Project Description
Colorado Book Awards
The 2021 Colorado Book Awards are now closed for submission.
The Colorado Book Awards annually celebrates the accomplishments of Colorado’s outstanding authors, editors, illustrators, and photographers. In 2020, we received 211 entries in 16 categories: anthology/collection, children’s literature, creative nonfiction, general fiction, general nonfiction, history, juvenile literature, literary fiction, mystery, pictorial, poetry, romance, science fiction/fantasy, short story, thriller, and young adult literature. Finalists will be announced in March and read in April 2021. Winners will be announced in May. Please check back for dates and times of Finalist readings and the 30th Awards Celebration.
If you have any additional questions please email abby@coloradohumanities.org, or call 303.894.7951 x19.
CBA Categories
Anthology/Collection
Children’s Literature
Creative Nonfiction
General Fiction
General Nonfiction
History
Juvenile Literature
Literary Fiction
Mystery
Pictorial
Poetry
Romance
Science Fiction/Fantasy
Short Story Collection
Thriller
Young Adult Literature
Colorado Book Awards
Submissions for the 2021 Colorado Book Awards are now closed.
Winners and Finalists
Congratulations to our winners and finalists! Click the buttons below to view our current and past award recipients.
Anthology
Rise: An Anthology of Change, edited by Northern Colorado Writers (Northern Colorado Writers, LLC)
All the Lives We Ever Lived: A Lighthouse Writers Workshop Community Anthology Vol. 1, edited by Dan Manzanares and Suzi Q. Smith (Lighthouse Writers Workshop)
Rise: An Anthology of Change, edited by Northern Colorado Writers (Northern Colorado Writers, LLC)
Straight Outta Deadwood, edited by David Boop (Baen Publishing Enterprises)
2001 Growing Up True, edited by Craig Barnes
2002 Encyclopedia of American Indian Contributions to the World, edited by Kay Marie Porterfield
2003 Lucky Lady: The World War II Heroics of the USS Santa Fe and Franklin, edited by Steve Jackson
2004 Monkey Dancing by Daniel Glick
2006 Comeback Wolves: Western Writers Welcome the Wolf Home, edited by Gary Wockner
2007 Open Road by Sonya Unrein
2008 Home Land: Ranching and a West That Works, edited by Laura Pritchett, Richard Knight, and Jeff Lee
2010 A Dozen on Denver: Stories, edited by Rocky Mountain News
2012 Monumental Majesty: 100 Years of Colorado National Monument, edited by Laurena Mayne Davis, The Daily Sentinel
2013 Reclaiming School in the Aftermath of Trauma, edited by Carolyn Lunsford Mears
2015 Outdoors in the Southwest: An Adventure Anthology, edited by Andrew Gulliford
2016 Stories of Music, Volume 1, edited by Holly E. Tripp
2017 Found: Short Stories by Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers, edited by Mario Acevedo
2018 Beautiful Flesh: A Body of Essays, edited by Stephanie G’Schwind
2019 Mile High Stories: 25 Years of Our Best Writing, edited by Geoff Van Dyke
Biography
Not a category for 2020
Not a category for 2020
2001 Molly Brown: Unraveling the Myth by Kristen Iversen
2005 (Biography/Autobiography) Halfbreed: The Remarkable True Story of George Bent by David Fridtjof Halaas & Andrew E. Masich
2007 Your Death Would Be Mine: Paul and Marie Pireaud in the Great War by Martha Hanna
2008 The Life and Times of Richard Castro by Richard Gould
2009 Polk: The Man Who Transformed the Presidency and America by Walter R. Borneman
2010 Rosalie Edge, Hawk of Mercy: The Activist Who Saved Nature from the Conservationists, by Dyana Z. Furmansky
2012 The Man Who Never Died by William Adler
2013 Letters from Berlin: A Story of War, Survival, and the Redeeming Power of Love &Friendship by Kerstin Lieff & Margarete Dos
2014 Ernest L. Blumenschein: The Life of an American Artist by Robert W. Larson & Carole B. Larson
2017 Rough Riders: Theodore Roosevelt, His Cowboy Regiment, and the Immortal Charge up San Juan Hill by Mark Lee Gardner
Children's Literature
Truman by Jean Reidy, illustrated by Lucy Ruth Cummins (Atheneum Book For Young Readers, Simon & Schuster)
Pup 681: A Sea Otter Rescue Story by Jean Reidy, illustrated by Ashley Crowley (Henry Holt and Company)
The Fisherman and the Whale by Jessica Lanan (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers)
Truman by Jean Reidy, illustrated by Lucy Ruth Cummins (Atheneum Book For Young Readers, Simon & Schuster)
1992 Sand Dune Pony by Franklin Folsom
1993 Hunters of the Sky by Ann C. Cooper
1994 Way Out West Lives a Coyote Named Frank by Jillian Lund
1995 Goose and the Mountain Lion by Marian Harris
1996 Tops and Bottoms by Eleanor Ayer
1997 Ten Little Dinosaurs by Pattie Schnetzler
1998 Beardream by Will Hobbs
1999 Through the Eyes of the Children by Diane Hirschinger Gallegos
2000 Margaret’s Magnificent Colorado Adventure by Julie Danneberg
2001 Tiger Math by Ann Whitehead Nagda and Cindy Bickel
2002 And the Dish Ran Away with the Spoon by Janet Stevens
2003 What Did You Do Today? by Kerry Arquette
2004 Max Goes to the Moon by Jeffrey Bennett
2005 Just Another Morning by Linda Ashman
2006 Prehistoric Actual Size by Steve Jenkins
2007 Inventor McGregor by Kathleen Pelley, illustrated by Michael Chesworth
2008 Living Color by Steve Jenkins
2009 M Is for Mischief: An A to Z of Naughty Children by Linda Ashman, illustrated by Nancy Carpenter
2010 Grandmother, Have the Angels Come? by Denise Vega, illustrated by Erin Eitter
2011 Magnus Maximus, A Marvelous Measurer by Kathleen T. Pelley, illustrated by S.D. Schindler
2012 Light Up the Night by Jean Reidy, illustrated by Margaret Chodos-Irvine
2013 Time Out for Monsters! by Jean Reidy, illustrated by Robert Neubecker
2014 The Tumbleweed Came Back by Carmela LaVigna-Coyle, illustrated by Kevin Rechin
2015 Mama Built a Little Nest by Jennifer Ward, illustrated by Steve Jenkins
2016 A Chicken Followed Me Home! Questions and Answers about a Familiar Fowl by Robin Page
2017 Octupuses One to Ten by Ellen Jackson, illustrated by Robin Page
2018 Can an Aardvark Bark? by Melissa Stewart, illustrated by Steve Jenkins
2019 The Little i Who Lost His Dot by Kimberlee Gard, illustrated by Sandie Sonke
Creative Nonfiction
Deep Creek: Finding Hope in the High Country by Pam Houston (W.W. Norton & Company)
Chronicles of the Forbidden: Essays of Shadow and Light by John Nizalowski (Irie Books)
Deep Creek: Finding Hope in the High Country by Pam Houston (W.W. Norton & Company)
Soft Hearted Stories: Seeking Saviors, Cowboy Stylists, and Other Fallacies of Authoritarianism by Jenny Forrester (Lit Kit Collective)
The Lampblack Blue of Memory: My Mother Echoes by Sarah Adleman (Tolsun Books)
2002 (Autobiography/Memoir) Growing Up True by Craig Barnes
2004 (Autobiography/Memoir) Monkey Dancing by Daniel Glick
2006 The Guinness Book of Me by Steven Church
2007 Who Are You People? A Personal Journey into the Heart of Fanatical Passion in America by Shari Caudron
2008 No Place Safe: A Family Memoir by Kim Reid
2009 Trespass: Living at the Edge of the Promised Land by Amy Irvine
2010 Just Like Us: The True Story of Four Mexican Girls Coming of Age in America by Helen Thorpe
2011 Paradise General: Riding the Surge at a Combat Hospital in Iraq by Dr. Dave Hnida
2012 Dances in Two Worlds: A Writer-Artist’s Backstory by Thordis Simonsen
2013 Descanso for My Father: Fragments of a Life by Harrison Candelaria Fletcher
2014 Animal, Mineral, Radical: Essays on Wildlife, Family, and Food by BK Loren
2014 (Autobiography/Memoir) I Promise Not to Suffer: A Fool for Love Hikes the Pacific Crest Trail by Gail D. Storey
2015 Both Sides Now: A True Story of Love, Loss, and Bold Living by Nancy Sharp
2016 Grow: Stories from the Urban Food Movement by Stephen Grace (Bangtail Press)
2017 The Man Who Thought He Owned Water: On the Brink with American Farms, Cities, and Food by Tershia d’Elgin
2018 The Newcomers: Finding Refuge, Friendship, and Hope in an American Classroom by Helen Thorpe
2019 Tragedy Plus Time: A Tragi-Comic Memoir by Adam Cayton-Holland
General Fiction
The Gifted School by Bruce Holsinger (Riverhead Books/Penguin Random House)
Girls on the Line by Aimie K. Runyan (Lake Union Publishing)
Light In The Shadows by Linda Lafferty and Andy Stone (Lake Union Publishing)
The Gifted School by Bruce Holsinger (Riverhead Books/Penguin Random House)
2014 (Historical Fiction) The Drowning Guard: A Novel of the Ottoman Empire by Linda Lafferty
2015 (Historical Fiction) Song of the Jayhawk Or, The Squatter Sovereign by Jack Marshall Maness
2016 (Historical Fiction) The Shepherdess of Siena: A Novel of Renaissance Tuscany by Linda Lafferty
2017 Breaking Wild: A Novel by Diane Les Becquets
2018 Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore: A Novel by Matthew Sullivan
2019 Go Ask Fannie: A Novel by Elisabeth Hyde
General Nonfiction
Taste the Sweetness Later: Two Muslim Women in America by Connie Shoemaker (Amity Bridge Books)
Good to Go: What the Athlete in All of Us Can Learn from the Strange Science of Recovery by Christie Aschwanden (W. W. Norton & Company)
Taste the Sweetness Later: Two Muslim Women in America by Connie Shoemaker (Amity Bridge Books)
The Land of Flickering Lights by Michael Bennet (Atlantic Monthly Press/Grove Atlantic)
1992 Telling Distance: Conversations with the American Desert by Bruce Berger
1993 West of the Divide by Jim Carrier
1994 The Four-Cornered Falcon: Essays on the Interior West and the Natural Scene by Reg Saner
1995 Breast Cancer Journal by Juliet Wittman
1996 Red Earth White Lies by Vine Deloria
1997 Photographing the Landscape by John Fielder
1998 Herbs in the Garden by David Macke and Rob Proctor
1999 Innocents on the Ice by John Behrendt
1999 Chokecherry Places by Merrill Gilfillan
2000 Cutthroat by Stephen Keating
2000 Making the News by Jason Salzman
2001 10 Smart Money Moves for Women by Judith Briles (How-to/Advice)
2001 Living the Renewed Life by M. Wayne Brown
2001 The Angelic Year by Ambika Wauters (Self Discovery/Relationships)
2001 Beethoven’s Hair by Russell Martin
2002 The Coldest March: Scott’s Fatal Antarctic Expedition by Susan Solomon
2002 Fighting for Your Marriage by Howard Markman
2003 Writing to Heal the Soul by Susan Zimmerman
2003 Colorado Colore: A Palate of Tastes by Junior League of Denver
2003 The Encyclopedia of the American Civil War by David & Jeanne Heidler
2003 Blood Diamonds by Greg Campbell
2004 Under the Banner of Heaven by John Krakauer
2004 Bats of the Rocky Mountain West by Rick Adams
2004 Embracing the World by Jane. E. Vennard
2004 The Bully, the Bullied, and the Bystander by Barbara Coloroso
2004 Shadowcasting: An Introduction to the Art of Fly Fishing by John Dietsch and Gary Hubbell
2005 The Candy Men: The Rollicking Life and Times of the Notorious Novel CANDY by Nile Southern
2005 Xeriscape Colorado: The Complete Guide by Connie Lockhart Ellefson and David Winger
2006 Wild at Heart: Town of Snowmass by Janis Lindsay Huggins
2007 Walking Into Colorado’s Past: 50 Front Range History Hikes, written and photographed by Ben Fogelberg and Steve Grinstead
2008 Cruisin’ the Fossil Freeway by Kirk Johnson, illustrated by Ray Troll
2009 Storey’s Illustrated Breed Guide to Sheep, Goats, Cattle, and Pigs by Carol Ekarius
2009 Unexpected Intimacy: Everyday Connections that Nourish the Soul by Sarah Gabriel
2010 Voices of the American West by Corinne Platt & Meredith Ogilby
2011 The Heroine’s Bookshelf: Life Lessons, From Jane Austen to Laura Ingalls Wilder by Erin Blakemore
2012 Math for Life by Jeffrey Bennett, Roberts and Company
2013 Full Body Burden by Kristen Iversen
2014 Tasting Colorado: Favorite Recipes from the Centennial State by Michele Morris
2015 Eating Dangerously: Why the Government Can’t Keep Your Food Safe–And How You Can by Michael Booth & Jennifer Brown
2016 Rust: The Longest War by Jonathan Waldman
2017 Colorado Then and Now by Grant Collier
2018 Megafire: The Race to Extinguish a Deadly Epidemic of Flame by Michael Kodas
2019 The Doggie in the Window: How One Dog Led Me from the Pet Store to the Factory Farm to Uncover the Truth of Where Puppies Really Come From by Rory Kress
Genre Fiction
Not a category for 2020
Not a category for 2020
2000 (Romance) Meant to be Married by Ruth Wind by Barbara Samuel
2001 (Romance) Flowers Under Ice by Jean Ross Ewing
2001 (Mystery) The Spirit Woman by Margaret Coel
2002 (Romance) My Dark Prince by Julia Ross (Jean Ross Ewing)
2002 (Mystery) Two O’Clock, Eastern Wartime by John Dunning
2002 (Science Fiction) Passage by Connie Willis
2003 Song of the Beast by Carol Berg
2003 (Mystery) The Shadow Dancer by Margaret Coel
2003 A Winter Haunting by Dan Simmons
2004 (Romance) A Piece of Heaven by Barbara Samuel
2004 (Mystery) Extreme Indifference by Stephanie Kane
2005 (Mystery) Wife of Moon by Margaret Coel
2006 Eye of the Wolf by Margaret Coel
2007 Iron Ties by Ann Parker
2008 The Girl With Braided Hair by Margaret Coel
2009 Breath and Bone by Carol Berg
2010 A Land Beyond Ravens: Book 4 of the Macsen’s Treasure Series by Kathleen Cunningham Guler
2010 The Radio Magician and Other Stories by James Van Pelt
2011 The Spider’s Web by Margaret Coel
2012 The Soul Mirror by Carol Berg
2013 KOP Killer by Warren Hammond
2013 The View from Here by Cindy Myers
2014 Changes by Pamela Nowak
History
Scholars of Mayhem: My Father’s Secret War in Nazi-Occupied France by Daniel C. Guiet and Timothy K. Smith (Penguin Press)
Nighthawk Rising: A Biography of Accused Cattle Rustler Queen Ann Bassett of Brown’s Park by Diana Allen Kouris (High Plains Press)
Scholars of Mayhem: My Father’s Secret War in Nazi-Occupied France by Daniel C. Guiet and Timothy K. Smith (Penguin Press)
The Storm on Our Shores: One Island, Two Soldiers, and the Forgotten Battle of World War II by Mark Obmascik (Atria Books)
1999 The Ute Indians of Colorado in the Twentieth Century by Richard Young
2002 Crucible of War by Fred Anderson
2005 Painting a New World: Mexican Art and Life, 1520-1821 by the Denver Art Museum, editors Donna Pierce, Rogelio Ruiz Gomar, and Clara Bargellini
2006 Blood Struggle: The Rise of Modern Indian Nations by Charles Wilkinson
2011 Rival Rails: The Race to Build America’s Greatest Transcontinental Railroad by Walter R. Borneman
2012 From Jars to the Stars by Todd Neff
2013 The Admirals: Nimitz, Halsey, Leahy, and King – The Five-Star Admirals Who Won the War at Sea by Walter R. Borneman
2014 Denver Mountain Parks: 100 Years of the Magnificent Dream by Erika D. Walker, Wendy Rex-Atzet, Sally L. White, W. Bart Berger, Thomas J. Noel, and John Fielder
2015 Encounters at the Heart of the World: A History of the Mandan People by Elizabeth A. Fenn
2016 Colorado: A Historical Atlas by Thomas J. Noel
2017 Coyote Valley: Deep History in the High Rockies by Thomas G. Andrews
2018 Plundered Skulls and Stolen Spirits: Inside the Fight to Reclaim Native America’s Culture by Chip Colwell
2019 The Woolly West: Colorado’s Hidden History of Sheepscapes by Andrew Gulliford
Juvenile Literature
Tree of Dreams by Laura Resau (Scholastic Press)
Spotted Tail by David Heska Wanbli Weiden, illustrated by Jim Yellowhawk and Pat Kinsella (Reycraft Books)
Tree of Dreams by Laura Resau (Scholastic Press)
The Cryptid Keeper by Lija Fisher (Farrar Straus & Giroux)
2011 Warriors: In the Crossfire by Nancy Bo Flood
2012 City of Orphans by Avi
2013 Katerina’s Wish by Jeannie Mobley
2014 Grave Images by Jenny Goebel
2015 Searching for Silverheels by Jeannie Mobley
2016 The Lightning Queen by Laura Resau
2017 Waiting for Augusta by Jessica Lawson
2018 The Last Panther by Todd Mitchell
2019 Del Toro Moon by Dar by Karchut
Literary Fiction
Burn Fortune by Brandi Homan (CLASH Books)
Burn Fortune by Brandi Homan (CLASH Books)
If the Ice Had Held by Wendy J. Fox (Santa Fe Writers Project)
You Who Enter Here by Erika T. Wurth (Ecelsior Editions, State University of New York Press, Albany)
1992 With the Snow Queen by Joanne Greenberg
1993 Booked to Die by John Dunning
1994 The Ballad of Rocky Ruiz by Manuel Ramos
1995 Lead Us Not into Penn Station by Bruce Ducker
1996 Solar Storms by Linda Hogan
1997 A Killing in Quail Country by Jameson Cole
1998 MARI: A Novel by Jane Valentine Barker
1999 A Good Doctor’s Son by Steven Schwartz
2000 The Crook Factory by Dan Simmons
2001 Color of Law by David Milofsky
2002 The Good Journey by Micaela Gilchrist
2003 This Side of the Sky by Elyse Singleton
2004 Land that Moves, Land that Stands Still by Kent Nelson
2005 Eventide by Kent Haruf
2006 Articles of War by Nick Arvin
2007 The Pull of the Earth by Teague Bohlen
2008 Migration Patterns: Stories by Gary Schanbacher
2009 The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski
2010 Spoon by Robert Greer
2011 Postcards from a Dead Girl by Kirk Farber
2012 The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown
2013 East of Denver by Gregory Hill
2014 Little Raw Souls by Steven Schwartz
2015 The Painter: A Novel by Peter Heller
2015 (Short Story Collection) The Rise & Fall of the Scandamerican Domestic by Christopher Merkner
2016 How To Walk Away by Lisa Birman
2016 (Short Story Collection) Night in Erg Chebbi and Other Stories by Edward Hamlin
2017 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl by Mona Awad
2018 The Blue Hour by Laura Pritchett
2019 Mad Boy: A Novel by Nick Arvin
Mystery
Celtic Empire by Clive Cussler and Dirk Cussler (G.P. Putnam’s Sons)
Celtic Empire by Clive Cussler and Dirk Cussler (G.P. Putnam’s Sons)
Lost Lake by Emily Littlejohn (Minotaur Books)
Tracking Game by Margaret Mizushima (Crooked Lane Books)
2014 Desperado: A Mile High Noir by Manuel Ramos
2015 Trapline: An Allison Coil Mystery by Mark Stevens
2016 The Reckoning Stones: A Novel of Suspense by Laura DiSilverio
2017 Blood on the Tracks by Barbara Nickless
2018 Dead Stop by Barbara Nickless
2019 Death by G-String: A Coyote Canyon Ladies Ukulele Club Mystery by C. C. Harrison
Pictorial
Bird Parade by Patrick Loehr (Centipede Press)
Bird Parade by Patrick Loehr (Centipede Press)
Flatland by Teague von Bohlen, photographer Britten Leigh Traughber (Bronze Man Books)
Hollywood: Her Story, An Illustrated History of Women and the Movies by Jill S. Tietjen and Barbara Bridges (Lyons Press)
2002 Riverwalk by William Wylie
2003 Reclaiming the American West by Alan Berger
2004 Medal of Honor by Nick Del Calzo
2006 14,000 Feet: A Celebration of Colorado’s Highest Mountains by Walter Borneman, photographs by Todd Caudle
2007 Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park: Then & Now by James H. Pickering and Carey Stevanus, photographs by Mic Clinger
2008 Prairie Thunder: The Nature of Colorado’s Great Plains by Dave Showalter
2009 Colorado Scenic Byways, Taking the Other Road by Jim Steinberg and Susan J. Tweit
2010 Phlogs: Journey to the Heart of the Human Predicament by George Stranahan and Nicole Beinstein Strait
2011 Touchstones of Design: Redefining Public Architecture by Curtis Fentress
2011 Landscapes on Glass: Lantern Slides for the Rainbow Bridge-Monument Valley Expedition by Jack Turner
2012 Thomas W. Benton: Artist/Activist by Daniel Joseph Watkins
2013 Crazy: A Creative and Personal Look at Mental Illness edited by Michael Hanna and Tami Leino Hanna
2014 Firmament: A Meditation on Place in Three Parts by Andrew Beckham
2015 High Road to Aspen: Leadville To Aspen Over The Continental Divide by Paul Andersen, photographs by David Hiser
2016 Colorado’s Yampa River: Free Flowing and Wild from the Flat Tops to the Green by John Fielder and Patrick Tierney
2018 Once Upon a Time . . . The Western: A New Frontier in Art and Film edited by Mary-Dailey Desmarais and Thomas Brent Smith
Poetry
How To Dress a Fish by Abigail Chabitnoy (Wesleyan University Press)
How To Dress a Fish by Abigail Chabitnoy (Wesleyan University Press)
My Brother’s Keeper by David J. Rothman (Lithic Press)
Variations on Dawn and Dusk by Dan Beachy-Quick (Omnidawn Publishing)
1992 Wandering Roots/From the Hothouse by Ma. Fatima Lim
1993 Hands of the Saddlemaker by Nicholas Samaras
1994 The Book of Medicines by Linda Hogan
1995 The Fever of Being by Luis Alberto Urrea
1996 Deep Red by Rawdon Tomlinson
1997 The Very Stuff by Stephen Beal
1998 Tattooed Woman by Carolyn Evans Campbell
2000 In the Colorado Gold Fever Mountains by Robert Chapman
2001 Swan, What Shores by Veronica Patterson
2001 White City by Mark Irwin
2002 Colcha by Aaron Abeyta
2003 Never Summer by Chris Ransick
2003 Air Into Breath by Kathryn Winograd
2004 Shooting Script: Door of Fire by Bill Tremblay
2005 Bright Hunger by Mark Irwin
2006 Body Painting by Jane Hilberry
2007 Prayer of Others by David Keplinger
2008 A Murmuration of Starlings by Jake Adam York
2009 Theory of Mind: New and Selected Poems by Bin Ramke
2010 The Diminishing House by Nicky Beer
2011 Circle’s Apprentice by Dan Beachy-Quick
2014 Natural Takeover of Small Things by Tim Z. Hernandez
2014 Ndewo, Colorado by Uche Ogbuji (Chapbook)
2015 Abide by Jake Adam York
2016 The Octopus Game by Nicky Beer
2017 Post-: Poems by Wayne Miller
2018 Trophic Cascade by Camille T. Dungy
2019 Ghost of by Diana Khoi Nguyen
2020 How To Dress a Fish by Abigail Chabitnoy
Romance
Zapata, Book 1: The Border Series by Harper McDavid (Soul Mate Publishing)
Remembering a Witch by Lauren Connolly
Stolen Heart, Book 2: North Fork Series by K. L. McKee (Cameo Mountain Press)
Zapata, Book 1: The Border Series by Harper McDavid (Soul Mate Publishing)
2000 Meant to be Married by Ruth Wind (Barbara Samuel)
2001 Flowers Under Ice by Jean Rose
2020 Zapata, Book 1: The Border Series by Harper McDavid (Soul Mate Publishing)
Science Fiction/Fantasy
An Illusion of Thieves by Cate Glass (Tor Books)
An Illusion of Thieves by Cate Glass (Tor Books)
Denver Moon, Book II: The Saint of Mars by Warren Hammond and Joshua Viola (Hex Publishers)
The Blood of Seven by Claire L. Fishback (Dark Doorways Press, LLC)
The Legend of Carl Draco by Gary Reilly (Running Meter Press)
2016 Clockwork Lives by Kevin J. Anderson and Neil Peart
2017 Amaryllis and Other Stories by Carrie Vaughn
2018 A Borrowed Hell by L. D. Colter
2019 While Gods Sleep by L. D. Colter
Thriller
The Dead Girl in 2A by Carter Wilson (Sourcebooks)
Black Pearl, A Cold Case Suspense by Donnell Ann Bell (Bell Bridge Books, Belle Books)
The Extinction Agenda by Michael Laurence (St. Martin’s Press)
The Dead Girl in 2A by Carter Wilson (Sourcebooks)
2014 Double Dare by Michael Madigan
2015 The Intern’s Handbook: A Thriller by Shane Kuhn
2016 The Comfort of Black: A Novel by Carter Wilson
2017 Revelation: A Thriller by Carter Wilson
2018 Trafficked: A Mex Anderson Novel by Peg Brantley
2019 Mister Tender’s Girl by Carter Wilson
Young Adult Literature
There’s Something About Sweetie by Sandhya Menon (Simon Pulse, Simon & Schuster Children’s Division)
Fake by Donna Cooner (Point, Scholastic, Inc.)
Merged by Jim Kroepfl and Stephanie Kroepfl (Month9Books)
There’s Something About Sweetie by Sandhya Menon (Simon Pulse, Simon & Schuster Children’s Division)
1994 Beardance by Will Hobbs
1995 The Merlin Effect by T.A. Barron
1996 Parallel Journeys by Eleanor Ayer
1997 Far North by Will Hobbs
1998 Ghost Canoe by Will Hobbs
1999 Water at the Blue Earth by Anne Howard Creel
2000 Yukon Gold: The Story of the Klondike Gold Rush by Charlotte Foltz Jones
2001 The Seer and the Sword by Victoria Hanley
2002 Cloud: Wild Stallion of the Rockies by Ginger Kathrens
2003 Crispin: The Cross of Lead by Avi
2004 Meadow Lark by Mary Peace Finley
2005 Luna by Julie Anne Peters
2006 Click Here (To Find Out How I Survived the Seventh Grade) by Denise Vega
2007 What the Moon Saw by Laura Resau
2008 Red Glass by Laura Resau
2009 Fact of Life #31 by Denise Vega
2010 The Indigo Notebook by Laura Resau
2011 The Secret to Lying by Todd Mitchell
2012 Lucy Dakota: Adventures of a Modern Explorer Book 1 – Rocky Mountain Beginnings by Carol Sue Shride
2013 Kissing Shakespeare by Pamela Mingle
2014 Ascendant by Rebecca Taylor
2015 Lost Girl Found by Leah Bassoff and Laura DeLuca
2016 Fig by Sarah Elizabeth Schantz
2017 Beneath Wandering Stars by Ashlee Cowles
2018 When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon
2019 500 Words or Less by Juleah Del Rosario
*Lifetime Achievement Award
On May 21, 2016, Colorado Humanities & Center for the Book awarded Kent Haruf the Lifetime Achievement Award. Haruf (February 24, 1943 – November 30, 2014) was born in Pueblo, Colorado, the son of a Methodist minister. He graduated with a BA from Nebraska Wesleyan University in 1965, where he would later teach, and earned an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa in 1973. His first novel, The Tie That Binds (1984), received a Whiting Award and a special Hemingway Foundation/PEN citation. Where You Once Belonged was published in 1990 and Plainsong in 1999. The New York Times called Plainsong “a novel so foursquare, so delicate and lovely, that it has the power to exalt the reader.” A U.S. bestseller, Plainsong won the Mountains & Plains Booksellers Award and the Maria Thomas Award in Fiction and was a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction.
Eventide, a sequel to Plainsong, was published in 2004 and won the Colorado Book Award in Literary Fiction and was a finalist for the Book Sense Award. Benediction, published in 2013, was shortlisted for the Folio Prize. A number of Haruf’s short stories have appeared in literary magazines. Of Our Souls at Night, Haruf’s final novel, Joan Silber writes in The New York Times Book Review, “His great subject was the struggle of decency against small-mindedness, and his rare gift was to make sheer decency a moving subject. . . . [This] novel runs on the dogged insistence that simple elements carry depths, and readers will find much to be grateful for.”
Haruf set Plainsong and all the novels that followed in Holt, Colorado, his imaginary Colorado Eastern Plains small town. Throughout his work, Haruf quietly tells interrelated stories of regular people trying to do the right thing in hard circumstances and with the usual mixed results.
His willingness to see ourselves and to help us see the most outcast among us as we truly are and still find something and some way to love inspires us all. The same might be said of his approach to other writers, first as a teacher and later as a mentor to former students and other writers.
Many of the Colorado writing community have spoken of the huge debt they owe to Haruf for his encouragement and advice. Readers continue to benefit from his literary genius now and will for generations to come, because that genius is infused with a tender mercy.
On Friday, June 13, 2014, Colorado Humanities & Center for the Book awarded Reg Saner the Lifetime Achievement Award. A longtime Coloradan, Saner was born in a farm town on the Illinois prairie. He first saw mountains during military service when he was sent to Big Delta, Alaska, for alpine and arctic survival training, and was born again upon moving to Colorado. He led an infantry platoon in combat during the Korean War and was later dubbed a “soldier poet” of that war. As a Fulbright Scholar, he studied Renaissance culture in Florence, Italy, at the Universitá degli Studi di Firenze.
Saner’s nonfiction books include The Four-Cornered Falcon: Essays on the Interior West and the Natural Scene, Reaching Keet Seel: Ruin’s Echo & the Anasazi, The Dawn Collector: On My Way to the Natural World, and Living Large in Nature: A Writer’s Idea of Creationism. Saner’s prose and poetry have appeared in some 150 literary magazines and 64 anthologies.
His publications, mostly set in the American West, have won several national prizes. His poetry collection, Climbing into the Roots, published by Harper & Row, received the first Walt Whitman Award as conferred by the Academy of American Poets and the Copernicus Society of America. His So This Is the Map was a National Poetry Series Open Competition winner selected by Derek Walcott, a Nobel laureate. Saner’s poetry collection Red Letters received a Forty-fifth Anniversary Award from Princeton’s Quarterly Review of Literature. He has won an NEA fellowship, the Creede Repertory Theater Award, and the State of Colorado Governor’s Award, and he has been an invited Resident Scholar at the Rockefeller Fondazione Culturale in Bellagio, Italy, and received the Wallace Stegner Award conferred by the University of Colorado’s Center of the American West, followed by that university’s Hazel Barnes Award of $20,000.
On June 22, 2012, Margaret Coel was named the first Colorado Book Awards Lifetime Achievement Award recipient at the 21st Annual Colorado Book Awards ceremony in Aspen.
Coel is the New York Times best-selling author of the acclaimed Wind River mystery series set among the Arapahos on Wyoming’s Wind River Reservation and featuring Jesuit priest Father John O’Malley and Arapaho attorney Vicky Holden. The novels have received wide recognition. They have been on the bestseller lists of numerous newspapers, including the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News. Six novels have received the Colorado Book Award. The Spirit Woman received the Willa Cather Award for Best Novel of the West and was a finalist for the Western Writers of America’s Spur Award for Best Novel.
Along with the Wind River mystery series, Margaret Coel is the author of five nonfiction books, including the award-winning Chief Left Hand, published by the University of Oklahoma Press. This biography of an Arapaho chief and history of the Arapahos in Colorado has never gone out of print. The Colorado Historical Society has included both Chief Left Hand and Margaret’s memoir-history of railroading in Colorado, Goin’ Railroading(which she wrote with her father, Samuel F. Speas) among the best 100 books on Colorado history. Her articles on the West have appeared in the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, American Heritage of Invention & Technology, Creativity! and many other publications.
A native Coloradan, Coel hails from a pioneer Colorado family. The West — the mountains, plains, and vast spaces — are in her bones, she says. She moved out of Colorado on two occasions — to attend Marquette University and to spend a couple of years in Alaska. Both times she couldn’t wait to get back!
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February 28 @ 3:00 pm - 4:00 pm|Recurring Event (See all)An event every week that begins at 3:00 pm on Sunday, repeating until November 21, 2021
An event every week that begins at 3:00 pm on Sunday, repeating until November 21, 2021
Changing the Legacy of Race & Ethnicity with the Poet Laureate
March 31 @ 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
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Colorado Humanities forges program partnerships statewide to improve education, strengthen cultural institutions and enrich community life. Your contribution makes you an important part of it.