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+...
Carla Conti’s Blog Posts
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...
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,...
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...
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...
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...
Update May 29, 2025: Chained Birds won the top prize for True Crime in the 2025 Indie Reader Discovery Awards! Original Post 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 Indie Reader, and one of the perks...
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‘...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Winnie Schrader, host of YouTube’s Mysteries, Mayhem and Merlot, was destined to become a true crime podcaster, even if she didn’t know it. Her show, which dives into all things true crime, is the product of a radio background, a love of journalism, a family podcasting mentorship, and a personal experience within the genre. She credits her early interest...
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...
Like with so many worthwhile things, it really did take a village to publish and promote Chained Birds. It feels more than appropriate, in this last blog post of the year, to reflect upon my 2024 publishing whirlwind and all the folks who helped bring Chained Birds into the world and shout it from the bleachers. It was exactly...
I had the pleasure of appearing on Larry Davison’s final 2024 episode of his podcast, The Artful Periscope, which was a bittersweet finale as Larry said goodbye to his longtime sound engineer Chris DeChristofaro. For five years, Larry, whose career spans decades in radio, TV, and other podcasts, has recorded The Artful Periscope in a library sound booth on...
In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I’m especially thankful and pleased to share a lovely, hometown interview I had with WriteNowPhilly.com, which posted on its website today. Drexel computer science major Tahsin Ahmed had the assignment of reading my debut, Chained Birds: A True Crime Memoir, and his deep, introspective interview questions are still serving as a roadmap for my...
This was a big week for me in podcasting with three shows recorded, including a really fun, birdseye view talk with Joe Dimino on his YouTube podcast FAMOUS INTERVIEWS WITH JOE DIMINO. We covered a lot of ground outside my book Chained Birds and in particular, what inspired me to become a journalist in the first place. (The interview...
This is my second shout-out this week to Ed Opperman and my appearance on his talk radio show the OPPERMAN REPORT, which appeared on a handful of radio stations (KCAA AM/FM- WWPR AM- WWNN AM/FM- WHSP AM- KYAH AM) and now has episode links on Spotify and Patreon. Ed was kind enough to invite me on his show to...
It was my pleasure to call into an old-timey radio station and chat it up with the grandfather of true crime radio and podcasting Burl Barer on his show TRUE CRIME UNCENSORED WITH BURL BARER. And when I say old-timey, my instructions were to call in on a landline if I could manage it — sorry, Burl, I haven’t...
This week a friend shared a link to a Philadelphia Magazine story about the “Little Scandinavia” prison program in Chester … and boy, was that alert timely because I then got to mention the article and the program while appearing on THE OPPERMAN REPORT radio show with Ed Opperman. (I’ll link to that episode when it drops.) I’ve recorded...
Last week I talked with journalist and author Dan Zupansky for his TRUE MURDER podcast, and it was the longest, most in-depth interview to date on all things Chained Birds. Dan covered the entire book from start to finish and just released the almost 90-minute interview on all his platforms, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify. There was much I didn’t know about...
Today’s log in the promotional tour for Chained Birds: A True Crime Memoir brings two firsts — a sit-down with an international journalist and a live YouTube recording. I enjoyed a 30-minute chat this morning with journalist Khudania Ajay for his daily live show KAJ Masterclass LIVE! Ajay, who’s had media roles with CNBC (India), Reuters, and PTI, brings...
I’m enjoying watching the marketing rollout this week for Chained Birds, including this 19-second Instagram reel created by Kapp Co Digital. My publisher, WildBlue Press, has just onboarded with the marketing firm, and my book is its first beneficiary. Candice Kapp, the firm’s founder and marketing specialist, has been delightful to work with and has embraced all the book’s...