AWARDS AND ACCOLADES:

Texas State Historical Association Awards

Kate Broocks Bates Award

Saltgrass Prairie Saga by Jim Burnett

Ron Tyler Award for Best Illustrated Book on Texas History and Culture

Texas Takes Shape by James Harkins, Mark Lambert, Dr. Brian Stauffer, Patrick Walsh

Coral Horton Tullis Memorial Prize for Best Book on Texas History

One National Family: Texas, Mexico and the Making of the Modern United States, 1820-1867 by Sarah K. M. Rodríguez

Liz Carpenter Award for Best Book on the History of Women

She Changed the Nation: Barbara Jordan’s Life and Legacy in Black Politics by Mary Ellen Curtin

Randolph B. “Mike” Campbell Award

1st Place: Paul M. Lucko – Capital Punishment in Texas

2nd Place: Frank Jackson – The Alamo (1960)

Bailey Carroll Award

The German Lives of Black Texans by David Huenlich

Al Lowman Memorial Prize

The Conservative Frontier: Texas and the Origins of the New Right by Jeff Roche

Kay Bailey Hutchison Award for Women’s Achievements in Texas History

Linda Sioux Henley

Emily Awards from League of Romance Writers

Contemporary Romance – 2nd Place, The Cadence Crush by Christine Ashdown

Novel with Romantic Elements – Winner, Christmas in Honeybee Harbor by Amy Woods

Other Award Winners:

Char Adams won the Debut Adult category of the Indies Choice Awards from the American Booksellers Association for her book Black-Owned: The Revolutionary Life of the Black Bookstore.

Michael Baldwin won the Best Literary Fiction Award from the Texas Authors Institute for his novel Roll Back the Sun.

Libba Bray won the Best Young Adult category of the Edgar Allan Poe Awards from the Mystery Writers of America for her novel Under the Same Stars.

Laura Dunworth won the Children’s Education/Parenting category of the International Impact Book Awardswith her book Breath Easy: A Kid’s Guide to Feeling Calm.

Desiree Groft’s Girl, Unemployed was a Staff Pick by Yellow Bird Editors.

Paul Andrew Hutton won the Best Western Historical Nonfiction category of the Western Writers of America 2026 Spur Awards for his novel The Undiscovered Country.

Teddy Jones won the Historical Fiction category of the Sarton Awards from Story Circle Network for her novel A Family of Good Women.

Paul McGrath won the Best Book for Fiction–Science Fiction category of the Winter 2025 Pencraft Book Awards for his novel Left.

David H. Millar won a Literary Titan Gold Book Award for his novel Dragons, Demons & Demigods.

Carrie R. Moore won the Fiction category of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards from the Cleveland Foundation for her novel Make Your Way Home.

Juan Perez won the 2026 Robert A. Gannon Award for Poetry from the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation for his memoir Thirty Years Ago: Life and the First Gulf War.

Maria Reva won the Aspen Words Literary Prize for her novel Endling.

Melanie Shankle won the Biography & Memoir category of the ECPA 2026 Christian Book Awards for Here Be Dragons.

Taryn Souders earned a spot on the Tome Society Book Awards in the Junior category for her book Secrets of the Broken House.

Anne Witherspoon won a Five Star award from the Open Book Awards for her book Unicorn Leadership. Additionally, the book won Third Place in the Nonfiction/Self-help & Happiness category of The Bookfest and was an Open Book Awards Five Star winner.

Finalists:

Western Writers of America 2026 Spur Awards

Best Western Contemporary Novel – Well of Deception by Cynthia Leal Massey

Best Western Historical Novel – Narrow the Road by James Wade

Best Western Juvenile Nonfiction – Pintsized Pioneers at Play by Preston Lewis and Harriet Kocher Lewis

Best Western Juvenile Fiction – Never Curse the Rain: A Wilder Good Adventure by S.J. Dahlstrom

Reading the West Book Awards Shortlist

Fiction – The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones

Debut Fiction – Welcome to Cottonmouth by Jay S. Bell, The Bright Years by Sarah Damoff

Poetry – Time and Chance by Katharine Coles

Nonfiction – The Girl in the Middle: A Recovered History of the American West by Martha A. Sandweiss

Memoir & Biography – The Mountain Knows the Mountain: A Fire Watch Diary by Philip Connors

Picture Books – The Old Sleigh by Jarrett Pumphrey and Jerome Pumphrey, Painting Wonder: How Pauline Baynes Illustrated the Worlds of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien by Katie Wray Schon, So Many Years: A Juneteenth Story by Anne Wynter

Young Readers – Away by Megan E. Freeman, Three Blue Hearts by Lynne Kelly

Young Adult – Eliza, from Scratch by Sophia Lee, When We Ride by Rex Ogle, Legendary Frybread Drive-in: Intertribal Stories edited by Cynthia Leitich Smith

Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award

The Book of Wounded Sparrows by Octavio Quintanilla

An Authentic Life by Jennifer Chang

Cowboy Park by Eduardo Martinez-Leyva

Nebula Awards

Best Novel – The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones

Middle Grade & YA – The Tower by David Anaxagoras

Eric Hoffer Award Shortlist

Randall James Tyrone – City of Dis

Betsy Pauly & Jen Braaksma – Befriending Betsy

Dan Flanigan – Dewdrops

Jocelyn Kerr – Displaced

Eric D. Sanchez – Killer Vintage

Alan Brenham – Whatever It Takes

Other Finalists:

Joe Battaglia learned that his novel Beneath the Rings was shortlisted for the American Writing Awards Hawthorn Prize for Best Fiction.

Robert Jackson Bennett landed a spot as a finalist for Best Novel in the Hugo Awards for his novel A Drop of Corruption.

Susan Choi joined sixteen talented writers on the shortlist for the 2026 Women’s Prize for Fiction with her novel Flashlight.

Kevin Hwang is a finalist for the 2025 Global Thriller Book Awards with his novel The Regression Strain.

Donika Kelly is a finalist in the Lesbian Poetry category of the Lambda Literary Awards for her collection The Natural Order of Things.

Randall James Tyrone garnered a spot on the shortlist for the Eric Hoffer Award with his collection City of Dis.

Nancy G. West is a finalist for the 2026 Anthony Awards in the Best Juvenile or YA category for her novel Risky Pursuit.