Library announces finalists for 2023
The Billings Public Library Board of Directors has announced the finalists in the 2023 High Plains Book Awards.
States included in the region are Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Nebraska, Colorado and Kansas as well as the Canadian provinces of Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
All 263 nominated works were read and evaluated by community readers. Books nominated for the competition must have been published for the first time in 2022.
Twelve of the finalists in this year’s competition are from Canada while eight are from Montana.
This year’s finalists in the 13 different categories are:
Art and photography
• “Montana Modernists: Shifting Perceptions of Western Art,” by Michele Corriel;
• “Conserving American’s Wildlands: The Vision of Ted Turner,” by Rhett Turner and Todd Wilkinson;
• “Montana Panoramic: Transparent in the Backlight,” by Craig W. Hergert and Shann Ray.
Children’s picture
• “I Do Not Like the Rotten Egg Scent in Yellowstone National Park,” by Penelope Kaye and Robert Sauber;
• “Buddy: A Farm in the Forest Story,” by Jena Wagmann and Alana Hyrtle;
• “What If You Could?”, by Lynne Harley and Kiran Akram.
Children’s middle
• “Thunderous,” by M.L. Smoker and Natalie Peeterse;
• “Tenmile,” by Sandra Dallas;
• “If You Can Dream It, You Can Do It: How 25 Inspiring Individuals Found Their Dream Jobs,” by Colleen Nelson and Kathie Macissac.
Creative nonfiction
• “Otters Dance,” by Bob Budd;
• “I Never Met a Rattlesnake I Didn’t Like,” by David Carpenter;
• “Think Like a Horse: Lessons in Life, Leadership, and Empathy from an Unconventional Cowboy,” by Grant Golliher.
Fiction
• “Jameela Green Ruins Everything,” by Zarqa Nawaz;
• “The New Neighbor,” by
Carter Wilson;
• “Hell and Back: A Longmire Mystery,” by Craig Johnson.
First Book
• “Crazy Mountain,” by Elise Atchison;
• “A Pros and Cons List for Strong Feelings: A Graphic Memoir,” by Will Betke-brunswick;
• “In Celebration,” by Dorothy Bradley.
Indigenous Writer
• “With Great Discretion,” by J. Hoolihan Clayton;
• “Thunderous,” by M.L. Smoker and Natalie Peeterse;
• “Valley of the Birdtail: An Indian Reserve, a White Town, and the Road to Reconciliation,” by Andrew Stobo Sniderman and Douglas Sanderson.
Nonfiction
• “This America of Ours: Bernard and Avis Devoto and the Forgotten Fight to Save the Wild,” by Nate Schweber;
• “Born of Lakes and Plains: Mixed-descent Peoples and the Making of the American West,” by Anne F. Hyde;
• “Boys and Oil: Growing Up Gay in a Fractured Land,” by Taylor Brorby.
Poetry
• “Goodbye Yellowstone Road,” by Tom Vandel;
• “The Big Melt,” by Emily Riddle;
• “Puzzled,” by Ruth Maus.
Woman Writer
• “Black Umbrella,” by Katherine Lawrence;
• “White Horse,” by Erika T. Wurth;
• “The Apothecary’s Garden,” by Jeanette Lynes.
Short Stories
• “The Term Between,” by Brady Harrison;
• “Not the Apocalypse I Was Hoping For,” by Leslie Greentree.
Young Adult
• “Behind the Label: Gloria & Willa,” by Lorna Schultz Nicholson;
• “Ann of Sunflower Lane,” by Julie A. Sellers;
• “The Emir’s Falcon,” by Matt Hughes.
Big Sky Award
• “Montana: A Paper Trail,” by Thomas E. Minckler;
• “On a Benediction of Wind, Poems and Photographs from the American West,” by Charles Finn and Barbara Michelman;
• “Montana Modernists: Shifting Perceptions of Western Art,” by Michele Corriel.
Each winner will receive a $500 award.
Winners for each category are scheduled to be announced at an awards ceremony on Saturday, Oct. 7 in Billings, Mont.
For more information on the High Plains Book Awards, go to www.highplainsbookawards.org.