WWA Announces Spur Award Winners

TUCSON, Ariz., March 12, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Pulitzer Prize winner T.J. Stiles, the prolific Joe R. Lansdale and an 11-year-old Maine girl highlight the 2016 Spur Award winners from Western Writers of America.

Winners and finalists were announced Saturday at the Tucson Festival of Books and will be honored during WWA's convention June 21-25 in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

Lydia Schofield of Thorndike, Maine, became the youngest Spur winner in WWA history when Buckaroo Bobbie Sue, published by Little Hands Press, won the Storyteller Spur as best illustrated children's book. The book, illustrated by Kristina Zack Young, was published under the penname JoJo Thoreau.

Stiles, the 2010 Pulitzer winner for his Cornelius Vanderbilt biography, won in the biography category for "Custer's Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America" (Alfred A. Knopf). Lansdale, known more for his horror and mystery writings, earned his first Spur when "Paradise Sky" (Mulholland) won as Best Historical Western Novel.

Since 1953, Western Writers of America (WesternWriters.org) has promoted and honored the best in Western literature with the annual Spur Awards, selected by panels of judges. Awards, for material published last year, are given for works whose inspiration, image and literary excellence best represent the reality and spirit of the American West.

Other winners:

Contemporary Novel: "Crazy Mountain Kiss" by Keith McCafferty (Viking).

Traditional Novel: "The Last Midwife" by Sandra Dallas (St. Martin's).

Mass-Market Paperback Novel: "Lords of an Empty Land" by Randy Denmon (Pinnacle).

First Novel: "American Copper" by Shann Ray (Unbridled).

Historical Nonfiction and First Nonfiction Book: "William Wells and the Struggle for the Old Northwest" by William Heath (University of Oklahoma Press).

Contemporary Nonfiction: "The Size of the Risk: Histories of Multiple Use in the Great Basin" by Leisl Carr Childers (University of Oklahoma Press).

Juvenile Nonfiction: "This Strange Wilderness: The Life and Art of John James Audubon" by Nancy Plain (University of Nebraska Press).

Juvenile Fiction: "Walk on Earth A Stranger" by Rae Carson (Greenwillow).

Short Nonfiction: "Cowboys and Capitalists: The XIT Ranch in Texas and Montana, 1885-1912" by Michael M. Miller (Montana The Magazine of Western History).

Short Fiction: "The Scalper" by Richard Prosch (Western Trail Blazer).

Song: "The Hand" by Trinity Seely and Waddie Mitchell (Bucket Bail).

Poem: "All-American Biography" by Paige Buffington (Narrative magazine).

Drama Script: "Slow West" by John Maclean (See Saw Films/Film 4/New Zealand Film Commission; A24).

Documentary Script: "Power's War" by Dodge Billingsley and Cameron Trejo (Amistad Entertainment LLC).

SOURCE Western Writers of America

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