Posts on Criminal Justice and Prison Reform

An Invitation From Across the Pond When UK true crime podcaster Tom Clarke of Caught Up In Crime reached out to interview me about Chained Birds, I said yes immediately. Tom has a gift for getting to the heart of a story, and we took a deep dive into how I gained access to a whistleblower inside one ...

Last week I had the pleasure of joining the legendary Ron Chepesiuk for a full hour on his award-nominated show, Crime Beat—and it was the best conversation I’ve had about The Jacklighter so far. We covered a lot of ground: how I first stumbled onto this story nearly 30 years ago in my husband’s hometown of ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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. ...

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 ...

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 — ...

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. ...

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 ...