2012 WILLA Literary Awards Competition

The winners (left to right): Sarah Carter, Patricia Frolander,
Amy Hale Auker, Summer Wood and Sandra Dallas.

 Women Writing the West members gathered on a beautiful fall day in Albuquerque, NM to present the WILLA Literary Awards Winners and Finalists with their trophies and plaques.  Always one of the highlights of our annual conference, this year's luncheon honoring Finalists featured a presentation from New Mexico author Anne Hillerman entitled "What I Learned About Women and the West From Tony Hillerman."  Anne incorporated into her talk some beautiful photographs taken by Don Strel and featured in their book "Tony Hillerman's Landscape."

Virginia Scharff, professor of history at University of New Mexico, was the keynote speaker for the evening banquet honoring WILLA Winners.  Her talk, "Why Women Matter," wove fascinating details about two women in history -- Sacagawea and Susan Shelby Magoffin -- into thoughts about the place of contemporary women in today's West.

The highlight of both events came with the presentation of the Winners' crystal trophies, and the Finalists' plaques.  Comments from the final judges were shared with the audience.  Unique, exciting, inspiring, poignant, humorous, refreshing are some of the many adjectives used by the judges to describe these winning books.

The Finalists (left to right): Ann Parker, Joyce B. Lohse, Michelle Black, Lin Pardey,
 Janet Fox, Joan Logghe and Susan Cummins Miller.

 

The 2012 WILLA Winners and Finalists are:

CONTEMPORARY FICTION

WINNER:  Raising Wrecker by Summer Wood (Bloomsbury USA)

FINALIST: Fracture by Susan Cummins Miller  (Texas Tech University Press)

FINALIST: Séance in Sepia by Michelle Black (Five Star Publishing/Gale Cengage)

CREATIVE NONFICTION

WINNER: Rightful Place by Amy Hale Auker  (Texas Tech University Press)

FINALIST: Light on the Devils: Coming of Age on the Klamath by Louise Wagenknecht   (Oregon State University Press)

FINALIST: Bull Canyon: A Boat Builder, A Writer, and Other Wildlife  by Lin Pardey (Paradise Cay Publications)

SCHOLARLY NONFICTION

WINNER: Recollecting: Lives of Aboriginal Women of the Canadian Northwest and Borderlands  Edited by Sarah Carter and Patricia McCormack  (Athabasca University Press)

FINALIST: Baby Doe Tabor: Matchless Silver Queen  by Joyce B. Lohse (Filter Press, LLC)

HISTORICAL FICTION

WINNER: The Bride's House by Sandra Dallas (St. Martin's Press)                      

FINALIST: Mercury's Rise by Ann Parker (Poisoned Pen Press)

FINALIST: A Race to Splendor by Ciji Ware (Sourcebooks Landmark)

POETRY

WINNER: Married Into It  by Patricia Frolander (High Plains Press)

FINALIST: The Singing Bowl  by Joan Logghe  (University of New Mexico Press)

FINALIST: Dirt Songs: A Plains Duet  by Linda M. Hasselstrom and Twyla M. Hansen   (The Backwaters Press)

ORIGINAL SOFTCOVER FICTION (TRADE OR MASS MARKET)

WINNER: The American Cafe  by Sara Sue Hoklotubbe (University of Arizona Press)

FINALIST: Captive Trail  by Susan Page Davis (River North/Moody Publishers)

FINALIST: Unbridled by Tammy Hinton (Roots & Branches)

CHILDREN’S/YOUNG ADULT FICTION & NONFICTION

WINNER: The Year We Were Famous  by Carole Estby Dagg (Clarion Books/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

FINALIST: Forgiven by Janet Fox (Speak/Penguin)                                

FINALIST: A Book for Black-Eyed Susan by Judy Young  (Sleeping Bear Press)