Photo (L to R) Top Row: Brock, Goodman, Vega, Willerton; Row 2: Soontornvat, Brown, Joudah, Fountain, Blair; Row 3: Dunlap, Dearen, Levinson, Eldridge; Row 4: McIlvain, Lewis, Tougaw, Jacobus; Row 5: Smith, Holmes, C, West, Nesbitt, Snow, Zéleny; Row 6: Abernathy, Holmes, P, Asgarian, Armitage, Zhang, Wayne.

This is your semi-regular roundup of new and recent awards garnered by Texas books and authors since our last roundup. 

AUTHOR AWARDS and ACCOLADES 

Kellye Abernathy received a Gold Literary Titan Book Award in February for AMETHYST, THE SHALLOWS. 

Shelley Armitage won Best Western Poem for “Counting Cattle with the Fathers” from the Western Writers of America. 

Roxanna Asgarian won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction for her book WE WERE ONCE A FAMILY: A STORY OF LOVE, DEATH, AND CHILD REMOVAL IN AMERICA. 

POSEIDON’S ATLANTIS ADVENTURE by Grace Blair won first place in The Incipere Awards in the YA Historical-Clean category. 

Dr. Rose Brock has been named the 2024 winner of ALA’s Scholastic Library Publishing Award. Dr. Brock is the North Texas Teen Book Festival co-founder. 

Patrick Dearen won the Elmer Kelton Award, sponsored by the West Texas Historical Association, for his novels GRIZZLY MOON and THE END OF NOWHERE. His novel GRIZZLY MOON was also a finalist in the Best Western Traditional Novel category of the Western Writers of America Awards. 

Thomas Goodman received the Best First Novel award from the Western Writers of America for his novel THE LAST MAN: A NOVEL OF THE 1927 SANTA CLAUS BANK ROBBERY. 

CRUDE AMBITION by Patricia Hunt Holmes won a Bronze IPPY Award in the Suspense/Thriller category. 

Fady Joudah won the $100,000 Jackson Poetry Prize, which recognizes an American poet of exceptional talent. 

David Samuel Levinson announced that he is a 2024-2025 Fulbright grantee and recipient of the prestigious Fulbright-Mach Award. 

Myra Hargrave McIlvain was recognized by Marquis Who’s Who as an exceptional storyteller. 

Jim Nesbitt won the Independent Press Award for Crime Fiction for THE DEAD CERTAIN DOUBT: AN ED EARL BURCH NOVEL. 

Ginger Smith received the Inspirational Children’s Book Award from the International Impact Book Awards for THE MAGIC BLANKET. 

Christina Soontornvat’s LEGENDS OF LOTUS ISLAND: THE GUARDIAN TEST won a 2023 Green Earth Book Award. 

FOXHOLES by Travis Tougaw was honored with a Literary Gold Titan Award. 

Eddie Vega has been selected as the 2024-2027 San Antonio Poet Laureate.  

UNVEILING BEULAH by Dana Wayne received a 2024 International Impact Book Award. 

Elliott West won Best Western Historical Nonfiction from Western Writers of America for his work CONTINENTAL RECKONING: THE AMERICAN WEST IN THE AGE OF EXPANSION. 

DEATH IN THE TALLGRASS: A YOUNG MAN’S JOURNEY THROUGH THE WESTERN FRONTIER by Donald Willerton won Best Western Historical Novel from the Western Writers of America. 

Ada Zhang was honored as one of the ten best emerging writers by the 2024 Whiting Awards. 

FINALISTS 

DEVIL MAKES THREE by Ben Fountain is a finalist for the 2024 Joyce Carol Oates Prize. The winner receives $50,000 and a brief fall residence at the University of California, Berkeley. 

Donnaldson Brown’s BECAUSE I LOVED YOU is one of three finalists for the Benjamin Franklin Award for General Fiction from the Independent Book Publishers Association. 

IT HAPPENED ON SATURDAY by Sydney Dunlap is a finalist for the 2023 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards in the Juvenile Fiction category. 

Lynn Eldridge’s novel CHASE COOPER was a Best Western Romance Novel finalist in the Western Writers of America awards. 

Colin Holmes earned a spot as a finalist for a Ben Franklin Award from the Independent Book Publishers Association for his novel THE OXYGEN FARMER. 

THE COLDEST WINTER I EVER SPENT by Ann Jacobus is a finalist for the 93rd annual California Book Awards in the Young Adult category. 

Preston Lewis earned a finalist spot in the Best Western Juvenile Nonfiction category of the Western Writers of America awards for his book MORE CAT TALES OF THE OLD WEST. 

R.H. Snow’s WATCHER OF THE DAMNED: WANDERER, TRAIL OF TRAVAIL was nominated for the 2024 Prometheus Award for Best Novel, honoring works of science fiction, fantasy, and dystopian literature. 

Sylvia Aguilar Zéleny is a finalist for the 2024 Lambda Literary Awards in the Transgender Fiction category for her novel TRASH.