Winners of the 2020 Colorado Book Awards Announced

Photo by Caio Resende from Pexels

The 2020 Colorado Book Awards announced winners on a Facebook Live stream Saturday, May 30 to celebrate those who won as well as finalists. 

Sponsored by Outskirts Press and The Colorado Sun, the Colorado Book Awards highlighted outstanding contributions by Colorado authors, editors, and illustrators in 16 categories.

Winners also briefly read, with over 1,000 people viewing the live program which is available online. Furthermore, an after-party was also held for winners and finalists through an online Zoom call.

The winners and genre of the awards are as follows:

Anthology/Collection

Rise: An Anthology of Change edited by Northern Colorado Writers (Northern Colorado Writers, LLC)

Children’s Literature

Truman by Jean Reidy, illustrated by Lucy Ruth Cummins (Atheneum Books for Young Readers, Simon & Schuster)

Creative Nonfiction

Deep Creek: Finding Hope in the High Country by Pam Houston (W.W. Norton & Company)

General Fiction

The Gifted School by Bruce Holsinger (Riverhead Books/Penguin Random House)

General Nonfiction

Taste the Sweetness Later: Two Muslim Women in America by Connie Shoemaker (Amity Bridge Books)

History

Scholars of Mayhem: My Father’s Secret War in Nazi-Occupied France by Daniel C. Guiet and Timothy K. Smith (Penguin Press)

Juvenile Literature

Tree of Dreams by Laura Resau (Scholastic Press)

Literary Fiction

Burn Fortune by Brandi Homan (CLASH Books)

Mystery

Celtic Empire by Clive Cussler and Dirk Cussler (G.P. Putnam’s Sons)

Pictorial

Bird Parade by Patrick Loehr (Centipede Press)

Poetry

How To Dress a Fish by Abigail Chabitnoy (Wesleyan University Press)

Romance

Zapata, Book 1: The Border Series by Harper McDavid (Soul Mate Publishing)

Science Fiction/Fantasy

An Illusion of Thieves by Cate Glass (Tor Books)

Short Story Collection

Not a Thing to Comfort You by Emily Wortman-Wunder (University of Iowa Press)

Thriller

The Dead Girl in 2A by Carter Wilson (Sourcebooks)

Young Adult Literature

There’s Something About Sweetie by Sandhya Menon (Simon Pulse, Simon & Schuster Children’s Division)

A few special guests of the celebration were the Colorado Humanities & Center for the Book Board Chair, Thor Nelson, a partner at Holland & Hart LLP, and Larry Ryckman, managing partner of The Colorado Sun.


For more information on the Colorado Humanities, visit coloradohumanities.org or call 303.894.7951.

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