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While They're Still Here

A Memoir
Patricia Williams

2018 Honorable Mention
329 Pages
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Non-Fiction - Memoir

2018 Honorable Mention
After a lifetime of strained bonds with her aging parents, Patricia Williams finds herself in the unexpected position of being their caregiver and neighbor. As they all begin to navigate this murky battleground, the long-buried issues that have divided their family for decades—alcoholism, infidelity, opposing politics—rear up and demand to be addressed head-on.




Williams answers the call of duty with trepidation at first, confronting the lines between service and servant, guardian and warden, while her parents alternately resist her help and wear her out. But by facing each new struggle with determination, grace, and courage, they ultimately emerge into a dynamic of greater transparency, mutual support, and teachable moments for all. Honest and humorous, graceful and grumbling, While They’re Still Here is a poignant story about a family that waves the white flag and begins to heal old wounds as they guide each other through the most vulnerable chapter of their lives.

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Dear Prudence

The Story Behind the Song
Prudence Farrow Bruns

2018 Honorable Mention
240 Pages
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Non-Fiction - Memoir

2018 Honorable Mention

“The sun is up, the sky is blue, it’s beautiful, and so are you…”

Those simple lines from the Beatles’ ballad, “Dear Prudence,” are easily recognizable by anyone who lived through the 1960s, as well as by the millions of people who continue to enjoy the Beatles’ music today.

But who was Prudence? Did she ever come out into the sunshine and greet the new day, as John Lennon beseeched her to do? What’s the real story behind the song?

Prudence Farrow Bruns, a daughter of the prominent Farrow family that includes sister and actress Mia Farrow, finally sets the story straight. Her memoir speaks to her three-month self-imposed meditative seclusion in India in 1968, while also carefully examining the universal experience of the 1960s youth movement.

Farrow honestly and unflinchingly explores how music, drugs, the Vietnam War, and eastern mysticism and philosophy changed millions of young people’s worldviews during one of America’s most tumultuous decades. She also touches on her own famous family’s heartaches and triumphs, even as she voices the experiences of an entire generation through a single iconic song.

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I'm The One Who Got Away

Andrea Jarrell

2018 Honorable Mention
176 Pages
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Non-Fiction - Memoir

2018 Honorable Mention
As featured in the New York Times “Modern Love” column * a Redbook Magazine must-read * Harper's Bazaar * Yahoo! Style, InStyle, Rumpus, Hello Giggles, Bustle, and Southern Living magazine Fall book pick

Fugitives from a man as alluring as he is violent, Andrea Jarrell and her mother develop a powerful, unusual bond. Once grown, Jarrell thinks she’s put that chapter of her life behind her―until a woman she knows is murdered, and she suddenly sees that it’s her mother’s choices she’s been trying to escape all along. Without preaching or prescribing, I’m the One Who Got Away is a life-affirming story of having the courage to become both safe enough and vulnerable enough to love and be loved.

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The Monster That Ate My Mommy

Jessica Aiken-Hall

2018 Honorable Mention
306 Pages
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Non-Fiction - Memoir

2018 Honorable Mention

Mothers are supposed to love their children unconditionally, but what if they can’t? “Your own mother doesn’t love you—what makes you think anyone else will?” These words haunted the author and affected every decision she made. If she wasn’t good enough for her mother’s love, what was she worthy of?

In The Monster That Ate My Mommy, Jessica Aiken-Hall takes the reader on her quest to find love and uncover the root of her suffering. In this courageous memoir, we learn the importance of love and belonging, and the price paid when it’s out of reach.


“This is one of the most moving and brave memoirs I have ever read—on par with The Liar’s Club (Mary Karr) and The Glass Castle (Jeannette Walls). I was sucked in from the first sentence and remained riveted throughout. Aiken-Hall’s raw exploration and recounting of highly traumatic life events is tempered with the gentleness of hope and the strength of perseverance. This is a book of extreme importance in the canon of women’s memoir. Read it for the compelling story of survival: savor it for its lessons of grace and resilience.” —Sarah Felix Burns author of Jackfish, The Vanishing Village

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Nothing Is Predictable

Adalina Mae

2018 Bronze Medal
266 Pages
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Non-Fiction - Memoir

2018 Bronze Medal
Zara is eight years old, her father, in a drunken rampage, accidentally shoots himself dead.
Her childhood memories leave her struggling with romantic attachments and hinder her from developing healthy relationships.
Seeking answers, She meets a monk for wisdom, and a gypsy for insight.
The journeys Adalina Mae takes us on are interspersed with heartbreaking moments as well as hilarious escapades.
This is life and nothing is predictable. The story keeps you on your toes and offers mysteries to solve:
Why does Zara have recurrent nightmares of her last night with her father?
Why does she struggle with love?

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Pieces of Me

Rescuing My Kidnapped Daughters
Lizbeth Meredith

2018 Silver Medal
312 Pages
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Non-Fiction - Memoir

2018 Silver Medal
In 1994, Lizbeth Meredith said good-bye to her four- and six year-olddaughters for a visit with their non-custodial father only to learn days later that they had been kidnapped and taken to their father's homecountry of Greece.

Twenty-nine and just on the verge of makingher dreams of financial independence for her and her daughters cometrue, Lizbeth now faced a $100,000 problem on a $10 an hour budget. Forthe next two years fueled by memories of her own childhood kidnappingLizbeth traded in her small life for a life more public, traveling tothe White House and Greece, and becoming a local media sensation inorder to garner interest in her efforts. The generous community ofAnchorage becomes Lizbeth's makeshift family one that is replicated by a growing number of Greeks and expats overseas who help Lizbeth navigatethe turbulent path leading back to her daughters.

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Sidonia's Thread

The Secrets of a Mother and Daughter Sewing a New Life in America
Hanna Perlstein Marcus

2018 Gold Medal
278 Pages
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Non-Fiction - Memoir

2018 Gold Medal
Did you and your parent ever keep a secret that lasted a lifetime? When Hanna Perlstein and her mother, Sidonia, come to Springfield, Massachusetts from a displaced persons camp after World War II, they know no one in America. With no other family, except each other, they build a world that revolves around Sidonia’s extraordinary talent with a needle and thread to create beautiful garments while Hanna serves as her dutiful model. As Sidonia becomes well-known in western Massachusetts and northern Connecticut for her remarkable sewing talent, she continues to keep her inner secrets about her past hidden not only from her daughter but from everyone else. Determined to craft a life of pride, self-reliance and perseverance, Sidonia teaches her daughter to “stand up straight” in fashion and in life. Sidonia’s Thread uses sewing metaphors to tell the tale of these two women as though stitched together like a handmade garment. Why did Sidonia keep these significant life secrets, and why was Hanna so afraid to ask about them? When Sidonia moves to elderly housing, Hanna steals some of her old letters and photographs hoping to find clues to her paternity, her mother’s reclusive behavior, and her heritage. Combined with a trip to her mother’s Hungarian homeland and a phone conversation with her father, Hanna’s surprising discoveries inspire a revised view of her life with her mother, replacing her conflicting emotions toward her mother with true reverence.

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Waking Mathilda

A Memoir of Childhood Narcolepsy
Claire Crisp

2017 Silver Medal
302 Pages
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Non-Fiction - Memoir

2017 Silver Medal
A native of England, Claire Crisp had it all—a strong marriage, three healthy children, and her own home in Bristol. Then came the H1N1 flu pandemic of 2009. It took only vaccine—one seemingly innocuous vaccine to Mathilda, the baby of the family—to change their lives forever. Diagnosed at age three as the world's youngest child with narcolepsy, the joyful and energetic Mathilda rapidly dissolved into someone unrecognizable. In this compelling narrative, Claire Crisp chronicles the fight for Mathilda's treatment. Leaving their family and country in England, the Crisps begin a new journey—one of faith, of loss, and of love as immigrants to the western shores of the United States.

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Teenage Degenerate

A Memoir that Explores the Depths of Methamphetamine and Drug Addiction
S. C. Sterling

2017 Gold Medal
260 Pages
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Non-Fiction - Memoir

2017 Gold Medal
Breaking Bad meets The Basketball Diaries! Amazon Best Seller in Drug Dependency and Personal Health!

In 1996, Scott was nineteen and lost in adulthood with an endless job and no future ambitions. Teenage Degenerate is his story about drug addiction, music and growing up. Over the course of ten months, he quickly descends into the dark and dangerous world of crystal methamphetamine.

Scott experiments with crystal meth in a dark, deserted parking lot in the suburbs of Denver, Colorado and soon after his crew of misfits will do almost anything for their next high. One by one, family and friends disappear, and he is left alone with a decision to continue fighting or give up. This is his struggle to reclaim a normal life and the search for something real.

Teenage Degenerate is a vivid, heartbreaking, and harrowing story that explores the depths of addiction.

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Realizing River City

Melissa Grunow

2017 Silver Medal
146 Pages
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Non-Fiction - Memoir

2017 Silver Medal
Winner of the 2016 IAN Award for Outstanding Memoir and Second Place for Nonfiction Book of the Year!

At times, life can feel like a challenging feat of survival. Whether it's living through abusive relationships or figuring out the complexities of what it means to be a woman searching for love. Realizing River City is a memoir that proves how despite the troubles we may face, there is hope in the way we continually risk ourselves in search for the life we want to live.In her poetic exploration of past relationships, Melissa Grunow's honest words do not falter in the face of so much loss. Taking the rage we all feel about grief and pain, and funneling it into truth, beauty, and ultimately redemption on each page, Realizing River City is about discovering how the most important relationship is the one we have with ourselves.