Chained Birds: A True Crime Memoir was the winner in the True Crime category in the 2025 IndieReader Discovery Awards, where undiscovered talent meets people with the power to make a difference.
Following find an interview with author Carla Conti.
“Thank you, thank you, IndieReader judges and Amy Edelman, for honoring CHAINED BIRDS with your top True Crime category prize! I’m thrilled to be chosen, and I love the ideology behind IndieReader and this contest: The Discovery Awards winning books aren’t merely great indie books—but great books, period!”
What is the name of the book and when was it published?
Chained Birds: A True Crime Memoir, published by WildBlue Press on Nov. 12, 2024
What’s the book’s first line?
“The genesis of this book belongs to Mother Nature and impulse.”
What’s the book about? Give us the “pitch”.
A journalist writing a prison abuse exposé is imperiled by association after two prison gangs issue “hit orders” against the subject of her book.
What inspired you to write the book? A particular person? An event?
Chained Birds is a personal true crime memoir that chronicles my ten-year relationship with a federal inmate, what he endured behind bars, as well as the chaotic aftermath of working on his criminal trial (alongside my high school attorney friend). I got to know this inmate, Kevin Sanders, well, and originally intended to write about his criminal case and the prison abuses at Lewisburg prison. But as I got more involved in Kevin’s world, the two prison gangs who tried to kill him became a tangential threat to all of us. So there were many, many times during that ten-year period that I didn’t want to publish the story at all … there were real security threats attached to Chained Birds that I was finally able to come to terms with in order to write the book.
What’s the most distinctive thing about the main character? Who-real or fictional-would you say the character reminds you of?
The inmate at the heart of this story, Kevin Sanders, is an intelligent, empathetic individual and talented artist who has learned to survive the worst kinds of prison programs, penal abuse, and corruption. He also navigates the world of prison gangs and shot-callers as effectively as anyone, but that doesn’t prevent him from getting caught up in a violent system of hit orders and co-dependency with correctional officers. Kevin always reminds me of the actor Vin Diesel, if Diesel’s face were covered in tattoos.
What’s the main reason someone should really read this book?
Chained Birds is an entertaining, informative cross-genre read, with a little something for everyone. Editorial reviewers have called it a thriller (it was a finalist in BestThriller Magazine’s 2024 “Best Thriller of the Year”). They’ve also called it a courtroom drama. It is, of course, true crime, and it’s also a memoir. It’s also an exposé on an experimental prison program in Lewisburg, PA that operated from 2009-2018 and was eventually shut down due to violence and corruption.
Midwest Book Review went so far as to say:
“CHAINED BIRDS deserves a prominent place in any library strong in criminal and justice system probes. However, its recommended audience shouldn’t stop here. Ideally, CHAINED BIRDS will be used as a foundation text in college-level classroom for students of social issues,
criminology, and justice system management; as well as profiled in book club and reader groups.”
Most reviews indicate Chained Birds is an eye-opening commentary on the failings in our criminal justice system.