WWW Honors Books, Authors with its WILLA Awards

 2013 WILLA Winners in Attendance

by Pamela Tartaglio

Women Writing the West honored the recipients of its 15th Annual WILLA Literary Awards at the WWW conference in Kansas City, Missouri. These books, listed below, represent the best of 2012 published literature featuring women’s or girls’ stories set in the West and include fiction, nonfiction, poetry, children’s/YA.

“Fascinating, excellent, gripping, engaging, wonderful,” are some of the words the professional librarian judges wrote about the Winning and Finalist books. A number of the winning authors traveled to Kansas City to accept their awards at the October 12 Finalist Luncheon and the evening WILLA Banquet, where each Winner was presented with a crystal trophy and $100. The ceremonies, at which every title is recognized with comments written by the librarian judges, are highlights of each year’s WWW conference.

The recipients of the 2013 WILLA Literary Awards are as follows:

CONTEMPORARY FICTION 
WINNER: Theft by BK Loren (Counterpoint Press)
FINALIST: A Growing Season by Sue Boggio and Mare Pearl (University of New Mexico Press)

HISTORICAL FICTION
WINNER: True Sisters by Sandra Dallas (St. Martin’s Press)
FINALIST: Tributary by Barbara K. Richardson (Torrey House Press)
FINALIST: Dance with a Gunfighter by Joanne Pence (Quail Hill Publishing)

ORIGINAL SOFTCOVER FICTION 
WINNER: The Bones and the Book by Jane Isenberg (Oconee Spirit Press)
FINALIST: In Need of a Good Wife by Kelly O’Connor McNees (Berkley/Penguin)
FINALIST: The House on Swiss Avenue by Irene Sandell (Eakin Press)

CREATIVE NONFICTION
WINNER: Kissed by a Fox and Other Stories of Friendship in Nature by Priscilla Stuckey (Counterpoint Press)

SCHOLARLY NONFICTION
WINNER: Women in Wonderland: Lives, Legends and Legacies of Yellowstone National Park by Elizabeth A. Watry (Riverbend Publishing)
FINALIST: Divinely Guided: The California Work of the Women’s National Indian Association by Valerie Sherer Mathes (Texas Tech University Press)
FINALIST: Colorado Women: A History by Gail M. Beaton (University Press of Colorado)

POETRY
WINNER: Steam Laundry by Nicole Stellon O’Donnell (Red Hen Press)
FINALIST: Reluctant Traveler by Laurie Wagner Buyer (Seven Oaks Publishing)

CHILDREN’S/YOUNG ADULT FICTION & NONFICTION 
WINNER: Liberty’s Christmas by Randall Platt (Texas Tech University Press)
FINALIST: The Quilt Walk by Sandra Dallas (Sleeping Bear Press)
FINALIST: Outcasts of River Falls by Jacqueline Guest (Coteau Books)

 2013 WILLA Finalists in Attendance and WILLA Chair

 WWW is now seeking entries from authors or publishers for the 2014 WILLA Literary Awards, which will honor books published in 2013. The deadline for submission is February 1, 2014. For 2014 Guidelines and Application, visit www.WomenWritingtheWest.org or write Women Writing the West, 8547 E. Arapahoe Road #J-541, Greenwood Village, Colorado 80112.

The award is named in honor of Pulitzer Prize-winner Willa Cather, one of the country’s foremost novelists.

Pamela Tartaglio, 2013 WILLA Chair/Past President, was delighted to read aloud the comments from the librarian judges and hand trophies and plaques to the authors.