Despite my best intentions not to create more work for myself, I just launched a YouTube channel to host videos that are too damn large for this WordPress blog. I didn’t really want to get into making videos (I should be writing 🙄), but I had no choice, because my Jacklighter book trailer was just too many megabytes. And you

What a way to end the year 🥳 I’m delighted to share that Chained Birds has been named Best Crimemoir of 2025 by AudioBookReviewer! Honestly, I’d forgotten I had even entered into the awards program, so when I received the news, it felt like an unexpected gift to cap off this incredible year. And fun fact: my book was under

Looking ahead to 2026, I’m thrilled to announce that I’ll be presenting a workshop called True Crime Uncovered at the 39th Annual Pennwriters Conference in Lancaster, PA, May 15-17, 2026! This is a particularly meaningful opportunity for me, as I first attended the conference this past spring as a debut author still finding my way in the publishing world. The

This weekend, my local writer’s group, the Delaware Valley chapter of Sisters in Crime, had the great pleasure of welcoming award-winning author, CNN journalist, and master storyteller John DeDakis as our guest speaker. John’s presentation, “From Journalist to Novelist (Or How I Learned to Start Making it Up),” was thoroughly entertaining, and some of us followed up with great conversation

How I became a #1 Amazon Bestseller in Three Categories 11/16/2025 Update, Two Weeks later … Since I wrote my original post on Nov. 2, 2025, Chained Birds added a third #1 Best Seller Amazon badge in True Crime: Organized Crime, giving me a trifecta of orange badges. For a few days, I even held that #1 ranking along with

I want to thank my friend and podcaster Cameron Santana for having me on his show, Santana True Crime, this week to celebrate the one-year anniversary of Chained Birds—now an Amazon Best Seller—and to talk about my next book, The Jacklighter! You can watch our hour-plus interview on Spotify, catch some outtake shorts on YouTube, or listen to the full

This past year, I’ve had the pleasure of being a guest speaker at three local-to-me book clubs that assigned Chained Birds: A Crimemoir to their members. I can’t adequately convey what it meant to me, as a debut author, to be welcomed by these groups and treated as a guest of honor. I have finally compiled a list of book

This summer has been a whirlwind for me. After reclaiming the rights to my award-winning book Chained Birds, I took the leap into indie publishing. It’s been a liberating experience—one that’s pushed me to explore new platforms and opportunities, like making my audiobook available on Spotify. Yes, Chained Birds is now streaming on the same platform where Taylor Swift’s chart-topping hits live. And while I’m

📚 October is right around the corner, and so is one of my favorite book festival events! I’m thrilled to announce that on Saturday, October 4, 2025, I’ll be joining the Delaware Valley Chapter of Sisters in Crime at the 23rd Annual Collingswood Book Festival in downtown Collingswood, NJ. This vibrant, six-block celebration of books, authors, and readers promises something

🎥 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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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