Tag: book award

Now’s your chance to give us your vote for which book you would like to see receive the Outskirts Press Best Book of the Year Award for 2013 and the $1,500 Grand Prize that goes along with it. Voting is open to everyone. The poll ends on Friday, September 12th at 12pm Mountain Time.

The 2013 Best Book of the Year Finalists are:

Lynda Stephenson’s first novel, Dancing with Elvis, introduces the irreverent teenager, Frankilee Baxter, who is both charming and sharp-tongued. Published in 2005, fifty years after Brown vs. Board of Education, Dancing with Elvis was chosen by Book Sense for Teen Readers and was a finalist for the Oklahoma Center for the Book Award. It was named an International Reading Association Book Award Notable. In addition to other accolades, the book received the Delta Kappa Gamma Young Adult/Adult Award in 2007. Born and reared in the West Texas Panhandle, Stephenson attended Trinity University in San Antonio and then received her Master’s Degree and doctoral work in English from the University of Oklahoma. A former English professor at East Central University, Ada, Oklahoma, she is a prolific writer of poetry, essays, and short stories. She currently lives with her husband, Gene, in Edmond, Oklahoma.

INFORMATION ABOUT THE BOOK

The year is 1958, and schools in the South are rebelling against the 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown vs. Board of Education. In the beginning, Frankilee Baxter, a freshman at Athena College, is not concerned with racial issues. Instead, she is determined to improve her looks, pledge a sorority, find a steady boyfriend and make her name as a journalist at the college newspaper. Her plans are changed, however, when she befriends Eleanor Wilson, the only Negro student on campus. Eleanor is the daughter of a northern minister who is a prominent leader in the NAACP. When life becomes almost more painful and confusing than they can bear, Frankilee and her friends in the dormitory form The Southern Chapter of the Big Girl Panties Club, and they invite Eleanor to join. The BGPC members stand together to protect Eleanor from acts of discrimination. The story also deals with the blossoming love of Frankilee for Trace Godwin, a popular star basketball player and the pledge trainer of his fraternity. When a boy in Trace’s fraternity is seriously injured during a campout, the narrative takes a dark turn of mystery and deceit. More complications arise when Frankilee spends Easter weekend with Trace’s wealthy, dysfunctional family. A quirky story of love, discrimination, forgiveness, and redemption, The Southern Chapter of the Big Girl Panties Club follows Frankilee and her friends during their freshman year.

For more details, including ordering the book instantly, click here.

---

Richard Pires was born and raised in a small town in Northern California where there was little to do but use one’s imagination. He has been writing for ten years professionally, and The Monster Monroe is his first novel.

INFORMATION ABOUT THE BOOK

Steven Fisher is about to be sent off to fight in World War II, but his patriotic zeal is tempered by a series of nightmares. He realizes that his psyche is trying to remind him of something-a promise he made to a deformed World War I veteran who saved his life years earlier. Steven looks back on his past, rediscovering his childhood and reflecting on the horrifying events that brought him face-to-face with pure evil in the summer of 1928 in his small town. As a 13-year-old, Steven is enamored by the local legend, The Monster Monroe, who lives alone in a big house and wears a mask to cover his hideously mangled face. Monroe works as a freak at a carnival in the city and drinks to escape the pain his life has become. He also documents his life in his memoirs-the mistakes he made and the love he lost-in an attempt to reconnect with his daughter, long absent from his life. And when a sadistic murderer begins to kill young boys, Monroe is the perfect scapegoat. THE MONSTER MONROE, a period drama, centers around one fateful summer of a young man’s life. It’s a powerful debut novel-a page-turner that packs a powerful emotional punch.

For more details, including ordering the book instantly, click here.

---

Lesha Acker published her first book, Powdered Donuts on Monday, in 2010. She graduated from Texas Tech University, Magna Cum Laude, with a degree in Early Childhood Education.

INFORMATION ABOUT THE BOOK

One thing I know for sure, Daniel is my Greek god … How can one person create deep love, passion, and complete exhilaration from the pit of my soul but also resuscitate my existing darkness … At the peak of my desperation, which do I choose … succumb to my fears or conquer them?

Outskirts Press

Outskirts Press

Outskirts Press

For more details, including ordering the book instantly, click here.

---

As a self-taught artist, T.C. Newman splits her passions between art and family. Her mother was an artist and her father a physicist, so she developed a strong knowledge of art as well as all things mysterious.

INFORMATION ABOUT THE BOOK

The mysteries of the Shroud of Turin are not so difficult to understand; sometimes the hardest things to see are right there in plain sight. This shocking and enthralling project catapults the reader to a greater understanding of the image formation process of the Shroud of Turin, the most misunderstood artifact known to mankind, yet one of the most rigorously investigated. This Journal is unlike any other publication written about the Shroud. The project details direct, personal, and original research that reveals a fresh new approach. This entertaining chronicle unravels the mysteries of the Shroud’s image, revealing riveting new evidence, which combines science and faith with new information never before realized. Follow the Light, The Shroud’s Revelations, is based on more than 30 years of artistic study, and perseverance, and reveals more scientific truth, than all the other theories and analyses up to date. This is a book that is good for all ages, believers, and non believers, Christian and Scientific alike. It details the project as the author, along with her eight-year old daughter, explore a fascinating journey, while developing a process of decoding the three-dimensional information within the image, resulting in sculptures demonstrating some startling conclusions.

For more details, including ordering the book instantly, click here.

---

Now it’s time to vote for the winner of the Outskirts Press Best Book of the Year Award for 2013.

The winner receives a $1,500 grand prize, an exclusive Best Book of the Year award added to the book’s cover for all future printings, exclusive placement in our Best Book of the Year Pinterest Board, and much more!

---

Are you the next award-winning author from Outskirts Press? Start publishing today…