Author Charlene Wexler recently won a 2025 Communications Concepts Award of Excellence for her book Farewell to South Shore, published by Speaking Volumes.

            "Farewell to South Shore taps into and articulates a woman's emotions related to dealing with a changing society, particularly its expectations of women," Wexler explained.

            In Farewell to South Shore, she introduces readers to 15-year-old Sherrie, who is growing up in a close-knit Jewish family in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The building in which Sherrie lives is occupied by family with Old World values, in Chicago's South Shore community. Her relatives are loud, argumentative, and quirky, but they are also loving and solve problems with that love — and great food.

            As the 1960s progress, Sherrie and her family increasingly encounter modern day problems and situations, including their changing neighborhood, homosexuality, unplanned pregnancy and abortion, family secrets, domestic abuse, divorce, single motherhood, women's rights, and romance in middle age. 

            Sherrie becomes the first girl in the family to go to college, and then to law school. She meets the man of her dreams, marries him, and leaves her career as an attorney behind. But her husband turns out to have old-fashioned patriarchal ideas of his own. Eventually they divorce, leaving her a single mother of two. Informed by all of her life experiences, Sherrie feels compelled to re-establish her legal career as a 1970s attorney fighting for Roe v. Wade and equal rights, and helping abused women. 

            As the years go by, Sherrie pivots toward female financial empowerment, as she embarks on a new, modern romance.

            A story of tragedies and triumphs to which every reader can relate, Farewell to South Shore not only refers to departure from a place, but also serves as a metaphor for leaving a time and culture that will never exist again.

            "The book inspires perseverance and determination to help take charge of one's own life in a rapidly changing world," Wexler added. "A world vastly different from the idyllic South Shore of the main character's youth."

            Communications Concepts is a journalism and communications think tank based in Williamsburg, VA. This year's Apex competition was the 37th annual.

            "Apex Awards are based on excellence in graphic design, editorial content, and the ability to achieve overall communications excellence," said Ken Turtoro of Communications Concepts. "With more than 1,000 entries, competition, as always, was exceptionally intense."

            "The Apex Awards contest is competitive and prestigious, and to win an Award of Excellence is particularly exciting," Wexler said. "Farewell To South Shore shows the massive changes of the second half of the 20^th century through the eyes of a woman who changes with the times and has her own impact as well, and I'm glad Communications Concepts honored that."

            The contest is an international one, and other winners hailed from Canada, India, Singapore, South Africa, Taiwan, and Trinidad and Tobago and from such prestigious institutions as the American Association of Colleges and Universities, American College of Physicians, American Heart Association, Association of the United States Army, Brookings Institution, Case Western Reserve University, Duke University, the National Football League, Prudential, Toastmasters International, and the University of Rhode Island.

            Wexler resides in Richmond, IL, and is the author of seven books. Her work has appeared in numerous newspapers, magazines, and websites, and she has won more than 15 awards for her writing. Earlier this year, the State of Illinois inducted her into its Illinois Department on Aging's Senior Illinoisans Hall of Fame.

            Her advice for other aspiring writers is to "follow your dream. You can do it, and it's never too late."

            For more information, call (312) 622-6029 or e-mail anbcommunications@yahoo.com. Wexler's website is http://www.charlenewexler.com.The Apex Awards' website is http://www.apexawards.com/.