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

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

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

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.  This was such a great bunch of hosts, all armed with terrific questions — I can’t thank these folks

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

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

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 — but didn’t know! — 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,

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

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 Visé, who talked about his latest book, The Blues Brothers:

We are in the End Times. I am aware. Just because I don’t write, tweet, or engage socially about it doesn’t mean I don’t know or care. I’m just trying to preserve my mental health. To that end, I have submitted my request to Lumon Industries to be severed like Mark, Helly, Irving, and Dylan, the courageous data mining employees on

I am ecstatic to report that Chained Birds has been short-listed for CIBA’s 2024 Nellie Bly Book Awards! So naturally, I’ve done a deep dive into all things Nellie Bly … get ready for a primer. 😁 Sponsored by the Chanticleer International Book Awards and Novel Competitions (CIBAs), this award recognizes emerging new talent and outstanding works in the genre

I’m not sure which is more exciting — getting a trio of book prizes for Chained Birds or my new gorgeous cover with a shiny fresh award sticker … do I have to choose? I’ll tackle my prizes first and say I have a lot of love for BestThrillers.com, Independent Book Review, and Literary Titan. I’ve been honored with book