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The Journey Book Awards recognize emerging new talent and outstanding works in the genre of Overcoming Adversity in Narrative Non-Fiction and Memoirs. The Grand Prize Winner, Julie Morrison’s book, Barbed: A Memoir will be promoted for years to come in our annual Hall of Fame article, as well as be featured on the Journey contest page year ’round!
The best part about being a Chanticleer Int’l Book Award Winner is the love and attention you get all year ‘round!
The 2023 Journey Winners were announced at the 2024 Chanticleer Authors Conference in April, and you can see the official winners post here!
Join us in celebrating the 2023 First Place Journey Winners!
Lori Lee Peters – God, The Mafia, My Dad and Me
In 1974, Lori Lee Peters was an impressionable thirteen-year-old growing up in the suburban town of Lodi, California. The wider world—from which her parents sheltered her and her sisters—fascinated Lori. She was curious about everything, informed about little, and dependent on friends to fill gaps with the knowledge she craved.
Religion was a topic rarely discussed in her household. So when friends shared their beliefs about God as fact, Lori thought her days on Earth were numbered. She carried this news with her for decades as a deadly secret she couldn’t share with her family. Little did she know that her father—her hero—had a secret of his own.
From Chanticleer:
God, the Mafia, My Dad, and Me by Lori Lee Peters begins in the voice of a child, compelling not just for its narrative honestly, but for the fact that it might not be reliable. As the book opens, we learn that this narrator firmly believes she will be killed.
Readers can easily see through the childlike hyperbole, but that doesn’t detract from the intrigue. How did a kid come to such an extreme conclusion? Is there any seed of truth to it? These questions will hook readers from the start.
Author Peters set out to write a book about her dad. God, the Mafia, My Dad, and Me tells the true story of her father, and his fascinating work helping the FBI tackle Mafia activity in Lodi, California. Yet in the end, this is a memoir in which the compelling lead character – young Lori – overshadows her father in many ways.
Antonia Deignan – Underwater Daughter
In the spirit of The Glass Castle and The Burning Light of Two Stars, Antonia Deignan delivers what New York Times best-selling author Julie Cantrell calls a “a heart-shattering memoir of painful truth and soulful healing.”
As a child, Antonia perceived her father’s nighttime visits as special acts of love. On some deeper level, though, she knew what was happening wasn’t right. To escape, she began creating imaginary worlds and used dreams to transport her away from her fears. As she got older, Antonia traded those fantasies for dance—but despite her outlets she remained trapped underwater, without a lifeline to make her feel fundamentally safe.
Nanette J. Davis Ph.D. – Raging Currents: Mental Illness and Family
A surprise sink-or-swim lesson at the tender age of nine opens this gripping memoir of love, mental illness, and care giving. A swirling narrative carries readers from pre-WWII Illinois to the infamous Oregon State Mental Hospital of the 80s and forward along a harrowing chasm carved by dysfunctional parents, inhumane social systems, and driven by Dr. Nanette Davis’s powerful love for her mentally-ill sister and son. Raging Currents spans mental health therapies from sedation and isolation, to twelve-step programs, tough love, and modern neuroscience-driven treatments.
From the childhood of a strong-willed, fiercely independent, and curious girl to the roles of supportive sister, wife, and mother, Davis shares her life’s foundation, development, and endless devotion to those she loves. Expertly weaving social norms in compelling prose, Davis offers the wisdom and reflection of age through the clear-eyed recollections of a trained sociologist. Her ever-increasing understanding of compassion is the bedrock of this insightful and vulnerable telling. Raging Currents offers more than an inspiring memoir: it provides practical advice and solace for modern caregivers, friends, family, and people living with mental illness.
Barbara Wolf Terao – Reconfigured: A Memoir
When Barbara Terao moves into a new home in Washington, two thousand miles from her husband in Illinois, she doesn’t know when—or if—she’ll ever live with him again. Her diagnosis of breast cancer three months later changes both of them in ways they never imagined.
In the ensuing months, Barbara’s husband and adult children show up to help her through a year of difficult treatments and surgery, and Barbara, in her Whidbey Island cottage, learns to listen to her heart and intuition. Nurtured by Douglas fir forests, the Salish Sea, and her community, she changes her life from the inside out. Her journey, she realizes, wasn’t about leaving her husband so much as finding herself. Reconfigured in body, mind, and spirit, Barbara finally has words for what she wants to say—and the strength to be a survivor.
Sarah Martin – Dear Psychosis,
What would you do if you received a message from a stranger telling you that your daughter, who is traveling alone in Turkey, is having some sort of mental health episode?
Dear Psychosis, is a confronting, dramatic and no-holds-barred account of a family’s experience following their daughter’s first-ever psychotic episode in Istanbul, and her later diagnosis of bipolar disorder.
To some, it may be a warning, to others a story of hope. Most of all, it shows how the love and care given by strangers and family alike paved the way for their daughter’s recovery and inspired the family to break the silence around mental illness.
Erika Shepard – Trans-Formations: From Field Boots to Sensible Heels
On a blazing summer day in Missouri, 1956, eight-year-old Richard discovers a sparkling rock on the railroad tracks near his home—and is fascinated. In that same year, he makes another unexpected discovery—an aching, forbidden desire to be a girl. A lifetime of secrecy follows until, at the edge of a cliff in remote southern Idaho, he faces a decision—to die as a man or live as a woman.Transformations is more than a memoir of transgenderism. It reflects important crossroads we all encounter in our lives—times of self-doubt and failure, other moments of great success and joy. It is a journey all of us share, one leading to that profound question we, at some point in our lives, must ask ourselves: Who am I?
Thank you for joining us to celebrate the 2023 Journey First Place Winners!
You can see our Spotlight on the Journey Grand Prize Winners, including Julie Morrison’s incredible book Barbed here.
Your book can join the Tiers of Achievement, but only if you submit to the Journey Awards!
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