Quite a day.

I am honored to say that I was in attendance on the floor of the American Library Association’s annual meeting in Anaheim today when my novel Altamont Augie was named a Silver Medal winner in the category of Historical Fiction at the ForeWord Reviews 2011 Book of the Year Awards. Here’s a condensed version of the press release ForeWord put out following the awards:

“At a ceremony today at ALA’s Annual Conference in Anaheim, California, ForeWord named…Book of the Year Award winners in 54 categories. These books, representing the best independently published works from 2011, were selected by a panel of librarian and bookseller judges…who are experts in the subject matter of the books they judged, and who make purchasing decisions daily for their collections or bookstores. ForeWord’s founder and publisher, Victoria Sutherland, spoke at the awards ceremony and announced the winners. ‘After fifteen years of recognizing great books with this award process, I still have an enormous sense of admiration for the title assortment and I’m so thankful for the help of our readership, booksellers, and librarians who help sort out the top choices based on their experiences.’”

From the ForeWord website: “ForeWord Reviews, a journal dedicated to reviewing independently published books, was established in 1998 and serves as the flagship periodical of booksellers, librarians, agents, and publishing professionals who want to access the best titles from small presses.”

Here’s a link to the complete list of BOTYA 2011 winners, and another link to the BOTYA 2011 winners in Historical Fiction. There were eleven Historical Fiction finalists. ForeWord reviews about 2,000 titles a year in its bimonthly magazine. Here’s a link to ForeWord’s complete review of Altamont Augie.

Thank you to everyone at ForeWord Reviews for taking the time to so graciously host these awards, and for considering my book in your competition.

Today ForeWord Reviews posted its list of finalists for ForeWord’s prestigious 2011 Book of the Year Awards. I am delighted to announce that my novel Altamont Augie was named an award finalist in the category of Historical Fiction. The jury of judges that determined this year’s finalists included editors, professional book reviewers, booksellers, librarians, and other book industry professionals. Winners–including the Editor’s Choice Prize for Best Fiction, a $1500 cash prize for which Augie is now eligible–will be announced on the conference floor of this year’s American Library Association meeting in Anaheim, CA, Saturday, June 23 at 10:00 a. m.

Here’s a link to ForeWord’s web site announcing this year’s finalists and another describing the awards.

I would like to thank the editors and reviewers of Forward Reviews for this humbling distinction.