August Member News

Nancy Fine’s poem, “Waiting for Sunlight” has been published in a persona poetry collection Bearing the Mask. The poem, speaks from George McJunkin’s perspective. Mr. McJunkin—a black ranch foreman in the late 1800s/early 1900s—discovered the first Folsom point site. Although he tried repeatedly to persuade experts to visit the site, it wasn’t until after his death the site was investigated. The point—which became a pivotal discovery—ultimately moved man’s early presence in North America back 7,000 years.  

 

Ann Parker What Gold Buys: A Silver Rush Mystery (Poisoned Pen Press)  It’s autumn of 1880, and saloon-owner Inez Stannert returns to the high Rocky Mountain silver boomtown of Leadville, Colorado, only to stumble over the body of fortuneteller Drina Gizzi in the dark of Stillborn Alley. While Inez’s charming but conniving husband tries to derail her plans for divorce, Inez and Drina's young daughter, Antonia, join forces to uncover the truth behind Drina’s death. They unearth rumors of resurrectionists, white-hot revenge, and rampant greed in a town where some believe gold buys love, others, justice, and yet others, a new life… but for Inez and Antonia, it may just buy final passage into an unmarked grave.

S. D. Matley Big-G City (sequel to 2015 release “Small-g City”). Veronica Zeta, youngest child of Zeus and Hera, has at last succeeded Zeus as CEO of Olympus, Inc. She embarks on an ambitious program of corporate reform, but, when best business practices fall short, deploys a top-secret power passed on to her by Zeus. Veronica soon discovers The Power comes with a brutal price. Will Veronica survive her dream job? Can Zeus, Ex-Lord of the Universe, cope with his reduced status? And what of Ralph, retired from his structureling duties in Seattle’s Alaskan Way Viaduct? The answers lie in the City of Mount Olympus, capital city of the immortals known as Big-G City.

Andrea Downing’s short story “Long a Ghost, and Far Away” is included in the anthology, The Good,The Bad and The Ghostly. What do you get when you mix cowboys with ghosts? A collection of eight (stand-alone) amazing stories from the Old West with haunts of every variety.Ghosts are restless souls, and Lizzie Adams is one of them.  How many lives will she get to find the perfect love? 

    

Louise Wallace’s novel originally titled Days of Eternity has now been reprinted by All Things That Matter Press with the title Length of Days.  Set against the backdrop of the Civil War, it is the first book in the story of the Edwards and Michaels families that is continued in Day Unto Day and Children of the Day. Zane and Larissa Edwards, rearing their children Mac and Rose on the family farm, foresee the future spinning out as contentedly as their past. Civil War erupts, shattering their lives and dreams.

Linda Womack, Murder in the Mile High City: The First 100 Years, describes forty-two of riveting murder cases that made headlines during Denver’s first century. The cases range from the married socialite who was the cause of the death of one of two of her lovers neither of whom was her husband to man who planted a bomb on the United Airlines plane carrying his mother, giving him the dubious distinction of being responsible for the first airborne terror attack. Wommack also examines the role played by Denver newspapers in the prosecution of the accused. 

Julie Weston, Basque Moon Nellie Burns, photographer, travels to Stanley Basin of central Idaho to photograph scenes for a railroad’s brochures. When they arrive at the sheep camp, they discover the current herder is dead.  Nellie’s curiosity and photography lead her to a moonshine still and then a dash up a forested mountain. Nellie and her dog Moonshine confront the greatest challenges yet to their courage and ingenuity when they face a range war and a ruthless killer.

AWARDS

Congratulations to our 2016 WILLA Winners!

Contemporary Fiction
Winner: Firebreak—Tricia Fields (Minetaur Books/St Martin’s Press)
Finalist: Ana of California—Andi Teran (Penguin Random House)
Finalis: Chasm—Susan Cummins Miller (Texas Tech Univ Press)

Original Softcover (Trade or Mass Market)
Winner: Hidden Shadows—Linda Lucretia Shuler (Twilight Times Books)
Finalist: Women and Thieves of Two Pan—B.K. Froman (Morning West Publishing)
Finalist: Rough Patches—Deanna Dickenson McCall (The Frontier Project, INC)

Historical
Winner: The Bookseller—Cynthia Swanson (HarperCollins)
Finalist: The Last Midwife—Sandra Dallas (St. Martin’s Press)
Finalist: Shelterbelts—Candace Simar ( NorthStar Press)

Scholarly Nonfiction
Winner: Ladies of the Canyons: A League of Extraordinary Women and Their Adventures in the American Southwest—Lesley Poling-Kempes (University of Arizona Press)
Finalist: Shaping the Public Good: Women Making History in the Pacific Northwest—Sue Armitage (Oregon State University Press)
Finalist: Amada’s Blessing from the Peyote Gardens of South Texas—Stacy B. Schaefer (University of New Mexico Press)

Creative Nonfiction
Winner: American Ghost: A Families Haunted Past in the Desert Southwest—Hannah Nordhaus (Harper/Harper Collins)
Finalist: HOWL of Woman and Wolf—Susan Imhoff Bird (Torrey House Press)
Finalist: Mysteries of Love and Grief: Reflections of a Plainswoman’s Life—Sandra Scofield (Texas Tech Univ Press)

Children’s/Young Adult Fiction & Nonfiction
Winner: Shadow of the Hawk—K.S. Jones (Clean Reads)
Finalist: Anywhere but Paradise—Anne Bustard (Egmont USA)
Finalist: Teresa of the New World—Sharman Apt Russell (Yucca Publishing/Skyhouse Publishing)

Poetry
Winner: Report to the Department of the Interior—Diane Glancy (University of New Mexico Press)
Finalist: Skeena—Sarah de Leeuw (Caitlin Press)

*****

Heidi M. Thomas, Cowgirl Up! A History of Rodeo Women is winner of the Global E-bookAwards in the nonfiction-history category. When someone says "Cowgirl Up!" it means rise to the occasion, don't give up, and do it all without whining or complaining. And the cowgirls of the early twentieth century did it all, just like the men, only wearing skirts and sometimes with a baby waiting behind the chutes. Cowgirl Up! is the history of these cowgirls, their courage, and their accomplishments.

Deanna Dickinson McCall, RoughPatches, has been nominated for a Will Rogers Medallion Award, and as a finalist for the Western Music Assoc. Female Poet of the Year. This is a collection of short stories centered on women in the historical and contemporary American West. Shaped by challenging circumstances as well as the equally demanding landscapes they inhabit, the characters exhibit a brand of strength instantly recognizable to readers fortunate enough to know true "women of the West." Against long odds, the protagonists courageously stare down adversity - sexism, illness and the unimaginable dangers of both the frontier era and modern-day ranch country.