Award-Winning Texas Authors

Semi-regular award roundup

The literary community is showering awards on these amazing Texas authors. This month’s roundup is positively bursting! Read on to discover the latest crop.

 

Author Awards and Accolades

Texas Institute of Letters 2025 Literary Award Winners

Elizabeth Crook has been named the winner of the Texas Institute of Letters’ prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award. This is the highest honor given by the TIL, which was established in 1936 to recognize distinctive literary achievement. 

The full list of this year’s award winners includes:

Jesse H. Jones Award for Best Book of Fiction

• Winner–We Burn Daylight by Bret Anthony Johnston

• Honor–New Testaments by Dagoberto Gilb and The Bullet Swallower by Elizabeth Gonzalez James

Sergio Troncoso Award for Best First Book of Fiction

• Winner–Malas by Marcela Fuentes

• Honor–Sleepaway: A Novel by Kevin Prufer and Linh Ly Is Doing Just Fine by Thao Votang

Carr P. Collins award for Best Book of Nonfiction

• Winner–The Lost War for Texas by James Aalan Bernsen

• Honor–The Price They Paid by Jeff Forret and 10 to 25: The Science of Motivating Young People: A Groundbreaking Approach to Leading the Next Generation–And Making Your Own Life Easier by David Yeager

Burdine C. Johnson Award for Best Book of Poetry

• Winner–How to Abandon Ship by Sasha West

• Honor–Autobiomythography of by Ayokunle Falomo, The Book of Wounded Sparrows by Octavio Quintanilla, and the eaters of flowers by ire’ne lara silva

Texas Institute of Letters Award for First Book of Poetry

• Winner–Cowboy Park by Eduardo Martinez-Leyva

• Honor–Cloud Missives by Kenzie Allen, How to Drown a Boy by J. Bruce Fuller, and How to Kill a Goat & Other Monsters by Saúl Hernández

Texas Institute of Letters Award for Most Significant Scholarly Book

• Winner–Houston and the Permanence of Segregation: An Afropessimist Approach to Urban History by David Ponton III

Jean Flynn Award for Best Young Adult Book

• Winner–Canto Contigo by Jonny Garza Villa

• Honor–Through Fences by Frederick Aldama

• Honor–Pintsized Pioneers: Taming the Frontier, One Chore at a Time by Preston Lewis and Harriet Kocher Lewis

Deirdre Siobhan FlynnBass Award for Best Middle Grade Book

• Winner–Gigi Shin is Not a Nerd by Lyla Lee

• Honor–Los Monstruos: Rooster and the Dancing Diablo by Diana Lopez and The Minor Miracle: The Amazing Adventures of Noah Minor by Meredith Davis, and On a Wing and a Tear by Cynthia Leitich Smith

Brigid Erin Flynn Award for Best Picture Book

• Winner–Desert Song by Laekan Zea Kemp

• Honor–A Garland of Henna by Varsha Bajaj, Miguel Must Fight by Jamie Ofelia, and A Maleta Full of Treasures by Natalia Sylvester

Fred Whitehead Award for Best Design of a Trade Book

• Winner–The Art of Texas State Parks: A Centennial Celebration, 1923-2023, designed by Kristie Lee

• Honor–Power: How the Electric Co-op Movement Energized the Lone Star State, designed by Laura Forward Long; Cerveza Songs by Reyes Ramirez

Kay Cattarulla Award for Best Short Story

• Winner–“All B’s and One C” by Patrick Font

• Honor–”Time of the Preacher” by Bret Anthony Johnston

Edwin “Bud” Shrake Award for Best Short Nonfiction

• Winner–”Forgotten Keepers of the Rio Grande Delta” by Dylan Baddour

• Honor–”Waves Through the World” by Joshua Forehand, “The Immortal Life of ‘80 Joe” by Kip Stratton, and “The Juror Who Found Herself Guilty” by Michael Hall

 

Western Writers of America Spur Awards

Best Western Children’s Picture Book 

• Finalist–The Story: How Billy Thomas Learned the Importance of Being Honest by Phil Mills Jr.

 

Best First Western Novel

• Winner–Dust Covered Lies by Catherine M. O’Connor

 

Best Western Historical Nonfiction

• Finalist–The Doctor Was a Woman: Stories of the First Female Physicians on the Frontier by Chris Enss

 

Best Western Historical Novel

• Winner–Bloody Newton by Johnny D. Boggs

• Finalist–Sarita by Natalie Musgrave Dossett

 

Best Western Juvenile Nonfiction

• Winner–Pintsized Pioneers: Taming the Frontier, One Chore at a Time by Preston Lewis and Harriet Kocher Lewis

 

Best Western Juvenile Fiction

• Finalist–Nightflower of Comanche Mound by Katlyn Bates

 

Best Western Short Fiction

• Finalist–“Prairie Dog” by Mark Greathouse

 

Best Western Short Nonfiction

• “The Wilde Wild West” by Preston Lewis

 

Best Western Traditional Novel

• Winner–Dust Covered Lies by Catherine M. O’Connor

• Finalist–The Big Dry: A Novel by Patrick Dearen

 

Travis Baldree won the Audie Award in the Fantasy category for Bookshops & Bonedust, which he wrote and narrated.

 

Marlene M. Bell was awarded the 2025 Best Mystery – Independent Press Award for A Hush at Midnight.

 

Rubén Degollado is the 2025 recipient of the Texas Institute of Letters’ Jesse H. Jones Fellowship, a $9,000 award.

 

Sydney Dunlap’s It Happened on Saturday is a 2025-2026 Virginia Readers Choice selection in the middle school category.

 

Rex Ogle won a Golden Poppy Book Award in the children’s nonfiction category for his book Road Home.

 

Cynthia Leitich Smith’s On a Wing and a Tear was the honor book for the Sid Fleischman Award for Humor as part of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators Golden Kite Awards. Cynthia has also been scheduled to deliver the 2026 ALSC Children’s Literature Lecture with the American Library Association.

 

 2025-2026 Tejas Star Reading List:

• No es un frijol (Not a Bean) and No es un monstruo (Not a Monster) by Claudia Guadalupe Martínez, illustrated by Laura González, translated by Carlos E. Calvo

• Pieza a pieza: el obsequio de Ernestine para el presidente Roosevelt (Piece by Piece: Ernestine’s Gift for President Roosevelt) by Lupe Ruiz-Flores, illustrated by Anna López Real

• Una ranita arbórea: Contando hasta sobrevivir (One Tiny Treefrog: A Countdown to Survival) written and illustrated by Tony Piedra y Mackenzie Joy, translated by Iraida Iturralde

 

Finalists:

Bram Stoker Awards Nominees:

Superior Achievement in a Novel

• Gabino Iglesias, House of Bone and Rain

• Stephen Graham Jones, I Was a Teenage Slasher

Superior Achievement in an Anthology

• Lindy Ryan, Mother Knows Best: Tales of Homemade Horror

Superior Achievement in a First Novel

• Lindy Ryan, Bless Your Heart

Superior Achievement in a Middle Grade Novel

• Adrianna Cuevas, The No-Brainer’s Guide to Decomposition

 

Publishing Triangle Awards Finalists

• Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry–Rara Avis by Blas Falconer

• Jacqueline Woodson Award for LGBTQ+ Young Adult and Children’s Literature–Canto Contigo by Jonny Garza Villa

• Amber Hollibaugh Award for LGBTQ+ Social Justice Writing–Magical Realism: Essays on Music, Memory, Fantasy and Borders by Vanessa Angelica Villarreal

 

The Pink Dress by Jane Little Botkin is a finalist in the Popular Culture (Adult Nonfiction) category of the 2024 Foreword INDIES awards.

 

Wings of an Eagle: The Gold Medal Dreams of Billy Mills, written by Donna Janell Bowman and Billy Mills and illustrated by S.D. Nelson, is a Sibert Medal Honor Book, an award bestowed by the American Library Association. 

 

Sean Cotter’s translation of Solenoid, originally published by Deep Vellum, is on the longlist for The International Booker Prize 2025.

 

Dagoberto Gilb is on the longlist for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay for his work A Passing West.

 

Sarah Blaffer Hrdy is on the longlist for the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award for her work Father Time: A Natural History of Men and Babies.

 

Rae Giana Rashad earned a spot on the longlist in the PEN Open Book Award category of the PEN America Literary Awards for her work The Blueprint.

 

Karen Valby is on the longlist for the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography for her work The Swans of Harlem: Five Black Ballerinas, Fifty Years of Sisterhood, and Their Reclamation of a Groundbreaking History.

 

Cheryl Brown Wattley earned a finalist spot in the Political and Social Sciences category of the 2024 Foreword INDIES for her book Desire to Serve.

 

Karen Witemeyer is a finalist twice over in the 2025 Selah Awards. Cloaked in Beauty and If the Boot Fits are finalists in the Western category. 

 

35th Annual Reading the West Book Awards Longlist

Fiction

• Devils Kill Devils by Johnny Compton

• Sarita by Natalie M. Dossett

• No Road Home by John Fram

• Shadow Heart by Meg Gardiner

• The Dissonance by Shaun Hamill

• The Bullet Swallower by Elizabeth Gonzalez James

• The Witches of El Paso by Luis Jaramillo

• My Mother Cursed My Name by Anamely Salgado Reyes

• Hollow Out the Dark by James Wade

• Shelterwood by Lisa Wingate

 

Debut Fiction

• The Turtle House by Amanda Churchill

• Billy the Kid by Ryan C. Coleman

• Malas by Marcela Fuentes

• The Next Best Fling by Gabriella Gamez

• Hermit of Paradise by Kim Sanders

 

Poetry

• Texas, Being: A State of Poems edited by Jenny Browne

• […] by Fady Joudah

 

Nonfiction

• With Every Great Breath by Rick Bass

• Habits of a Peacemaker by Steven T. Collis

• The Barber, The Astronaut, and The Golf Ball by Barbara Radnofsky and Ed Supkis

• A Tale of Two Titties by Meg Vondriska

 

Memoir / Biography

• We Were Illegal by Jessica Goudeau

• No One Gets To Fall Apart by Sarah LaBrie

• Magical Realism by Vanessa Angélica Villarreal

 

Picture Books

• Tamales for Christmas by Stephen Briseño

• The Squish by Breanna Carzoo

• Wild at Heart by Evan Griffith

• A Mind of Her Own by Robyn McGrath

• Abuela’s Letter by Debbie Zapata

 

Young Readers

• Building a Team by Aaron Derr

• The Partition Project by Saadia Faruqi

• The Secret Language of Birds by Lynne Kelly

• Gigi Shin Is Not a Nerd by Lyla Lee

• Made in Asian America: A History for Young People by Christina Soontornvat

• Grace Notes by Naomi Shihab Nye

• On a Wing and a Tear by Cynthia Leitich Smith

• Something Maybe Magnificent by R.L. Toalson

 

Young Adult

• Out of Body by Nia Davenport

• Flopping in a Winter Wonderland by Jason June

• Sheine Lende by Darcie Little Badger

• In the Orbit of You by Ashley Schumacher

• Hot Boy Summer by Joe Jiménez