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Author Awards and Accolades

The Center for the Study of Multicultural Children’s Literature announced their Best Books of 2024, which included these Texas authors:

Kari Lavelle–Ode to Grapefruit: How James Earl Jones Found His Voice

Cynthia Leitich Smith–On a Wing and a Tear

Gustavo Ruffino–¡Celebramos el Día las Brujas y el Día de los Muertos! Let’s Celebrate Halloween and the Day of the Dead!

David Bowles and Guadalupe García McCall--Hearts of Fire and Snow

BIPOC Arts Network & Fund Awardees:

• Deborah D.E.E.P. Mouton

• Reyes Ramirez

• ShaWanna Renee Rivon

• Stalina Emmanuelle Villarreal

Emmanuel Acho and Noa Tishby won the Education and Jewish Identity Award in Memory of Dorothy Kripke from the National Jewish Book Awards for their work Uncomfortable Conversations with a Jew.

Marlene M. Bell received the Editor’s Choice Award of Literary Excellence from Reader’s House Magazine, her first international award. Her book A Hush at Midnight won a Gold Award from Literary Titan. A Hush at Midnight was also a Reader Ready Top Pick and won a silver medal in the mystery division of the Global Book Awards.

Ash Bowen received the 2025 Vallar Miller Prize in Poetry for his work Other Edens, which will be published in April of 2026.

Sean Bridges was recently on the cover of The Relatable Voice Magazine as part of a feature on his recent novel, Gunbarrel Highway, and his production company, Audible Parade.

KB Brookins won the Great Lakes Colleges Association 2025 New Writers Award in Creative Nonfiction for their memoir Pretty.

Elizabeth Crook is the 2025 Texas Medal of Arts winner in the Literary Arts category.

Preston Lewis received the Will Rogers Memorial Award’s 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of his body of work. The award will be presented at the November 1, 2025 ceremony.

Preston Lewis and Harriet Kocher Lewis received the top prize in the cookbook category of the 2024 Literary Global Book Awards competition for Recipes from a Tasteless Machine:  A Culinary Journey through Artificial Intelligence. 

Road Home by Rex Ogle has been named a Printz Honor Book & Stonewall Honor Book.

Rudy Ruiz earned a spot on Audible’s Ten Best Spanish Language Listens of 2024 list with his novel The Border Between Us.

Lori Scott won the Christy Award for YA fiction for her book Offsides.

Marie Watts landed in the Top 25 Fiction Books of 2025 list by The Outstanding Creator Awards for her book Tough Trail Home.

Other Industry Awards:

Deep Vellum and Eve Hill-Agnus were honored with the 2024 Albertine Translation Prize for Ultramarine, which releases on March 4, 2025.

Author Award Finalists:

Joyce Carol Oates Prize Longlist from New Literary Project

• Kimberly King Parsons

• Andrew Porter

• Rudy Ruiz

2025 Edgar Allan Poe Award from the Mystery Writers of America:

• Robert Jackson Bennett – Best Novel, The Tainted Cup

• Amy Tintera – Best Novel, Listen for the Lie

• Seraphina Nova Glass – Best Paperback Original, The Vacancy in Room 10

The audiobook version of The Rom-Commers by Katherine Center is a finalist in the 2025 Audie Awards in the Romance category. 

Steena Hernandez earned a spot on the longlist of The Pedro and Daniel Intersectionality Book Awards for Lupita’s Brown Ballet Slippers.

Kimberly King Parsons’ We Were the Universe is a finalist for the Ken Kesey Award for Fiction from the Oregon Book Awards.