SAN FRANCISCO BOOK FESTIVAL TO HONOR “TWO EGGS, TWO KIDS”

SAN FRANCISCO_ The story of how a woman came to donate her eggs to two couples – both good friends – struggling with infertility is the grand prize winner of the 2015 San Francisco Book Festival, which honors the best books fo the spring.

Alicia Young’s “Two Eggs, Two Kids” (Parasol Press) is an insightful, touching, and gently humorous look into the world of infertility. Part memoir, part how-to, the book delves into an issued experienced by one in eight couples. It’s the very personal story of a process that is often shrouded in mystery, as witnessed by the outcome of the author’s procedures. One baby’s origins were celebrated in the open, while the other’s roots were cloaked in secrecy.

Young and other authors and publishers in the competition will be honored at a private ceremony on May 23 at the Sir Francis Drake Hotel in San Francisco.

Other winners in the competition:

BIOGRAPHY/AUTOBIOGRAPHY

WINNER: “Crazy is Normal” – Lloyd Lofthouse

RUNNER-UP: “Tears For My City” – Dean Dimitrieski

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

  • “Nichijo: The Testimony of Ujohn Provoo” – John Oliver
  • “Czar Nicholas, The Toad and Duck Soup” – Elisabeth Amaral
  • “Wrapped in the Flag of Israel” – Smadar Lavie
  • “Determined” – A. Avraham Perlmutter
  • “Rowdy” - Christopher Madsen
  • “Love Triangle” – Darwin Porter/Danforth Prince
  • “With Steinbeck in the Sea of Cortez” – Audry Lynch
  • “Torn Together” – Scott Magnuson
  • “Meditations of a Modern Mystic” – Maurine Doerken
  • “Letting Go” – Jeff Sands
  • “Green Apple Red Book” – Rebecca Li-Huang
  • “The Peace Angel” – Nola Hennessy
  • “Flu Shot Gone Wrong” – Michaelle Louille
  • “Moff The Mayor of Twin Peaks” – Lynn Oakley
  • “The Power and the Peril of Oil” – Firooz Zadeh
  • “I Hate Pinatas” – Heather Maloy
  • “Missing Insects” – Naomi M. Rosenthal


SPIRITUAL

WINNER: “Miracle Girls” – M.B. Caschetta

RUNNER-UP: “This Only This” – Michael Brooks

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

  • “Time to Believe” – Linda Ballasch
  • “Discovering the Medium Within” – Anysia Kiel
  • “The Rainbow Bridge” – Brent Hunter
  • “Life’s Choices” – Paul Turk
  • “In His Way” – Rebecca Duvall


CHILDREN’S BOOKS

WINNER: “Fairy Tales for Life” – Linda Champion

RUNNER-UP: “Hey, Baby, Look!” – Catherine Shannon

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

  • “Big Bill and his Little Mixer Truck” – Rose Ann Woolpert
  • “A Story of Becoming” – Ayn Cates Sullivan
  • “Banana Chronicles: Fishing for Bananas” – Timothy Brower
  • “Mutasia: The Endless Caverns” – Michael Flynn
  • “Rocketboy: The Return of Dr. Megaton” – Michael Mullin
  • “Always In Your Dreams” – Humberto Rodriguez
  • “Curio, A Shetland Sheepdog, and Her Pals” – Jeanette A Griver
  • “A Wish for Algie” – Carol Lee Owen
  • “The Quaint & Quizzical Cosmos: Galaxies” – Natalie Del Favero
  • “Higgledy Piggledy: A Tale of Four Little Pigs” – B. Seymour Rabinovitch
  • “Bucket Filling from A to Z” – Carol McCloud/Caryn Butzke
  • “Anchors Aweigh” – Mollie Wilson
  • “It’s This Monkey’s Business” – Debra Postil
  • “Baby’s Bucket Book” – Carol McCloud
  • “Just Breathe” – Annette Rivlin-Gutman
  • “The Little Goat in Africa” – Deborah Smith Ford
  • “Let’s Change That! If Animals Can, We Can, Too!” – Bashar Salame
  • “The Thankful List” – Babette J. Donaldson
  • “Libellus de Numeros” – Jim West
  • “The Kingdom of Sunnymerrylandia” – Christina V. Kueppers



GENERAL FICTION

WINNER: “Widow Walk” – Gerard LaSalle

RUNNER-UP: “The Glass Ball” – Jean Hatfield

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

  • “Unaccompanied Minors” – Alden Jones
  • “And Darkness Was Under His Feet” – Annie Dawid
  • “The Inside War” – Robert Ernst
  • “The Next Call” – Nicole Higgins
  • “The Harriet Club” – Kathe Maguire
  • “Veronika Layne Gets the Scoop – Julia Park Tracey
  • “The Promise of Fate” – Sarah Pearce
  • “The Cherry Harvest” – Lucy Sanna
  • “Courier” – Terry Irving
  • “Afterworld” – Lois Walden
  • “The Beautiful Evil” – Robbi Sommers Bryant
  • “The Trials of Adrian Wheeler” – Steve Shear
  • “Just Mercy” – Dorothy Van Soest
  • “The Redemption of Don Juan Casanova” – Lloyd Lofthouse
  • “Sighing Woman Tea” – Mark Daniel Seiler 
  • “Dark Horse” – Evette Davis
  • “All Different Kinds of Free” – Jessica McCann
  • “The Day She Died” – Catriona McPherson
  • “Fire & Water” – Betsy Graziani Fasbinder
  • “Code Name Sonny” – Kenneth Pottie
  • “Sunny Kincaid” – Penelope Kahler Swan
  • “The Unraveling of Shelby Forrest” – Donna Friess
  • “Where the West Ends” – Peter Bergquist
  • “Two Is For You” – Bobby Williams
  • “Rhodes the Mojave Stone” – M.M. Gornell
  • “The Outreach Committee” – C.L. Woodhams
  • “A Thousand Slippers” – John Michael McCarty
  • “Midnight in Malamulele” – Darla Bartos
  • “Charlie Fig and the Lip” – Steven Charnow
  • “Singular Acts of Endearment” – Desmond Kon Zhicheng-Mingde
  • “Forbidden Child” – James Aiello
  • “The 228 Legacy” – Jennifer Chow
  • “The Fortunate Child” - - Archana Mishra
  • “Pinnacle Lust” – Michelle Dim-St. Pierre
  • “Death in Nostalgia City” – Mark S. Bacon
  • “Beyond the Bitter Sea” – James Knott
  • “Clan Tuffie” – Trina K. Taylor
  • “Secret Assault” – Don Helin


BUSINESS

WINNER: “Scaling Up” – Verne Harnish

RUNNER-UP: “Ravioli Rules” – Al Manganiello

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

  • “Street Smart Selling” – Daniel Milstein
  • “Empower Yourself for an Amazing Career” – Blanca De La Rosa
  • “The Fracking Truth” – Chris Faulkner
  • “Selling Energy” – Mark Jewell



GENERAL NON-FICTION

WINNER: “Hollywood Clown” – Jason Lassen

RUNNER-UP: “The Bicycle Diaries” – David Kroodsma

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

  • “Stuffed: Emptying the Hoarder’s Nest” – Nona Smith
  • “The Encyclopedia of Trouble and Spaciousness” – Rebecca Solnit
  • “Pilgrim Wheels” – Neil Hanson
  • “Sex, Love and DNA” – Peter Schattner
  • “Wild Life: Travel Adventures of a Worldly Woman” – Lisa Alpine
  • “What To Do With Your Stuff” – Lois Tager
  • “Broken Places” – Rachel Thompson
  • “The School Reform Landscape” – Christopher Tienken
  • “Energize Your Retirement” – Christine Sparacino
  • “A Fox in the Family” – Jane King
  • “Building Better Humans” – David and Lisa Davoust
  • “Liberia: Emerging from the Shadows” – Wayne Schoenfeld


WILD CARD

WINNER: “The Seduction of Wine” – Sally Marbury

RUNNER-UP: “Samson: A Savior Will Rise” – Shawn Hoffman

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

  • “Edges, O Israel, O Palestine” – Leora Skolkin-Smith
  • “All About China” – Allison Branscombe
  • “Law of the Desert Born” – Kathy L’amour, et. al
  • “The New Indians” – Joe Jessup
  • “Birdbrain” – Virginia Moran
  • “The Call: An Anthology of Women’s Writing” – Calder Lowe
  • “Communications and Living” – William J. Russell
  • “Natural to Knockout Makeup Beauty & You” – Carol Brown
  • “Never Cross a Warlock” – Marilyn Vix
  • “Edgar Allen’s Murder” – Alice Wheatland Ingraham
  • “Wantin” – Truth Devour
  • “Between Two Worlds” – JC Woodrow
  • “Armor of Glass” – R.M.A. Spears
  • “Starlette Universe: Eva from E-Ville” – Kathy Johnson



YOUNG ADULT

WINNER: “Small Moments” – Mary M. Barrow

RUNNER-UP: “Shanti and the Magic Mandala” – F.T. Camargo

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

  • “Spinner” – Michael Bowler
  • “Making it Home” – Suzanne Roche
  • “Tessa and Claudine” – Lisbeth Thom
  • “Legacy” – Ellery Kane
  • “The Crossings” – Barry Kienzle
  • “Sign of the Anasazi” – Marc Lieberman
  • “The Iron Golem” – Christian Page
  • “Simon” – Michael Mullin
  • “Into the Vines” – Kim Troike
  • “The Carlswick Treasure” – S.L. Beaumont
  • “Jamaal’s Journey” – John McCormack
  • “The Virgin and Marilyn Monroe” – Patrick Johnson



GAY

WINNER: “The Man Who Turned Both Cheeks” – Gillian Royes

RUNNER-UP: “Plastic Phoenix” – Jens Michael Hussey

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

  • “The Girlfriend” – Amy Abelli
  • “The Harlot’s Guide to Classy Cocktails” – Jeza Belle
  • “The Guestbook at Asilomar” – R.J. Stastny
  • “Days of Love” – Elisa Rolle
  • “What Can I Ask” – Elana Dykewomon
  • “The Devil’s Show Pony” – Jim Cartwright
  • “A Time to Every Purpose” – Bill Prickett
  • “Fresh Meat” – B. Bentley Summers


POETRY

WINNER: “Practicing the Truth” – Ellery Akers

RUNNER-UP: “Wind on Water: Poems of Healing Arts” – Lucy Wilson

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

  • “Dreaming My Animal Selves” – Helene Cardona
  • “Watching the Perseids” – Jed Myers
  • “Vanilla Milk” – Chanel Brenner
  • “Favorite Bedtime Stories” - John M. Fitzgerald
  • “Facing the Circle” – Carroll Blair
  • “Kinyamaswa” – Andreas Morgner
  • “The Heart of a Comet” – Pages Matam
  • “The Prodigal Son” – Jason Haynes
  • “Captured” – India Blake


PHOTOGRAPHY/ART

WINNER: “In Search of the Dark Watchers” – Thomas Steinbeck/Benjamin J. Brode

RUNNER-UP: “Law of the Desert Born” – Kathy L’amour, et. al

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

  • “The Glow of Paris” – Gary Zuercher


COMPILATIONS/ANTHOLOGIES

WINNER: “Rescued: The Story of 12 Cats Through Their Eyes” – edited by Janiss Garza

RUNNER-UP: “Asylum: 13 Tales of Terror” – Matt Drabble

HONORABLE MENTIONS:


HOW-TO

WINNER: “Ravioli Rules” – Al Manganiello

RUNNER-UP: “Secrets of a Hiring Manager Turned Career Coach” – Lisa Quast

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

  • “Tending Fences: Building Safe and Healthy…” – Terry Barnett-Martin
  • “Student Teaching: The Inside Scoop…” - Dede Faltot Rittman
  • “It Really Is That Complicated” – Charles Rawlings


UNPUBLISHED STORIES

WINNER: “Two Eggs, Two Kids” – Alicia Young

RUNNER-UP: “The Fly Strip” – Gwen Banta

HONORABLE MENTION:

  • “Dethroned” – D.E. Rogers


SCIENCE FICTION

WINNER: “The Universe Builders” – Steve LeBel

RUNNER-UP: “Two Brothers: Origin” – Sofia Diana Gabel

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

  • “Dangerously Human” – Emily S. Webber
  • “Premortal” – Damien Passmore
  • “Peer Through Time” – David T. Pennington
  • “Attack of the Vyperians” – Tim Savage
  • “Reset” – William Jones
  • “Redemption” – Vincent M. Wales
  • “Neighbors: An Elise t’Hoot Novel” - Mary Ellen Wall


HISTORY

WINNER: “Keep the Colors Flying” – David Ritchey