AWW Success Stories

AWW contestants and editors getting published!
If you are a former AWW entrant (in any category) who has had a book published (excepting e-books) or has won a writing prize, let us know and we will put your "success story" on this site. And remember: AWW staff will review new books for a fee of $50.00, promising a positive, thought-provoking review that you can use for publicity purposes.

Lucille Guarino Like Wine Lulu Publications

Former AWW competitor Lucille Guarino has had a novel she submitted to AWW, Like Wine, published by Lulu Press. This multi-cultural family saga has a wide appeal and we wish Lucille well as she promotes her work. AWW's Editor, Barbara Bamberger Scott, critiqued the book when it was submitted, saw its potential, and after the competition closed she edited Like Wine in close consultation with Lucille. Congratulations to an AWW success!

Kristan Ryan The Hair Princess and the Hog Temple Incident Behler Publications

Reviews & Accolades for Kris' new book!

"One part drama, one part humor, one part metaphysics, every page an exercise in compassion and faith, Ryan has knitted up a royal romp through the most profound of human emotions. You will never look at your "bad hair days" in the same way."
- Karen Novak, Innocence

"Ryan has a gift for dialogue and vivid characterization, and readers will find poignancy in the decisions that have been made beyond the scope of the characters' power. The constant tension between spiritual and earthly needs resonates with current TV fare, Saving Grace and John from Cincinnati, which feature characters who are either supernatural or are in touch with someone from "the other side," as they struggle to define their values, or just try to survive.

Ryan likes to blend social issues like ageism with spiritualism and mysticism, and there are many interesting thematic and imagistic threads in this story."
~Carol Wierzbicki of The Brooklyn Rail

Barbara Bamberger Scott With It: A Year on the Carnival Trail Behler Publications

Review by Lucinda Tart
(This review first appeared at www.curledup.com)


Secrets of Carny Life Revealed by Daring Mom

This groundbreaking work based on the author's time living the carnival life is stupendous. Step right up to the podium and have a good read, folks, the one the only thrilling tale of "carny" life. Make your acquaintance with a world filled with people and a language that until now has been carefully reserved for those "in the know."

Barbara Bamberger Scott reels out chapter after chapter with enticing titles - "Chapter 1: In Which We Shake Hands with the Crawfish Kid, Sell Tacos from a Mailbox, Learn Al Al's Balloon Gaff and Vow to Get With It" and "Chapter 5: Blanks, Wherein We Ponder the Question, 'If You Do Free Engraving, Would You Help Me Bury My Pappy?'" If the title doesn't get you hooked, read further and live for a time inside the carnival world where, with breath held, you too will be waiting to hit the "Big Spot" and wondering if the "joint" next to yours will be the next to "screw." Luckily for all of us who have never had a "gaff," the author informs the reader what each carnival slang word means. The words and their descriptions are almost as fascinating as the stories collected in this book.

With husband, wife and their young child all working and living together in a tiny trailer for a summer running a few game booths and engraving jewelry, life couldn't get much more lively. Not a day or night goes by without a new initiation into the carny world. Withstanding intense heat, freezing rain, long and curvy mountain roads with trailers and buses that are passable as automobiles at their best moments, food from the cookhouse, free to all the people who work the show, that seems to consist mainly of overcooked fast food and thick coffee, their unique coworkers and the nightly brawls interspersed with their daily desperation for making just another dime or two, this young family truly earns the right to call themselves "carnies."

Kristan Ryan Strange Angels: The Book of Damaris Publish America

Review by Marie D. Jones
(This review first appeared at www.curledup.com)


Strange Angels: The Book of Damaris

Strange Angels: The Book of Damaris is a haunting and beautifully written novel that stays in your mind days after you've finished it. First-time author Kristan Ryan has done a magnificent job of creating a world filled with characters who will continue to live inside your head and your heart.

The story centers on a little girl named Damaris who discovers she has the power to heal. Her miracles don't sit too well with the more fundamentalist Christian folks in her small Virginia hometown, especially with her fire-and-brimstone Nana and the local Pastor Johnson who longs to use Damaris for his own redemption. But at least her parents are levelheaded, especially her loving and supportive mom. Suddenly, this perfectly innocent little girl is being treated as a religious icon, and the death of her beloved mother only puts her innocence at greater risk, for now she is unprotected and vulnerable as even her once anti-fundamentalist father slips into the darkness of fear and despair and puts his daughter square into the hands of the enemy.

As she grows, so too do her powers and the associated fears and controversies they provoke from churchgoing townspeople, and eventually Damaris is forced to go to Paris, where new and mysterious adventures await her. She experiences the pain and suffering of loss, and the constant visitations of otherworldly entities bent on swaying her to their side. Soon she realizes just how special she truly is, for she is an angel of sorts, and she is about to discover that there are other ìStrange Angelsî and creatures called ìIntrudersî, all of whom are embroiled in an age-old war between good and evil, a war that now draws her into the front lines of spiritual battle. She also meets powerful new guides meant to assist her in her destiny.

Ultimately, the story ends with Damaris as an adult in her full power, able to finally speak the secret she has kept deep within her soul all her life. The final two words of this book sum up the awesome secret of Damaris, and will send a chill up your spine as it did when I read them. No, no spoilers here, folks. Buy the book and find out for yourself. The writing is strong and solid, filled with honest dialogue, well-rounded characters, and lush descriptions that will draw you in from the first page.

But mostly I recommend Strange Angels: The Book of Damaris because it is a great read and a mesmerizing story, something I can rarely say about many of the print-on-demand books I review. Kudos to Kristan Ryan for her awesome debut novel. I will be on the watch for her next book, and who knows, maybe the special angel named Damaris will even show up again. I would really like that.