LOS ANGELES_ The Southern California Book Festival honors the best books of the fall. Rick Robinson’s highly lauded book, 1968: A Primer for Understanding Baby Boomers and Island to Icon: The Many Lives of Bob Denver by Dreama Denver took top awards in the Compilation Category. New release by Burke Allen, Becoming Semi-Famous—A Publicity Primer on Mastering The Media Without Having To Be Arrested, Involved In A Scandal or Otherwise Embarrassing Yourself and Your Family won top honors in the How-To Category.
The Southern California Book Festival considers published and unpublished works in fiction, non-fiction, biography/autobiography, memoir, how-to, compilations/anthologies, photography/art, children’s, cookbooks, poetry, spiritual, young adult, business/technology, unpublished manuscripts, wild card (anything goes!), nature/animals and regional lit. There is no date of publication restriction, but all entries must be in English or Spanish.
Submitted works are judged by a panel for general excellence and the author’s passion for telling a good story. They also consider the potential of the work to reach a wider audience.
Headline Books New Releases Won the Following Awards:
CHILDREN’S BOOKS:
RUNNER-UP: Pickleball in Pickleton – Bucleigh Newton Kernodle
HONORABLE MENTION: The Tail of Little Bit – Linda Hickam
GENERAL FICTION: RUNNER-UP: Finding Eden – J.P. Kerwin
HOW-TO: WINNER: Becoming Semi-Famous – Burke Allen
GENERAL NONFICTION: RUNNER-UP: Mission Out of Control – Dr. Charles J. Camarda
COMPILATIONS/ANTHOLOGIES:
WINNER: 1968 – Rick Robinson
RUNNER-UP: Island to Icon – Dreama Denver
HONORABLE MENTION: Americans Who Made America – Richard V. Battle
Greg Fields’ The Bright Freight of Memory (Koehler Books) took top honors and tells the story of Matthew Cooney and Donal Mannion, who shared their time as boys in a rundown neighborhood without fathers, without comfort, without a sense of tomorrow, then went their separate ways, one to chase the trappings of maturity, the other to the streets, as each sought his place and purpose.