Leon Martin Recognized by Chanticleer Book Reviews

Local writer André Swartley’s third novel, Leon Martin and the Fantasy Girl, has been named a finalist for the 2013 Dante Rossetti Awards for Young Adult Fiction, which is a division of the Chanticleer Blue Ribbon Awards Writing Competition.

Swartley currently lives in Japan where he teaches English.

The yearly contest is open to all books published in the previous calendar year by independent writers, as well as legacy and small press publishers in the United States. Genre category winners and overall Blue Ribbon winners will be announced later this winter.

Swartley’s second novel, Americanus Rex, finished as a top-five finalist in the national 2010 Next Generation Indie Book Awards. His debut novel, The Island of Misfit Toys, earned a spot as a top-three finalist for the 2006 Best Books of Indiana and was a nominee to the 2006 Elliot Rosewater Booklist, which highlights outstanding Young Adult fiction published each year.

Swartley’s current project, due out in late 2014, is a stand alone sequel in the Leon Martin series titled The Wretched Afterlife of Harriet Koop.

Leon Martin and the Fantasy Girl was published in 2012 by Workplay Publishing. Swartley’s current project, due out later this year, is a stand alone sequel titled The Wretched Afterlife of Harriet Koop.

For more information about Swartley, to read samples of his books, or to watch the trailer for Leon Martin and the Fantasy Girl, visit andreswartley.com.

For more information about the Dante Rossetti Awards, visit chantireviews.com.

Swartley has been writing and editing professionally since 2002. In addition to his own fiction projects, heco-wrote and edited Building A School of One (2005) by Jim Kirkton and Phil Lederach, served as contributor and consultant to Hot English Magazine, created video game reviews for Game Observer, and edited freelance for various independent and established authors including national bestseller Charlene Potterbaum.

He currently teaches English in southern Japan, where he lives with his wife and son.