Philip and Loretta Alspach's SWISS Bernese Oberland is a finalist for Foreword Review's 2013 Book of the Year Awards in the Travel Guide category. Each year, Foreword shines light on a small group of indie authors and publishers whose groundbreaking work stands out from the crowd. These awards also help connect the best indie books to readers eager to discover new stories written by previously unknown authors. A celebration of the winners will take place during the American Library Association Annual Conference in Las Vegas on June 27. Congratulations Loretta and Philip! 

Anne Sarkisian of New London, NH is the recipient of four winning awards bestowed by IPNE, the Independent Publishers of New England, for her new book,  TOXIC STAPLE: How GLUTEN may be wrecking your health - and what you can do about it! Toxic Staple won Book of the Year, Informational Non-Fiction, CoverDesign, and Interior Design. Toxic Staple  discusses gluten intolerance and empowers readers who might not realize they are gluten sensitive to transform their health with cutting-edge testing and powerful research. Congrats Anne! 

Walter Brasch (Greeley & Stone, Publishers) was recently honored with a first place in columns (humor) and second place in columns (general commentary) by the Pennsylvania Press Club (PPC). Dr. Brasch is professor emeritus of mass communications from the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, and has been a reporter, editor, and columnist for four decades. He is also author of 20 books. His latest book is Fracking Pennsylvania: Flirting With Disaster which looks at the process, economic, health, and environmental effects of fracking throughout the country.  

Warren Winter of Press Syndication Group has published 3 books in the past 7 months including That Tree: An iPhone Photo Journal Documenting a Year in the Life of a Lonely Bur Oak, Bon Jovi: Because We Can 2013, and  Bon Jovi: WORK. That Tree, PSG's first publication, has received a flood of publicity including  CBS News Sunday Morning with Charles Osgood, which resulted in an amazing viewer response, ultimately garnering more than double the likes, comments, and shares of anything CBS had posted in the months previous to and following That Tree. Congrats Warren and PSG!

Why Not Books had an exciting May release: My Mantelpiece: A Memoir of Survival and Social Justice. With a forward by Dr. Maya Angelou, the book is an intimate and inspiring new memoir by civil rights icon Carolyn Goodman, whose son, Andy, was one of three civil rights volunteers to disappear in Philadelphia, Mississippi, in the summer of 1964. Before her death in 2007, Goodman collaborated with author Brad Herzog of Why Not Books to narrate the story of her life and, ultimately, create this a tale of survival and turning personal anguish into social conscience.  

Author and founder of In the Garden Publishing, Christine Horner, has been nominated for the 2014 Dayton Literary Peace Prize for her non-fiction work, What Is God? Rolling Back the Veil. The Dayton Literary Peace Prize is the first and only annual U.S. literary award recognizing the power of the written word to promote peace. Congratulations on this exciting achievement Christine!