Drumroll please … introducing my very first (and possibly only, ever) handcrafted book trailer for CHAINED BIRDS: A True Crime Memoir. This labor of love was requested by the Next Generation Indie Book Awards for their upcoming awards gala, to be held in my hometown of Philadelphia on June 27. I wish to thank the NGIBA staff for making me
Chained Birds Book Trailer
Awards and Praise for Chained Birds
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The latest blog posts
Chained Birds wins top True Crime book award from IndieReader
Oh, how I love my indie book award programs! Chained Birds has won another True Crime literary honor, this time taking the 2025 True Crime top prize in the Indie Reader Discovery Awards, announced today. I’m not sharing this award with anyone, and there are no True Crime finalists to congratulate β it’s just little ole’ me getting the top
Chained Birds wins True Crime Silver Medal in IPPY book awards
I just got the wonderful news that Chained Birds: A True-Crime Memoir captured the Silver Medal in the True Crime category of the 2025 Independent Publisher Book Awards, aka the IPPY awards! π This is the second true crime book award for Chained Birds this month πππ I’d like to congratulate all the IPPY winners in the contest’s 100+ categories,
Chained Birds wins 1st Place in True Crime from IndieBook Awards
Holy moly! Chained Birds has been honored with its first “true crime” book prize thanks to the Next Generation Indie Book Awards! I was gobsmacked yesterday to find a congratulatory email from the awards program (in my spam folder, no less!) alerting me to a First Place award for my true crime memoir. I’m honored and thrilled to share the
Chained Birds honored with 1st Place Nellie Bly Journalism Award
A few weeks ago, when I traveled across the country for the Chanticleer International Book Awards in Washington State, I didn’t know the CIBAs would become my all-time favorite writer’s conference. My icing on the cake was winning a 1st Place Nellie Bly Journalism award for Chained Birds at the Saturday night, April 5, banquet. But in the future, even
Carla Conti’s Chained Birds is featured on two new true crime podcasts
I had the great pleasure of discussing Chained Birds on two new true crime podcasts, and I’m honored to be among their first guests. My interviews on Santana True Crime and True Crime Talk with Nic Edwards just dropped, and each episode offers something unique in terms of interview style, topics discussed, and book content covered. Fun fact: each of
Podcaster Appreciation Day: Thanks to all who’ve hosted me to talk about Chained Birds!
As the launch period for Chained Birds winds down, so has the flurry of my podcast appearances. I’ve been on a dozen since the book’s release, and here’s a recap of the latest shows, complete with all listening and viewing links.Β This was such a great bunch of hosts, all armed with terrific questions β I can’t thank these folks
UPDATE: Follow this Kindle Scribe hack for better note-taking and easy book edits
Post updated March 2025 New fun fact: my original post about a Kindle Scribe hack for taking notes is my number one visited blog post. BY A LOT. Every day, every week, this evergreen article for tech geeks outperforms all my posts across my website, most of which are about my true crime memoir Chained Birds. When I first wrote
IndieReader finds Chained Birds a “gripping exploration” of prison system’s underbelly
I was beyond thrilled this week to see in my inbox another stellar editorial critique for my debut, Chained Birds: A True Crime Memoir. The unexpected surprise was courtesy of IndieReader, and one of the perks of entering Chained Birds in IndieReader’s 2025 Discovery Awards book competition. I had forgotten about this bonus “verdict” on the submission, so I was
Featuring Chained Birds Reviewer of the Week!
To say I’m grateful for my growing list of Chained Birds book reviews on Amazon and Goodreads is a huge understatement. I always hoped β but didn’t know! β that everyday readers would find the book as compelling of a page-turner as my editorial reviewers have. It’s especially grand to hear from those who listened to the Chained Birds‘ audiobook,
Chained Birds wins the Feathered Quill Debut Author Award
To say that book award season has been good to Chained Birds is an understatement! I’m humbled and honored that Chained Birds has been chosen as the 2025 Gold/1st Place winner by the Feathered Quill Book Awards Program for the Debut Author category. At the time of this blog post, the finalists for this award and their other award categories
The Artful Periscope reveals why Chained Birds had to be memoir mixed with true crime
I had the pleasure of appearing on Larry Davison’s final 2024 episode of his podcast, The Artful Periscope, which just dropped on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and other platforms this week. I was the first of Larry’s two interviews for his non-fiction-focused episode and was followed by best-selling author Daniel de VisΓ©, who talked about his latest book, The Blues Brothers: