Colorado Book Awards Announce 2019 Winners

Authors, judges, and lovers of all things literary gathered on Saturday, May 18, to celebrate the 28th annual Colorado Book Awards, presented by Colorado Humanities and Center for the Book. The awards, which honor the best in literature from calendar year 2018, was sponsored this year by First Western Trust, Outskirts Press, Shaw Construction and the Colorado Sun. Held at the Arvada Center for the Arts and Humanities, the festivities drew a crowd of nearly 200 to celebrate the winners and the finalists in fourteen categories of written wonderfulness.

Award-winning local bookseller BookBar, which hosted all of the finalists’ readings over the last couple of months, was on hand to sell books and help celebrate. See our announcement of the full list of finalists; below are the winners, alphabetically by category.

Anthology/Collection: Mile High Stories: 25 Years of Our Best Writing, Geoff Van Dyke and the editors of 5280 magazine

Children’s Literature: The Little i Who Lost His Dot, Kimberlee Gard (Illustrations by Sandie Sonkie Familius)

Creative Non-Fiction: Tragedy Plus Time: A Tragi-Comic Memoir, Adam Cayton-Holland (We interviewed Cayton-Holland, a former Westword writer, back in 2018.)

General Fiction: Go Ask Fannie, Elisabeth Hyde

General Non-Fiction: The Doggie in the Window: How One Dog Led Me From the Pet Store to the Factory Farm to Uncover the Truth of Where Puppies Really Come From, Rory Kress

History: The Wooly West: Colorado’s Hidden History of Sheepscapes, Andrew Gulliford

Juvenile Literature: Del Toro Moon, Darby Karchut

Literary Fiction: Mad Boy: A Novel, Nick Arvin

Mystery: Death by G-String: A Coyote Canyon Ladies Ukelele Club Mystery, C.C. Harrison

Poetry: Ghost Of, Diana Khoi Nguyen

Science Fiction/Fantasy: While Gods Sleep, L.D. Colter

Thriller: Mister Tender’s Girl, Carter Wilson

Young Adult Literature: 500 Words or Less, Juleah del Rosario