PARIS BOOK FESTIVAL HONORS MEMOIR DETAILING STRUGGLES OF IMMIGRATION, RELIGION, INEQUALITY


PARIS_ The 2022 Paris Book Festival has tapped a memoir of a woman’s struggle to find acceptance and her own path as the winner of its annual competition, which honors the best of international publishing.

Author Allison Hong Merrill’s Ninety-Nine Fire Hoops (She Writes Press) details the struggle of a Chinese woman who abandons her family’s faith tradition to marry a man from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. When she returns home to their Texas apartment, she finds that he has moved out and filed for divorce. She then moves to Utah and enlists in an unforgiving dating war of her own making, pitting her against the bachelorettes at Brigham Young University. It doesn't take long before she realizes the rules she's made up don't make sense-and winning isn't what she thought it would be.

Her emotional tale and its unique twists made it worth of the competition’s top honors.

Other winners in the competition.

BIOGRAPHY/AUTOBIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR

WINNER: Ninety-Nine Fire Hoops – Allison Hong Merrill

RUNNERS-UP:


HONORABLE MENTIONS:

  • Life, I Swear – Chloe Dulce Louvouezo
  • Dancing with Unity – Jan Ford
  • Breaking Down Vonnegut – Julia Whitehead
  • Short Circuit: An Epileptic Journey – Alyssa D’Amico
  • Nate Branch: Playing My Way Through Life – Nate Branch with Barry Kienzle
  • Black, White and Gray All Over – Frederick Douglass Reynolds
  • Truth is Indestructible – Stuart Nagero
  • The Making of a Physician – Harry L. Graber, M.D. F.A.C.C.
  • Grateful for it All – Colleen Kittrell
  •  “Drop the Baby; Put a Veil on the Broad!” – Margaux Soumoy
  • Very Far from Normal – Josie Allen
  • A Notebook of Love – Luis Trivino

 

GENERAL FICTION

WINNER: Bobby Truax – Denise Cassino

RUNNERS-UP:

  • Paris Loves Mimi – Elizabeth Cooke
  • Worship of Hollow Gods – Judith Sherven, PhD and Jim Sniechowski, PhD
  • Delphic Oracle U.S.A. – Steven Mayfield
  • An Ambition to Belong – James Sniechowski


HONORABLE MENTIONS:

  • The XEan Girl – Vanessa Jeune and Layla Jeune
  • Cassandra and the Crystal Cave – Deborah Shining Star
  • Barry and the Vampire in The Rosedale Encounter - Darrell Bartell
  • Love They Neighbor – Claudia Helt
  • Eyes of Morpheus – Kevin D. Miller
  • The Placeholder – Lynda Wolters
  • When Angels Die – James Sniechowski
  • Refugee on a Pendulum – Jemil Metti
  • The Green Light – Karl Stewart
  • Once in a Lifetime – Suzanne Mattaboni
  • The Creation of Maria Adams – Patrick Hanford
  • Midgard – Jeanne H. Godfroy
  • Drunk Talk – Mike Davis
  • Winds of Strife – U.G. Gutmanel
  • Spawn of Evil – Donahue B. Silvis
  • Dr. Altman and the Concubines - Jacqueline Shortell-McSweeney
  • Trading Innocence – James Ardaiz
  • Mindblown – Win$ome Bentley
  • Whisper in the Wind – Barry Kienzle
  • Terror’s Sword – Kevin Kuhens
  • Victim or the Crime: The Day Before Jerry Died – Paul Sanders
  • Of All Faiths & None – Andrew Tweeddale
  • Coup de Grace – Paul L. Centeno
  • How The World Gets Done – Pi Nag Ual
  • Devil’s Calling – Michael Kelley
  • When Lions Roar – Karen Leigh Gruber



UNPUBLISHED

WINNER: Victim or the Crime: The Day Before Jerry Died – Paul Sanders

RUNNER-UP: A Farofa Das Ides - Rτmulo Chaia



GENERAL NON-FICTION

WINNER: Black Boy Smile – D. Watkins

RUNNERS-UP:

  • A Fish Ate My Homework – Rick Robinson and Wade DeHate
  • Mia’s Odyssey – Mia Odeh
  • Trust & Confidence – Jim Lichtman


HONORABLE MENTIONS:

  • The Essential Rules of Love – Phil Russotti
  • Lost in Beirut – Ashe & Magdalena Stevens
  • The Five Elements of Relationships – Dr. Vicki Matthews
  • Poetic Injustice – Jonathan Sure
  • Ethical Profit – Samantha Richardson
  • Epidemics – Nancy Dawson
  • Let’s Talk Vaccines – Gretchen Lasalle, MD
  • When Angels Die – James Sniechowski
  • My Name Was Mushroom – Wendy Baker
  • Midnight Flight to Nuremberg – Marcus A Nannini
  • Emotional Magnetism – Sandy Gerber
  • What Really Killed Whitney Houston – Judith Sherven, PhD  Jim Sniechowski, PhD
  • The Human Paradox – Gilbert E. Mulley
  • Surrender – Nicola Irvine
  • Disappeared – Martin Matthew
  • Dream Bigger Live Better – Donna Palm
  • Non-Army Aggression – Laurence Kelly
  • Billions at Play – NJ Ayuk
  • What Grows in the Space it Left Behind – H. Saint James
  • Salt & Light: The Complete Jesus – Jonathan Geoffrey Dean



PHOTOGRAPHY/ART

WINNER: Sally O. Lee’s Salon des Refuses – Sally O. Lee

RUNNER-UP: Curves and Angles – Charles E. Rawlings, MD, JD

 

YOUNG ADULT

WINNER: Saving Sophie – Debbie Schrack

RUNNERS-UP:

  • Hierarchy of Blood – Jennifer Haskin
  • Seaside Magic – Vianlix-Christine Schneider


HONORABLE MENTIONS:

  • Mindblown – Win$ome Bentley
  • Ring Fold – Scott Swisher
  • The Adventures of Mahalia and Malcolm – The Robinsons – Terrence Shipman



CHILDREN’S BOOKS

WINNER: Pablo the Plate Painter of Mazatlan – Craig M. Porter

RUNNERS-UP:


HONORABLE MENTIONS:

  • Do You See Me At Home – Tuula Pere
  • Corrine’s Team – Dayle Dabney
  • Mr. Shipman’s Kindergarten Chronicles: ABC – Terance Shipman
  • Big Love – Louie Flores
  • Solita and the Purple Moon – Miriam Isabel Elliott
  • Limerick Comics – Robert Hoyman
  • Ellie and the Good Hair – Vennessa Scholtz
  • Summer Fields – Maria Luisa Barrera
  • Adam’s Cape: The Missing Crew – Kaitlyn Dorroh
  • Zen and Now – Dreama Denver
  • Mountain Mutts – Joy’s Tale – Julie A.R. Stephens
  • The Magical Children – Eliana Habalian
  • Ellie and the Good Hair – Vennessa Scholtz
  • Mr. Shipman’s Kindergarten Chronicles – The Farm – Terance Shipman
  • Kisaan – Dr. Simarjeet Kaur
  • Luke the Rescue Pop – Dr. Simarjeet Kaur
     


POETRY

WINNER: Escritos (Poemas & Prosa) – Rene Santander

RUNNERS-UP:

  • De Viaje por la Vida - Auri Ascencio Uriostegui
  • Reduction Fired - Jennifer Yeates Camara


HONORABLE MENTIONS:

  • Healing Yesterday’s Tears – Kyli Santiago
  • En La Quietud del Tiempo – Julie Pujol Karel
  • En invierno la batalla – Juan Pablo Rivera, Ph.D
  • The Journey: Poems of Salvation - Regina Marie Blaylock
  • Satan, Hell With You – Rea Unique



BUSINESS

WINNER: Be A Lion – Terry Blackburn

RUNNER-UP: The Value Equation – Christopher Volk

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

  • Things I Heard Myself Say – Eli Boulous with Curtis L. Odom, Ed.D
  • The Paradox of the Good Bribe – David J. O’Regan



WILD CARD

WINNER: The Corona Monologues – Darrell Bartell

RUNNER-UPS:

  • Shadow of the Gypsy – Shelly Frome
  • Two Lumps of Sugar for Mr. Anxiety – Eli Wilde
  • The Regulars’ Table – Christina R. Griffin


HONORABLE MENTIONS:

  • Artist: Awakening the Spirit Within – Jocelyn Jones
  • Life Has Other Plans – A. Gavazzoni
  • Mindblown – Win$ome Bentley
  • Victim or the Crime: The Day Before Jerry Died - Paul Sanders



COMPILATIONS/ANTHOLOGIES

WINNER: Ten-Five – Darrell Bartell

 

TRAVEL:

WINNER: A New Day Dawns – Terry Lister

 

SPIRITUAL/RELIGIOUS

WINNER: Opening the Gates of the Heart – Carolyn CJ Jones

RUNNER-UP: Awakening the Spirit Within – Jocelyn Jones

HONORABLE MENTION:

  • Something We Never Imagined – Douglas Wemple



HOW-TO

WINNER: Emotional Magnetism – Sandy Gerber