High Plains Book Award finalists listed

Press release

Finalists for the 2023 High Plains Book Awards were recently released, with winners to be announced at an awards event Oct. 7, in Billings.

All nominated works — 263 of them this year — were read and evaluated by community readers. Winners in each category will be determined by a judging panel of published writers with connections to the High Plains region.

This year, 12 of the finalists hailed from Canada, and eight were from Montana, including Big Sky Award finalist Charles Finn, a poet whose book “On a Benediction of Wind, Poems and Photographs from the American West,” with photographer Barbara Michelman, was also winner of the 2022 Montana Book Award.

Nominated books must have been published for the first time in 2022. Each winner will receive a $500 award. The finalists in 13 categories are listed below.

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 Book

“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 Grade

“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

Short Stories

“The Term Between,” by Brady Harrison

“Not the Apocalypse I Was Hoping For,” by Leslie Greentree

Woman Writer

“Black Umbrella,” by Katherine Lawrence

“White Horse,” by Erika T. Wurth

“The Apothecary’s Garden,” by Jeanette Lynes

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.

The High Plains Book Awards recognize regional authors and/or literary works that examine and reflect life on the High Plains, including the states of Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Nebraska, Colorado and Kansas, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

The Billings Public Library Board of Directors first established the High Plains Book Awards in 2006. The awards are now an independent nonprofit organization. For more information, visit http://www.highplainsbookawards.org or email [email protected].