We just wrapped up the 2025 Chanticleer Authors Conference (CAC25) and International Book Awards (CIBA), my work’s largest event of the year!
This was my second year as a Chanticleer team member, giving me a new perspective on the conference and a lot of familiar faces to welcome back to this fun event. I also met several new friends that I’m excited to get to know.
Along with fun there were forty great Masterclasses, workshops, sessions, and panels that I popped in and out of as my time allowed. Of special note was an interviewed between John DeDakis, Sr. Editor for the Emmy and Peabody award-winning CNN news program The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer and Saturday’s keynote speaker and international bestselling author J.D. Barker, a regular collaborator with James Patterson.
The CIBA awards ceremony and banquet was held on Saturday evening and this year’s competitions were full of great books! It was such a great experience seeing these authors recognized for the dedication, hard work, and their imaginative talent they put into their projects. And, we added two new divisions this year for best fiction cover design and best nonfiction cover design.
The “Books By the Bay” book fair on Sunday wrapped up our weekend of events. I was able to participate in the book fair this year, my first time at a book fair, and I sold several copies of The Byzantine Cross! I shared my table with two friends, Kirsten Throneberry, author of Guided: Lost Love, Hidden Realms, and the Open Road, and Rick Stienke, author of the Jake Fortina series and it was great to get to know them better as we spoke with readers. You can read more about Rick here.
Now we have a full year to dig into the lessons we gained, connect with the authors we met, and remember another great weekend spent with peers at CAC25 and the annual CIBA awards!
Interested in finding out even more about Chanticleer Authors Conference and International Book Awards? Click here to read my recap!