🎥 I’m overjoyed to announce that Chained Birds: A Crimemoir has been named a finalist in the 2025 Page Turner Awards’ Book Adaptation Needed category! 🏆 This recognition is particularly meaningful because the Page Turner Awards celebrate books with cinematic potential—an exciting prospect for any author dreaming of seeing their work adapted for the screen. 🎬 The winners will be
Chained Birds Book Trailer
Praise for Chained Birds
The latest blog posts
AudioBookReviewer on Chained Birds: an “eye-opening” exposé and “captivating” author narration
Better late than never! Seven months after receiving this one and only editorial review for my author-narrated audiobook of Chained Birds, I am finally posting it in its entirety. I’m extremely pleased to immortalize this review by AudioBookReviewer.com, even though the reviewer wasn’t so fond of the book’s political aspect. That is the reason, I suspect, for the four-star rating.
Killer Nashville Writers’ Conference, here I come!
I am SO jazzed to be appearing on three author panels at this year’s Killer Nashville Writers’ Conference, followed by book signings of Chained Birds after each one in the Killer Nashville Bookstore! Fun fact: all bookstore signings are open to the public 👏 So if you’re a crime fiction, thriller, or true crime fan in Nashville next weekend, come
Announcing: An “Author’s Cut” Chained Birds re-launch with 20+ new images
There’s a reason I’ve been missing in action here, on social media, and on the pickleball court this summer … I’ve been busy getting my Chained Birds rights reverted from my former publisher to re-launch it under my own imprint. That’s right, I’ve had a friendly divorce from my traditional publisher, and have now gone “indie” by re-launching my award-winning
VIDEO: The Lewisburg Prison rec cage fight behind Chained Birds (viewer discretion advised)
As part of my “Author’s Cut” re-boot of Chained Birds, I am making available to the public the video surveillance footage of the 2011 recreational cage fight at Lewisburg Prison that essentially launched this book. It’s grainy and brutal, and thankfully the victim survived and walked away on his own … still, viewer discretion is advised. The participants**, from left
VIDEO: An Aryan Brotherhood prison “hit” from Chained Birds (viewer discretion advised)
This is the second of two prison stabbing videos I’ve made available to the public as part of my re-launch of Chained Birds: A Crimemoir. Like the first one, it’s grainy and brutal, and the victim—federal inmate Kevin Sanders—survives … but just barely. The 2013 footage from USP Florence in Colorado begins with an Aryan Brotherhood (AB) of Texas associate
Chained Birds named True Crime finalist by National Indie Excellence Awards
I’m thrilled to announce that Chained Birds has been recognized as a True Crime finalist in the 2025 National Indie Excellence Awards! Thank you, NIEA, for this literary honor and for adding to my Spring collection of True Crime awards! 🌸📚🏆 The NIEA is a prestigious program that celebrates independent publishing across a wide variety of genres. With a mission
IndieReader True Crime winner Carla Conti interview: behind the scenes of Chained Birds
In this whirlwind year of a book launch, conferences, and awards, I’m trying to appreciate each milestone, and that includes a new author interview posted by IndieReader Discovery Awards, which named Chained Birds its 2025 True Crime category winner. I was delighted when IndieReader reached out for the interview, and told editor Amy Edelman that I love the ideology behind
Carla Conti on writing true crime, author self-promotion, and her next book
One of the key benefits of attending writers’ conferences is the people you meet, and this interview with a fellow author and blogger is a lovely example of one of those spinoffs. I had the great pleasure of meeting Christina Boyd at the April Chanticleer Authors’ Conference in Bellingham, Wash., where we both won book awards. She took home a
Sneak Peek of Chained Birds book trailer for Philadelphia awards gala
Drumroll please … introducing my very first (and possibly only, ever) handcrafted book trailer for CHAINED BIRDS: A True Crime Memoir. (Note this book was retitled Chained Birds: A Crimemoir during my summer 2025 re-launch under my own imprint.) This labor of love was requested by the Next Generation Indie Book Awards for their upcoming awards gala, to be held
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 — 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! 🎉 This is the second true crime book award for Chained Birds this month 😭😭😭 I’d like to congratulate all the IPPY winners in the contest’s 100+ categories,