On Friday, September 25, the New Mexico Book Co-op announced the finalists and winners of the 2020 New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards. Several of our local Grant County authors were honored.
Editor EJ Randolph and the Borderland Writers Co-op won the 2020 AZ-NM Book Award in the category of eBook non-fiction for the essay collection, Deep Down and Dirty Writing Secrets. Randolph invited some Silver City authors to contribute to the book, asking them to fill their essays with the advice they wished someone had shared with them when they were new writers. The essays provide tools, tips, and encouragement for writers of both fiction and nonfiction, and across many categories and genres.
Deep Down and Dirty Writing Secrets is available from Amazon.
Visit Borderland Writers on their Facebook page, and on the web at borderlandwriters.wordpress.com
No Place That Far by Bruce Wilson won the Fiction - Historical Arizona category. This novel traces the misadventures of JD Hooper. Hooper killed a man in Kentucky and made bitter enemies in Tennessee. He seeks refuge in the American Southwest in 1908. Can a man run away from trouble and from himself?
Wilson’s work is available from Amazon and Artemesia Publishing.
Peter Riva’s Kidnapped on Safari gained first place in the Fiction - Crime category. Expert safari guide Mbuno and wildlife television producer Pero Baltazar are filming on Lake Rudolf in Northern Kenya, East Africa, when they receive news that Mbuno’s son, himself an expert guide, has been kidnapped while on a safari five hundred miles away in Tanzania. After gathering the clues and resources needed to trek through the wilderness, they trace the kidnappers back to an illegal logging operation clear-cutting national park forests, manned by sinister Boko Haram mercenaries. There, they find not only Mbuno's son but also a shocking revelation that has terrifying and far-reaching consequences.
Riva’s work is available from Amazon and Skyhorse Publishing. Visit him on the web at www.peterriva.com.
And I'm Kris Neri. My latest novel, Hopscotch Life, won in the Fiction - Other category. Feeling like she’s living in a country song, having just lost her job, her house, and her man, quirky protagonist Plum Tardy sets out in her usual hopscotch fashion to find a completely new town and a new man. But even knowing how out-of-synch she is, and how oddly she moves through life, Plum could never have predicted the unexpected way that trouble would find her, or the way her past would collide with her future. Will her offbeat approach save her, or land her in behind bars in hopscotch hell? My work, from Cherokee McGhee Publishing, is available from Amazon. Readers can find me on my Facebook page, and on the web at: krisneri.com.
The New Mexico Book Co-op prides itself in promoting the best in local books. Download a full list of all the illustrious 2020 New Mexico-Arizona Book Award finalists and winners here.
Congratulations to all the finalists and winners.
Stay home, stay well,
Kris