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 IndieReader and their contest. To quote Amy: “The Discovery Awards winning books aren’t merely great indie books—but great books, period!”
Here’s a highlight from the interview:
What inspired you to write the book? A particular person? An event?
Chained Birds is a personal true crime memoir that chronicles my ten-year relationship with a federal inmate, what he endured behind bars, as well as the chaotic aftermath of working on his criminal trial (alongside my high school attorney friend). I got to know this inmate, Kevin Sanders, well, and originally intended to write about his criminal case and the prison abuses at Lewisburg prison. But as I got more involved in Kevin’s world, the two prison gangs who tried to kill him became a tangential threat to all of us. So there were many, many times during that ten-year period that I didn’t want to publish the story at all … there were real security threats attached to Chained Birds that I was finally able to come to terms with in order to write the book.
You can read the rest of the interview here. Thanks again, Amy and the folks at IndieReader, for spotlighting me and picking Chained Birds as your 2025 True Crime winner 🥳 🙏
Carla Conti is an award-winning true crime journalist, storyteller, and prison reform advocate. Her debut book, Chained Birds: A Crimemoir, won multiple 2025 national book awards, including 1st Place in True Crime from the Next Generation Indie Book Awards, Winner in True Crime from the Indie Reader Discovery Awards, Silver in True Crime from the Independent Publisher Book Awards (IPPY), and a 1st Place Nellie Bly Journalism award from the Chanticleer International Book Awards. Carla lives in Pennsylvania with her husband, who tolerates her true crime habit.
