lark Chadwick Mystery series that includes six books and counting.
A Beacon of the Writing Community
With a desire to share his knowledge and experience with other writers, DeDakis has become an invaluable asset to the greater writing community. His writing coach and editing services, his journalism and creative writing workshops, and his podcast offer advice for authors and journalists as they strive to elevate their own writing with the skills DeDakis learned over the course of his career.
DeDakis has racked up a long list of achievements since becoming a published author. He served as the Writer in Residence at the Callanwolde Fine Arts Center in Atlanta, taught university level writing courses, and was a guest lecturer at American University in Washington, D.C., joining an illustrious list of guest speakers that includes legendary White House Correspondent Helen Thomas and Bob Schieffer of CBS News.
Whether he is editing a news story or he’s making news with his growing list of thrillers, John DeDakis is dedicated to bringing clear and concise writing to his fans. Through his training at the news desk, he’s honed his editing skills to a fine point and gained an intuitive sense of how to tell a story that’s as compelling as any news flash you’ll find on the nightly news.
Chanticleer is excited that the accomplished novelist, journalist and editor, John DeDakis, will be joining us this year at CAC2025!
Chanticleer is thrilled to host John DeDakis at theChanticleer Authors Conference (CAC2025)and the International Book Awards (CIBA) on April 3-6, 2025, to share her knowledge with Chanticleer authors.
Don’t miss out on this chance to learn from author, coach, editor, and podcaster John DeDakis!
Like the Colossus of Rhodes, Tim Facciola has his feet solidly set in two different lands.
In one, he is the creator of heroes. In the other, he is the 2024 CIBA Overall Grand Prize winner for his novel, Scales of Balance, the first in the Vengeful Realm trilogy.
Facciola doesn’t come unarmed to this dual role. In his fantasy series, his hero, Zephyrus, exhibits the same determination Facciola has shown on his journey to becoming an award-winning author, putting skills that are both innate and earned into his epic tale based on Roman gladiators.
Creating Real and Fictional Worlds
Writing wasn’t always Facciola’s calling, but his story has always been waiting to be told, in both his ability to write and in his interest in ancient worlds. His varied background includes being a lyricist in a punk rock band, and an expert in the art of hand-to-hand combat and ancient weaponry. In The Scales of Balance, Book One of the Vengeful Realm trilogy, Facciola brings all the grit and raw emotion of punk to a fight where his hero relies on the author’s real-world experience with weapons to win his freedom.
Creating worlds seems like something of magic, but an immense amount of work goes into such a complex world. Facciola, an admitted “heavy, heavy plotter,” spent years developing his story and understanding his characters. He starts with the places, things, and social systems that make up his imaginary world. Next, he makes decisions about the magical rules and historic context. After that, he moves onto conjuring up the cast of characters, always very conscious that to give them life, the reader must experience a fulfilling arc. As he approaches the end of his plotting exercise, Facciola chooses archetypes of the story. This involves considering the motivations and psychological characteristics for each character, and how they will interact with their fellow creatures within the story. Finally, he ponders the thematic thread he wishes to weave through his story and the intense emotional load that an epic based on Roman history should receive.
This rich storytelling is on full display, not only in the entire Vengeful Realm series, but in the dark prequel, Ghosts of Rheynia, a Shelly Finalist!
The Award-Winner Emerges
But Facciola’s business talent has also created a world of his own in the publishing arena. Last year at the 2023 CIBA awards, Facciola’s Scales of Balance won the Grand Prize award in the Ozma Division and received the prize for Overall Grand Prize for “Best Book of the Year.” When he took the stage that night, he told of his journey to becoming a published author. As many of our authors know, that story is one of highs and lows, victories and setbacks. Ultimately, it’s a tale of a literary endurance; a warrior reaching a goal that had at one time seemed distant.
A Champion Returns
This year at CAC25, Facciola returns in another role—one of mentor. The wise person who has traveled the same road before others and now shares his knowledge with those coming behind him. He has become a writing coach, helping other writers hone their stories to get them ready for publishing. He also continues to feed his passion for training with maces, clubs, staves, and swords, and when he isn’t writing he’s out in the wild where he hikes, paddleboards, and spends time daydreaming of other worlds.
Chanticleer is very excited to have Timothy Facciola join us again at the Chanticleer Authors Conference!
Chanticleer is thrilled to bring Tim Facciola back to the Chanticleer Authors Conference (CAC2025)and the International Book Awards (CIBA) on April 3-6, 2025, to share her knowledge with Chanticleer authors.
Don’t miss out on this chance to learn from
award-winning author Tim Facciola!
These wonderful authors put themselves out there, and we are honored to have been able to promote them throughout the 2024 CIBA year and beyond! Good luck in these final rounds of judging!
The world of publishing continues to evolve at an unprecedented pace. Technology has become central to every aspect of the industry, from writing and editing to marketing and distribution. At Chanticleer, we take pride in offering a conference that embraces the latest in publishing technologies. Our event provides a comprehensive look at the best tools and strategies authors can use to build their brands, market their work, and increase sales. We’ll explore everything from AI and metadata management to cutting-edge marketing techniques, ensuring you are well-equipped to thrive in today’s digital landscape.
In addition to offering invaluable business and marketing insights, we are also featuring select advanced writing craft classes to help authors take their writing to the next level. Whether you’re looking to improve your storytelling techniques, explore new narrative structures, or refine your manuscript, CAC25 has something for everyone.
Headliners
J. D. BARKER- Int’l Bestselling Thriller Author
J.D. Barker is the New York Times and international best-selling author of numerous novels, including DRACUL and the wildly popular 4MK series. He is currently collaborating with James Patterson. His books have been translated into two dozen languages, sold in more than 150 countries, and optioned for both film and television. Barker resides in coastal New Hampshire with his wife, Dayna, and their daughter, Ember.
CHRISTINE FAIRCHILD – Author, Book Doctor, and Dialogue Expert
Christine Fairchild offers 35+ years experience as a writer, editor, and book doctor. She’s conducted celebrity interviews (XFiles, SciFiMall.com), edited for technical giants (Microsoft, Hitachi), and served as a marketing/readability specialist for consumer products (DHL, Cingular, AT&T). She now specializes in Suspense fiction and helps authors take their work, and their career, to the next level through her online workshops, classes at conferences and one-on-one book-doctoring of clients’ novels. She also writes suspense and historical fiction, so she understands the challenges authors face in their craft and the publishing industry.
KIM HORNSBY – USA Today Bestselling Author, Producer, and Screenwriter
Kim Hornsby is a USA Today Bestselling Author and Produced Screenwriter known for adapting her novels to screenplays. With 16 novels and as many screenplays Kim is also a movie producer, with Braving Rapids, a Family Adventure and Secret Life of My Other Wife, a Lifetime Thriller slated to release early ’25. Comfort & Joy starts filming for a Christmas ’25 release as well as Christmas in Crystal Creek. She teaches her method of adapting from book to film at conferences nationally including Chanticleer, the RWA and PNWA. Her Christmas Romance novels and Suspense Mystery novels have sold over half a million books and she’s thrilled write happy-ending stories for her readers.
A mother, dog owner, kayaker, painter, and avid adventurer, Kim loves to travel but when home she writes from a desk overlooking her forested acreage on an island off Seattle conjuring up entertainment with gutsy heroines amongst diverse and inclusive characters to represent real life.
Can’t make it on Friday? Saturday-only passes are available! These passes include lunch, the banquet, and participation in the Saturday Book Fair at the Bellingham Yacht Club, followed by the Village Books Book Fair the next day at their flagship store in Fairhaven!
Please do not hesitate to contact us with any questions, concerns, or suggestions at info@ChantiReviews.com. We try our best to reply within 3 business days.
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.
Thank you again to everyone who participated in the 2024 CIBAs! We wish you all the best of luck during these final rounds of judging and hope to see you at CAC25, April 3 – 6, 2025!
Best regards, Kiffer Brown, David Beaumier, Dena Weigel, Anya Mueller, Scott Taylor, Argus Brown and Team Chanticleer
When Reenita Malhotra Hora taps that first keystroke at the start of her next book she’s not looking to soften the truth to match what the public believes.
Her mission is to bust stereotypes and celebrate authenticity.
Telling the South Asian Story
Born in India, a country whose motto is “Truth Alone Triumphs,” Malhotra Hora is dedicated to the idea that authenticity is key when it comes to telling the stories of the South Asian people. Her writing doesn’t rely on tales of flashy Bollywood-style weddings and great food to lure readers in. Instead, her stories reflect the lives of everyday people living in a land that is as colorful and varied as the beautiful saris worn by its women.
Throughout her childhood Malhotra Hora heard the stories of India’s past from her grandfather and discussed the writings of Plato and Aristotle with her father, an avid follower of Greek philosophy. This informal education in history and ethics informed her writing when she eventually moved to the United States where she achieved career success in the world of business and journalism. She has since produced content for Bloomberg and other corporate entities and her writing has been published by major media companies like The Wall Street Journal, The Hindu, The New York Times, South China Morning Post, CNN, among others.
Breaking Out on a New Path
In 2021, during the height of the COVID pandemic, Malhotra Hora took a leap of faith with her writing and left her very successful career in business to turn her full attention to telling stories that represented her upbringing, her place of birth, and the people who influenced her throughout her life. It was a frighteningly big step to take, leaving a well-cultivated and prosperous career to lean into the creative world of fiction, but that did not deter Malhotra Hora. Her commitment to portraying her culture, with all its beautiful complexity, drove her onward. Today, she has authored nine books, comprising both non-fiction and fiction works.
Malhotra Hora’s first book, Operation Mom, is a young adult tale about a teen girl’s quest to simultaneously find the super star she has a crush on and a new romance for her overly-attentive mother. It’s a delightfully, humorous story with lovable characters and laugh-out-loud situations. It proved to be a great start to a literary career that has earned her well-deserved praise and eventually the reputation of being the South Asian ‘Nora Ephron.’
With a style that sizzles with great characters and scenarios, Malhotra Hora’s fiction is funny and compelling. She continues to unapologetically pursue her conviction to portray her characters with unbridled authenticity, and her stories beat with the heart of a vibrant culture. She strives to represent truth as she captures the essence of the South Asian spirit in children’s stories (When Ayra Fell Through the Fault), young adult tales (Operation Mom), novels (Vermilion Harvest), and nonfiction books (Ayurveda: A Holistic Approach to Health) where she shares wellness advice focused on the Hindu traditions of the Ayurveda philosophy.
An Ambassador of Truth
Regardless of being thousands of miles from India, its spirit continues to live on through Malhotra Hora’s writing. It’s taken her around the world and won multiple awards and accolades, including the Chanticleer International Book Award in the Chatelaine division for romance.
To Reenita Malhotra Hora it is clear that representing her South Asian culture in its truest form connects with people around the world. It’s a natural extension of the commitment she continues to carry that always puts authenticity first in her writing.
Chanticleer is thrilled to bring Reenita Malhotra Hora back to theChanticleer Authors Conference (CAC2025)and the International Book Awards (CIBA) on April 3-6, 2025, to share her knowledge with Chanticleer authors.
Don’t miss out on this chance to learn from author and podcaster Reenita Malhotra Hora!
Every voice is unique, and every perspective is worthy of knowing.
Women authors have always held an illustrious place in the literary world, and while their work is often talked about in terms of the advancement of women overall, many women authors have also contributed to the business of telling stories by challenging the technical conventions of writing as well as presenting a woman’s authentic experience.
Storytelling is the thread that connects our societal web, so it’s imperative there is room for everyone.
National Women’s History Month
For National Women’s History Month, celebrated each year in March, Chanticleer celebrates the fantastic women who forged new literary paths and have been an extraordinary influence and joy to have in our own community. We are delighted to take this time and recognize just a few influential women authors in history.
Disc of Enheduana, Akkadian Period, circa 2300BCE
The World’s First Author: Enheduana
The most influential in the cannon of women authors has to be Enheduanna (circa 2300BC). A Mesopotamian high priestess, she is the world’s first named author, and she is credited with writing forty-two poems and several hymns in cuneiform on clay tablets. She used her writing to help her father, Sargon the Great, unite his empire (also the world’s first) under a shared religion. Her poem titled Exhaultation of Inana is her most famous work, but her hymns went on to set the tone, style, and form of the hymns quoted in the Bible to this day.
Using writing to influence positive change is a noble endeavor. Jane Austen, (1775 – 1817) author of Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice, was an outspoken critic and commentator at a time when women had little opportunity to express their thoughts. Her books explore the strict social structure and financial instability of women born in her era. She infused her stories with irony and humor, making them digestible to a larger audience who may not agree with some of the underlying commentary within the story. Austen is credited with creating free indirect discourse, a literary style that combines third person and first person narration, giving readers access to her characters’ inner thoughts to foster intimacy and emotional bonds with the reader.
I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! — When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.
An Examination of Why We Are the Way We Are; Charlotte Brontë
Writing, it can be said, is our thoughts laid bare. This idea came to life through the writing of Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855). Her most notable work, Jane Eyre, is a bildungsroman following the protagonist through her growth to adulthood. It revolutionized prose fiction by focusing on moral and spiritual development through an intimate first-person narrative, thereby exhibiting that psychological journey in the actions and events of the story. She has been called the “first historian of the private consciousness” and the literary ancestor of writers such as Marcel Proust and James Joyce.
I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.
Frank Authenticity in Representation; Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Honesty in her depiction of her community, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (1977) creates prose that gets right to the heart of things, honestly and authentically. This isn’t easy when your writing includes multiple characters’ perspectives within one story. In Ngozi Adichi’s second book, Half of a Yellow Sun, she offers five points of view that tell of the brutality of the Nigerian Civil War. Her ancestral Igbo background deeply informs her writing as she explores the themes of religion, immigration, gender and culture.
We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls, you can have ambition, but not too much. You should aim to be successful, but not too successful. Otherwise, you would threaten the man. Because I am female, I am expected to aspire to marriage. I am expected to make my life choices always keeping in mind that marriage is the most important. Now marriage can be a source of joy and love and mutual support but why do we teach girls to aspire to marriage and we don’t teach boys the same? We raise girls to see each other as competitors not for jobs or accomplishments, which I think can be a good thing, but for the attention of men. We teach girls that they cannot be sexual beings in the way that boys are.
The world’s bestselling author of fiction is mystery writer, Agatha Christie (1880-1975). Author of sixty-six detective novels, she excelled at creating stories that placed the reader in the middle of a mystery, offering them a chance to solve it as her character uncovers the clues. Her writing is known for its sharp dialogues, fast-paced narration, and clever plot twists, and her skills in misdirecting the audience on where the story goes is legendary. Christie’s smart characters and intriguing murder cases makes her one of the best in the genre, even to this day.
It’s no good starting out by thinking one is a heaven-born genius—some people are, but very few. No, one is a tradesman—a tradesman in a good honest trade. You must learn the technical skills, and then, within that trade, you can apply your own creative ideas; but you must submit to the discipline of form.
These are just a very few of the influential women writers we celebrate during National Women’s Month. In paying tribute, we acknowledge that storytelling is a human endeavor. Not one to be carried by a single group of writers, but rather a tool of self-expression that needs participation from all facets of society so that we can better relate to one another, learn from one another, and continue to grow as a society.
Chanticleer is proud to represent amazing women authors!
Celebrate women authors during National Women’s History Month by picking up one of the novels written by these authors!
Exostar By Rae Knightly
Gertrude Warner Grand Prize Winner
It has been said that “the Golden Age of Science Fiction is twelve.” Rae Knightly’s Sci-Fi adventure, Exostar, embodies this childlike sense of wonder that the best of the genre evokes in its readers.
Twelve-year-old child-robot Trinket takes off on a rocketing spaceship straight towards danger and excitement, with the mostly able assistance of the blue-furred spy and saboteur Woolver Talandrin. Trinket is searching for identity—as all the best young science fiction protagonists do. Woolver is trying to bring down an evil empire—as all the other best science fiction protagonists do.
Together they’ve been thrust into the kind of epic tale that is guaranteed to keep young readers on the edge of their seats—including the twelve-year-old that lurks inside every science fiction fan.
Marianne Marlowe’s memoir, Portrait of a Feminist, reveals the evolution of her feminism through a collection of thought-provoking essays.
“I would say, if it were possible, I was born a feminist” is at the heart of Marlowe’s story. She relates to this defining identity throughout years spent in Peru, California, and Ecuador, where she navigates childhood, marriage, motherhood, and a professional career.
The section titles reflect periods in Marlowe’s life that correspond to nature’s rhythms—“Seeds Planted”, “The Growing Years”, “Maturation”, and “Harvesting”—and maintain strong connections between her thematically-linked experiences.
As a Peruvian American woman, Marlowe navigates the concepts of gender, race, and culture from a personal and critical point of view.
Shelter in a Hostile World By Mack Little Shorts Grand Prize Winner
Shelter in a Hostile World, second installment in Mack Little’s Love and Peace series, is an epic tale of resistance, desire, and tragedy, saturating readers in the complexity of Igbo culture.
Little paints a character-rich portrait of the horrors of enslavement and the unthinkable violence against women in the Caribbean, locking people together in relationships molded by adversity.
Set in 17th century Igboland—the invaded region of Nigeria — and on the island of Barbados, Shelter in a Hostile World is a searingly brief novel packed with mesmerizing prose. It blends genres to create a literary language entirely its own.
Two families vie for power in mercantile 18th-century Salem. Sea Tigers and Merchants, the second book in Sandra Wagner-Wright’sSalem Stories series, returns to a world of treacherous storms, tantalizing wealth, and the demands of high society on its children.
Elias Hasket Derby, Sr. has kept his promise to his wife Eliza—they rule Salem. Hasket’s merchant ships bring in great fortune, while Eliza holds court as the most influential woman in the city’s social spheres. And their ambitions have grown to meet their station. Hasket launches his riskiest endeavor—the Grand Turk,a ship so massive she’s nearly too heavy to be pulled out of the docks. Meanwhile Eliza, snubbed by George Washington’s stay at another family’s mansion, insists they build a house so grand it will put all others to shame.
Such success, of course, draws the envious eye of Hasket’s competitor.
An enigmatic raven-haired beauty mysteriously murdered and cast into a stranger’s grave, left for scurrilous resurrection men to uncover in the dark of night! In Jeanne Matthews’s historical mystery If Two Are Dead, Detectives Quinn Paschal and Gabriel Garnick take up this case of vicious murder and ignite a mire of secrets and resentment at the pinnacle of 1867 Chicago society.
After catching the body-snatchers in the act of stealing a freshly buried corpse to sell for medical research, Quinn and Garnick realize the body found in Emmett Buck’s grave is by no means that of a young man, but that of a woman, whose bloody head and clean clothes point to a complex mystery. With only her appearance and some identifying jewelry, Quinn insists they can and will catch the killer of ‘Marietta A.V.’ Enlisting the help of an unscrupulous journalist, they locate her husband, a wealthy and influential doctor.
The woman’s husband, Dr. Horace E. Vinings, offers them an incredible reward if they can find Marietta’s killer. But Quinn and Garnick suspect he might not like the answer he receives.
Featuring authors like J.D Barker and book doctor Christine Fairchild, our annual conference is shaping up to be excellent! You won’t want to miss out on the best tips around the business of being an author!
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.
Fearing the unknown isn’t something that weighs on author Kim Hornsby’s mind. Throughout her adventurous life, she has found herself in the most unusual environments–scuba diving with whales and dolphins, performing in front of an audience as a singer, and writing her first book while overseas to adopt her daughter.
Kim Hornsby is unstoppable!
An Adventurous Spirit
Hornsby’s path to becoming a writer is one many of us are familiar with. A family event—in this case, the adoption of her daughter—created an opportunity for writing that was seen by her group of friends and family through emails sent out as updates on the adoption process. Encouraged by the reception of her missives, she was prompted by friends to write a book about the process. Hornsby did write about their adoption story but chose to write it as a fictionalized version of what they experienced. This led to a career path that has taken her novels to bookshelves all around the world and screenplays that have been made into Hollywood movies!
Diving deep into this new adventure, Hornsby wrote her first novel for publication. The Jumper’s Promise kicked off The Dream Jumper series, and Hornsby hasn’t stopped since! Today, she’s the author of multiple standalone novels as well as several series with themes as diverse as light romantic, police procedural, paranormal, and suspense thriller. Hornsby’s books have been on the USA Today and Amazon bestseller lists, and her award-winning screenplays have been made into movies for television.
Coming Full Circle
Hornsby’s writing career has come full circle with the publication of her screenplay, Braving Rapids (movie released in 2024). It’s a child’s story of her own adoption told through her adoption of an abandoned wolf cub. It’s a beautiful full circle story that illustrates the fact that love doesn’t have to born into the family. Love can be welcomed into the family with all the intense emotion that is needed to claim one’s heart.
The Jumper’s Promise also completes a full circle for Hornsby, with the movie version of her first published book currently under production. The story revolves around her experience as a scuba diving instructor, combining dark supernatural suspense elements with the excitement and adventure she experienced as part of Maui’s scuba diving scene. To be able to adapt this compelling story into a producible screenplay is a monumental achievement for an author’s first published novel, and it perfectly illustrates Hornsby’s ability to create stories that resonate on the page as well as on the screen.
Kim is presenting a workshop on Plotting and Writing a Movie – From First Idea to the Last Page
Are you a storyteller? Have you ever wondered how to write a movie? It’s easier than you think.
It all starts with an idea and a main character. In this romp through storytelling, produced screenwriter Kim Hornsby will teach you the surprisingly simple process of movie storytelling from the opening shot on the big screen to when the credits roll.
Learn the art of crafting your story while comparing movie writing to book writing. By the end of the class, you will have the opening scene to your screenplay with a clear idea of how to continue with the rest of the story using the ten essentials of screenwriting.
Write a screenplay! You know you want to.
Kim Hornsby is a USA Today Bestselling Author and Produced Screenwriter known for adapting her novels to screenplays. With 16 novels and as many screenplays Kim is also a movie producer, with Braving Rapids, a Family Adventure and Secret Life of My Other Wife, a Lifetime Thriller slated to release early ’25. Comfort & Joy starts filming for a Christmas ’25 release as well as Christmas in Crystal Creek. She teaches her method of adapting from book to film at conferences nationally including Chanticleer, the RWA and PNWA. Her Christmas Romance novels and Suspense Mystery novels have sold over half a million books and she’s thrilled write happy-ending stories for her readers.
A mother, dog owner, kayaker, painter, and avid adventurer, Kim loves to travel but when home she writes from a desk overlooking her forested acreage on an island off Seattle conjuring up entertainment with gutsy heroines amongst diverse and inclusive characters to represent real life.
www.KimHornsby.info
As her reputation as a superb author rises, we see Kim Hornsby taking on new adventures at every opportunity. It is the continuation of a sense of adventure that permeates her life, and I feel encouraged in my own writing career to take a leap of faith, too.
Chanticleer is thrilled to bring Kim Hornsby back to the Chanticleer Authors Conference (CAC2025) and the International Book Awards (CIBA) on April 3-6, 2025, to share her knowledge with Chanticleer authors.
Don’t miss out on this chance to learn from author and screenwriter Kim Hornsby!
Most authors know that editing means getting out your literary scalpel and finding those things that drag a story down. For a former journalist and current book doctor like Christine Fairchild, the search for what works and what doesn’t is just the kind of operation she loves.
Christine Fairchild always had a love of storytelling. As a young reader, she gravitated toward stories about animals—Black Beauty and Where the Red Fern Grows were favorites. When she saw the fascination and rapt attention of her fellow 3rd grade classmates when reading her own essays, she knew she had a gift. Innately, she understood story structure, how to build invisible worlds, what makes a character compelling (especially animal characters), and the power of the imagination.
The moniker of “storyteller” followed her through her school years and into a journalism program, earning a B.A. in English from U.C. Berkeley—the top English department in the US at that time. After graduating, she worked as a professional copyeditor, speechwriter and freelance reporter, honing her skills at dissecting a written work to make the story pop and the information clear. Fairchild has served as writer and editor for publications like XFiles and SciFiMall.com, and has provided executive communications, marketing, branding, and press releases for corporate giants, like Microsoft, AT&T, and DHL. This professional environment gave her an understanding of the psychology of language and communications design with a focus on women consumer behavior and trends, adding more specialized tools to use when operating on her next writing assignment.
The Doctor is Calling
Fairchild’s various roles with high-profile clients informed her writing style and her tactical editing approach, giving her the sharp edge to refine a story and elevate it for her readers. With the skill of a surgeon, she looks for those problems that can muddy the text and slow down the reader when she puts a novel under the microscope to find those areas that need to be cured or cut from a story to get it to its most healthy state.
With these skills, Fairchild has grown her reputation as a bona fide “Book Doctor” and claimed her place in the literary world helping authors fine-tune their work to prepare it for publication. Her The Editor Devil’s Guide to CHARACTERS and The Editor Devil’s Guide to DIALOGUE gives writers a look inside her medicine bag where they learn the lessons she learned over the entirety of her professional writing career so they can become their own literary surgeons. Today, you can find Christine Fairchild sharing her knowledge with other writers by teaching classes and leading workshops on how they can become better editors of their own work and giving them an inside peak at the surgical equipment that has shaped her multifaceted career.
Chanticleer is proud to host Christine Fairchild at the 2025 Chanticleer Authors Conference (CAC) and the International Book Awards (CIBA) on April 3-6, 2025, where she will be giving a Masterclass that will guide authors in their quest to elevate their novels.
Don’t miss out on this chance to learn from Christine Fairchild, the “Book Doctor!”
As a boy, J.D. Barker was drawn to the shadows. He imagined monsters in his closet and wrote stories about the witches and ghosts he was certain lived in the woods outside his home. His active imagination kept him awake at night—it also turned him into a New York Times and international best-selling author.
Today, the award-winning author has an ever-growing list of spine-tingling thrillers, including several co-authored books with James Patterson and praise from the master of horror, Stephen King.
Barker’s work encompasses elements from several genres, presenting them in what has been broadly described as suspense thrillers. Horror, crime, mystery, science fiction, and the supernatural all have a role to play in his books, bringing the same level of intensity his mentors incorporate into their novels. The monsters that scared him as a child are now captured in the pages of his stories.
A Young Author Drawn to the Shadows
Mysteries were the first to grab Barker’s attention, reading the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew series as a child, but eventually he moved onto the classics and found his home in the works of Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker, and Edgar Allen Poe. Soon, he was writing his own stories, exploring the depths of his fear and producing tales of the monsters he imagined were living under his bed.
The literary life continued to call for Barker, even after receiving a business degree. When an article he wrote for a college assignment ended up in the hands of Paul Gallotta from the pop culture magazine, The Circus, he was invited to join the staff of 25th Parallel Magazine, an American lifestyle periodical. This unexpected path led him to interview celebrities for popular magazines, such as Seventeen, TeenBeat, and other national and local publications, and it wasn’t long before he had his own syndicated newspaper column called Revealedwhich centered around the investigation of haunted places and supernatural occurrences.
These early endeavors served as a crash course in writing, and he began working as a book doctor and ghostwriter, helping others fine tune their writing and readying it for publication. The experience proved invaluable. It taught him what works and what doesn’t in today’s popular fiction, and it led to his first venture into writing a novel of his own.
Tapping Into the Mind of the Masters of Horror
Forsaken, Barker’s first novel, was independently published in late 2014. Incorporating horror master Stephen King’s character Leland Gaunt from Needful Things offered Barker the opportunity to get his novel in front of King who granted Barker permission to utilize the character in the novel. The book went on to hit several major milestones. It landed the #2 spot on Audible (Harper Lee withGo Set a Watchmanheld #1), #44 on Amazon U.S., #2 on Amazon Canada, and #22 on Amazon UK.Forsakenwas also nominated for a Bram Stoker Award (Best Debut Novel) and won a handful of other awards, including a New Apple Medalist Award. Soon Bram Stoker’s family reached out to Barker and asked him to co-author a prequel toDraculautilizing the original notes and journals from Stoker’s own archives, much of which has never been made public. The novel, titled Dracul, sold at auction to G.P. Putnam & Sons, with film rights going to Paramount.
The success of his first novels drew the attention of traditional agents and publishers and in early 2016 his debut thriller,The Fourth Monkey, sold in a series of pre-empts and auctions worldwide, with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt set to publish it in the U.S. and HarperCollins in the UK. The book has also sold for both film and television. Barker has since gone on to write numerous titles which have appeared on bestseller lists around the world and is a frequent collaborator with James Patterson. His books have been translated into two dozen languages, sold in more than 150 countries, and optioned for both film and television.
From a child afraid of monsters, to an author who creates them, J.D. Barker has thrived on writing stories that thrill, excite, and scare people who love those mysterious bumps in the night. It’s a full circle journey that has given him a career that continues to thrill his international fanbase.
Chanticleer is proud to present J.D. Barker at the 2025 Chanticleer Authors Conference (CAC) and the International Book Awards (CIBA) on April 3-6, 2025,
where he will be sharing his expertise in book promotion, digital marketing, and the upcoming changes in the publishing industry!
Don’t miss out on this chance to learn from one of the literary world’s bestselling authors!
Chanti: Your books go deep into international intrigue. How did you come to write such high stakes thrillers?
Steinke: I started writing when I was passed over for a senior US government service position that I coveted and thought I’d be a good fit for. Shortly thereafter, I began to write, and it was like pushing through an open door for me. I felt spiritually led in that direction and realized that I very much enjoyed writing!
Chanti: The thriller genre seems to fit right into your professional history, but they include so much more. Tell us about your military background and how you are able craft such authentic environments in your novels.
Steinke: Political and political-military, high stakes global thrillers best describe my genre and work to date. I also love to write suspense stories in general. My almost 42 years of combined service in the US Army and US Department of Defense, as well as 28 years of overseas service, led me to write in the global thriller and suspense genres. While writing is obviously about fiction, I try to keep my work as authentic as possible. As my stories also have US-European settings to them, I also like to write about local culture. Thus far, that has meant a lot of French and Italian culture.
Chanti: How do you come up with the trouble your character, Jake Fortina, faces in your novels?
Steinke: For now, I like the “ripped from the headlines approach,” focused on real world scenarios, particularly when they involve major US national and international security issues or interests. But I’ve also written about national security issues that I’ve come across in my professional experiences. I also try to feature certain professional groups that I’ve served with or interacted with during my public service, including the military, law enforcement, diplomatic, and intelligence communities, as well as US military noncommissioned officers (sergeants) and military families.
Chanti: With your background in the military, are you able to apply the same high discipline to your writing time?
Steinke: A full “writing day” is often a luxury, but I do my best to remain consistent, given the many family and travel opportunities throughout any given year. When traveling, I try to fit my writing into “downtime” as much as possible. I tend to always travel with my laptop, so most days – but not all days – allow for at least one and some days even two hours of writing. If I’m home, I try to get an early start, often rising around 5 a.m. and sometimes as early as 4 a.m., with the goal of getting in 3-4 hours or so of focused writing or editing. If I do much more than that in a day, I feel like I’m less effective.
Chanti: What do you do to grow your author chops? Do you have any authors you turn to learn from?
Steinke: For starters, I keep learning. I believe learning should be a proactive daily and lifelong process. I still occasionally let the passive voice creep into my writing, but thankfully I have an excellent editor who is attuned to it. My best writing investments were in three Master Classes, taught by James Patterson, Dan Brown, and Ken Follett. I would say my writing style tends more to James Patterson’s style than the latter two. I strive to keep my chapters relatively short (3-5 pages, on average) and crisp.
Chanti: What craft books have helped you the most?
Steinke: Without a doubt, Stephen King’s On Writing was the most consequential and revelational “craft book” for me. As Mr. King says, “Don’t write b—s—t.” That concisely sums up his style and wisdom!
Chanti: How do you relax when you aren’t writing? Tell us a little about your hobbies.
Steinke: I love spending time with my family, traveling the world with my wife Susan, going fly fishing, and participating in other outdoor activities like hiking and increasingly, pickleball. I’m trying to get in a bit more snow skiing but I’m not sure how much longer my body will stand up to the wear and tear of the ski slopes!
Chanti: What can we look forward to seeing next from you? Will Jake Fortina be taking on more terrorist groups?
Steinke: Change of Mission, the third book in the Jake Fortina series, was released last summer. Just like the first two books, Major Jake Fortina and the Tier One Threat and Jake Fortina and The Roman Conspiracy, this story is about an ordinary US Army officer who finds himself facing extraordinary national security threats. Thus far, thankfully, Change of Mission has been well received. In it, we follow Lieutenant Colonel Jake Fortina as he decides whether to continue with his same career path or make a change in his life’s mission. Meanwhile, he and his Italian bride, a Carabinieri officer, must confront a confluence of threats from Iranian extremists, as well as the Italian and Russian mafias.
I’m currently more than halfway through writing my fourth book, Vital Mission, A Jake Fortina Series Love Story. Jake Fortina will be called upon by a dear Ukrainian friend to help with the rescue of two Ukrainian children who were abducted from their bombed-out Ukrainian city and taken to Russia. This latest book in the Jake Fortina series is projected for publication in the July-September 2025 timeframe.
Chanti: What is the most important thing a reader can do for an author?
Steinke: Leave a review—and hopefully it will be a good one — on a major book selling or endorsing platform, such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Goodreads, or Audible. In today’s social media world, authors live and die by readers’ reviews.
Chanti: What excites you most about writing?
Steinke: The conceptual challenge and the entire creative journey! It’s like putting a puzzle together, but you must first create the pieces from pretty much a blank slate… or a good outline! I also enjoy entertaining, educating, and even occasionally enlightening readers. I would like them to experience the organizations and professionals out there who keep the United States and our Allies safe, with much of their work done behind the scenes, while we sleep comfortably.
Ralph Richard “Rick” Steinke is the award-winning author of the Jake Fortina global thriller series, including Jake Fortina and the Roman Conspiracy, awarded the Grand Prize for 2023 in the Global Thriller – High Stakes category at the Chanticleer International Book Awards (the CIBAs) in April 2024. The Jake Fortina series, beginning with Major Jake Fortina and the Tier One Threat, was also selected as a Book Series Finalist at the CIBAs.
Steinke has spent a lifetime in US national security roles, including twenty-eight years in the US Army and fourteen in the Department of Defense. His official duties have taken him from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point to over thirty countries on the Eurasian landmass, including Afghanistan and Ukraine.
He holds master’s degrees in West European studies and diplomacy from Indiana and Norwich Universities, respectively, as well as post-graduation certificates in national and international security affairs from Harvard and Stanford Universities. His passions include faith, family, fly fishing, and travel.
KIM HORNSBY – USA Today Bestselling Author, Producer, and Screenwriter
Hello friends, we have another fabulous interview for you today. Rick Steinke took home the 2023 Chanticleer 
Ralph Richard “Rick” Steinke is the award-winning author of the Jake Fortina global thriller series, including Jake Fortina and the Roman Conspiracy, awarded the Grand Prize for 2023 in the Global Thriller – High Stakes category at the Chanticleer International Book Awards (the CIBAs) in April 2024. The Jake Fortina series, beginning with Major Jake Fortina and the Tier One Threat, was also selected as a Book Series Finalist at the CIBAs.