Chanticleer Book Reviews

Tag: Narrative Nonfiction Awards

The 2020 JOURNEY Book Awards for Narrative Non-Fiction – the Semi-Finalists for the JOURNEY Division of the 2020 CIBAs
The Journey Book Awards recognize emerging new talent and outstanding works in the genre of Narrative Non-Fiction and Memoir. The Journey Book Awards is a genre division of Chanticleer International Book Awards and Novel Competitions (CIBAs).

Chanticleer International Book Awards is looking for the best books for our Journey Awards featuring true stories about survival, overcoming issues, trauma, and threatening life events, along with turbulent personal journeys.

Due to an unprecedented number of 2020 Journey Book Awards, we split off the Heartwarming, Inspirational, Heartwarming, Humorous, and Happiness. Think of Chicken Soup for the Soul.

We also are now offering the following CIBA Non-Fiction Divisions:
- The Mind & Spirit Book Awards
- The Nellie Bly Book Awards for Investigative and Long Form Journalism
- The I & I Book Awards for Insight and Instruction for How-To, Guide Books, Self-Help, Cook Books, etc.
- The Harvey Chute Book Awards for Business, Finance, and Enterprise
- The Heartening Book Awards
New in 2021 will be the Military Veterans Non-Fiction works.

These titles have moved forward in the judging rounds from the 2020 Journey Book Awards LONG LIST to the 2020 SHORT LIST and now have progressed to the 2020 SEMI-FINALISTS. The Semi-Finalists’ works will compete for the Finalists positions.

The following works have advanced in the 2020 Journey Book Awards for Narrative Non-Fiction
- Karen Keilt – The Parrot’s Perch
- Susan E Casey – Rock On: Mining for Joy in the Deep River of Sibling Grief
- Laila Tarraf – Strong Like Water: Lessons Learned from Leading with Love
- Ashley Conner and Cierra Camper – Memoirs of Michael: The Hurricane Project
- Patricia Eagle – Being Mean–A Memoir of Sexual Abuse and Survival
- Susan E. Greisen – In Search of Pink Flamingos: A Woman’s Quest for Forgiveness & Unconditional Love
- Mendek Rubin & Myra Goodman – Quest for Eternal Sunshine
- Janice Morgan – Suspended Sentence
- Marianne Ingheim – Out of Love: Finding Your Way Back to Self-Compassion
- Sharon Dukett – No Rules
- Judy Gaman – Love, Life, and Lucille
- David Crow – The Pale-Faced Lie: A True Story
- Christine Nicolette-Gonzalez – My Mother’s Curse: A Journey Beyond Childhood Trauma
- Scott Hunter – And the Monkey Lets Go: Memoirs Through Illusion and Doubt
- Mary Charity Kruger Stein – Fatherless, Fearless, Female: A Memoir
- Ilene English – Hippie Chick
- Barbara Clarke – The Red Kitchen
- Amy Byer Shainman – Resurrection Lily: The BRCA Gene, Hereditary Cancer & Lifesaving Whispers from the Grandmother I Never Knew
- Tamra McAnally Bolton – A Blessed Life: One World War II Seabee’s Story
- Steve Mariotti – Goodbye Homeboy
- Steve Rochinski – A Man of His Time: Secrets from a Halfway World
- Barbara Clarke – The Red Kitchen
- Tiffani Goff – Loving Tiara
- Kathleen Pooler – Just the Way He Walked: A Mother’s Story of Healing and Hope
- Isaac Alexis M.D. – The Seductive Pink Crystal
- Renee Hodges – Saving Bobby: Heroes and Heroin in One Small Community
- Ted Neill – Two Years of Wonder
- Deborah Burns – Saturday’s Child
- Stefanie Naumann – How Languages Saved Me: A Polish Story of Survival
- Lydia Ola Taiwo – A Broken Childhood: How To Overcome Abuse: A Recovery Guide
- Lilly A Gwilliam – Generations of Motherhood: A Changing Story
- Marilea C. Rabasa – Stepping Stones: A Memoir of Addiction, Loss, and Transformation
- Christine Ristaino – All the Silent Spaces
These titles are in the running for the Finalists of the 2020 Journey Book Awards for Narrative Non-Fiction.

Which of these works will move forward in the judging rounds for the 2020 Journey Book Awards for Narrative Non-Fiction?

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

The Semi-Finalists’ works will compete for the First Place Winner positions, and then all will be recognized in the evenings at VCAC21 April 22-24th from 6-8 p.m. PST.

The First Place Category Winners, along with the CIBA Division Grand Prize winners, will be selected from the 23 CIBA divisions Finalists. We will announce the 1st Place Category Winners and Grand Prize Division Winners the CIBAs Ceremonies June 5th, 2021 virtually (Free) and LIVE at the luxurious Hotel Bellwether in Bellingham, Wash.

Register today!
We are now accepting submissions into the 2021 Journey Book Awards. The deadline for submissions is April 30th, 2021. The winners will be announced in April 2022.

Please click here for more information.

Don’t Delay! Enter Today!

As always, please do not hesitate to contact us with any questions, concerns, or suggestions at Info@ChantiReviews.com.
April 12, 2021
SOULSTROLLER: Experiencing the weight, whispers, & wings of the world by Kayce Stevens Hughlett – Women’s Biographies, Personal Transformations, Self-Help

In a creative blend of existential memoir and artful travel journal, Kayce Stevens Hughlett’s SoulStroller takes readers along on an adventurous journey of self-discovery. Reminiscent of Elizabeth Gilbert’s popular Eat, Pray, Love, Hughlett focuses on family issues, ancestral memories, and dreams explored within the context of personal travels, focusing on the importance of moving beyond our comfort zones.

Here we come to learn that a SoulStroller is a term used for an individual who ventures into the fullest version of their true selves. Guided by intuition and spiritual essence, they stroll through life with a feeling of curiosity, compassion, contentment, and gratitude. Like a pilgrim on a quest, they follow their heart, rather than move ahead with a tourist mentality of set goals and to-do lists.

Raised with the traditional expectations of the “good girl,” Hughlett lived the first 30 years of her life within 150 miles of Oklahoma City, an area of white, middle-class, conservatives. The blinders came off when she moved to Seattle. Divorced, and remarried with two children, Hughlett indicates that when everything is FINE, sometimes that refers to the acronym for “fucked up, insecure, neurotic, and exhausted.”

It is during a trip to Mexico in search of a therapeutic boarding school for her troubled son that she finds a sense of peace and a firm idea of place as she falls in love with the desert landscape. With the outstretched arms of the saguaro cactus offering a sense of peace, it is in this moment that everything changes.

Hughlett’s journeys go far beyond visits to the likes of the Eiffel Tower and Louvre. Whether enjoying the delicacy of an eggplant and cheese sandwich on the banks of the Seine or meeting a charmingly eccentric and her poodle, Hughlett learns to distinguish the essential rhythms of her own life.

Hughlett writes with a comfortable conversational voice that invites readers into her world view; one that she approaches with both exuberance and trepidation. The overall narrative unfolds in a generally chronological sequence, though journal entries and recollections can at times reflect past memories or events.

Insightful words from several authors, poets, scholars, and artists are used to grace the opening of each chapter, including contributions as varied as those of Roald Dahl, Thich Nhat Hanh, Gloria Steinem, and Henry Miller. Mark Twain’s quote seems to epitomize the central “SoulStroller” sentiment in “Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

Each section of the book concludes with a simple practicum highlighting suggestions for readers to venture into their own SoulStrolling mindset. Exercises range from quiet meditation and writing prompts, to practicing self-kindness and ideas for travels off the beaten path.

While Hughlett considers that her story may be too personal or esoteric for some readers, her work speaks to her positive growth, as her travels and experiences have allowed her to trust her own voice and value the lessons of her own journey. This is a book that strings together individual pearls of wisdom that have universal appeal.

SoulStroller by Kayce Stevens Hughlett won 1^st Place in the CIBA 2018 Journey Awards for Narrative Non-Fiction.

October 2, 2019
GOODBYE to MAIN STREET: A Family Memoir & Sequel to Prairie Son by Dennis Clausen – Memoir, Family Relationships / Saga, Multi-Generational Memoir

Growing up in an estranged family atmosphere brings questions that beg for answers in this complex multigenerational memoir.

Author Dennis M. Clausen recalls his early years growing up in the latter half of the last century with a detached, mostly absent father and a disabled, emotionally conflicted mother. In his tribute to small-town America, the author eloquently sketches the Minnesota village where he spent most of his youth, a place where the awnings on Main Street were opened and shut at the same time each day, and family secrets were hinted at but never discussed. Among the secrets was the enigma surrounding Clausen’s father, Lloyd, a wanderer who could never settle in one place, keep one job or stay with one woman for very long.

There are many idyllic elements to Dennis’s upbringing. Though poor and often struggling for basic necessities, his mother and siblings got by, sometimes helped by the largesse of the community. On occasion, a visitor might sleep on the couch, and tuck nickels or dimes strategically into the sofa’s cushions, leaving Dennis and his brother, Derl, the means to go to the local movie theater. The boys also managed a paper route together.

Reaching college age, there was no money, so Dennis stayed in his hometown at a newly created branch of the university. There he was fortunate to have as a mentor a legendary professor of American literature who recognized what the town’s librarian had noticed years before: that Dennis had great zeal for reading.

As Clausen matured and closely observed the clan he was born into, certain flaws appeared in the pleasant but rather fuzzy picture that had been painted for him. He felt increasingly guided by hints – and finally by some handwritten memoirs from his father – to explore their shared past. In the years of Clausen’s youth, polio was a killer stalking the country and then was miraculously eliminated, but the psychological concept of “attachment disorder,” which undoubtedly afflicted Lloyd, was unheard of. In sifting through his father’s memorabilia, Clausen learned that Lloyd’s adoptive parents always regarded their charge more as free labor than loved one. In Prairie Son, Clausen has written vividly of Lloyd’s life as a mistreated orphan. The many remarkable results of that investigative work comprise the second portion of Goodbye to Main Street, complete with documentation and photographs in what can be seen as Clausen’s second vocation as the family detective.

Clausen’s work has garnered a following among family both here and abroad who have contributed to his diligent search for his ancestry and among orphans and children of orphans who sense his empathy. There are many poignant moments in his coming-of-age account that will resonate with the experiences of an earlier generation of Americans. Perhaps this is the pull of Clausen’s memoir, the story of how one boy grew to manhood and overcame the odds, to become something other than what he was born into: from grinding poverty to successful academic.

Now, after making numerous nostalgic visits to the old hometown and to various gravesites as part of his delving into family lore, he has come to see life as “a journey” and to respect its mysteries.

Goodbye to Main Street won 1st Place in the CIBAs 2018 Journey Awards for Narrative Non-Fiction.

August 2, 2019