Tag: awards

Latest Tu honors, and a new review

- Stacy 1 Comment

Tu has had several cool things happen lately, which I’ve tweeted and shared on Facebook, but I’d like to round them all up here. First let’s start with a cover reveal and some insight into the design and illustration process for Hammer of Witches! And I linked this later in the last post, but just in case you missed it, here’s also the cover reveal for Awakening, which is the sequel to Karen Sandler’s Tankborn. Both books are coming out this April!

Hammer of Witches

Hammer of Witches final coverHere’s the awesome Kirkus review for Hammer of Witches, which will be posted on their site soon:

An engaging, magical adventure set against the historical backdrop of Columbus’ westward voyage.

Young Baltasar, a converso (a Spanish Jew converted to Catholicism), relies on his wits to distract the village bully by telling an amusing tale. Soon after, Bal discovers his storytelling has magical properties when he summons a monster to ward off the Malleus Maleficarum, witch-hunting Inquisitors after Bal’s father. Intent on escaping and finding the father he thought dead, Bal is hired as translator on none other than the Santa Maria, captained by Columbus himself. The voyage takes Bal on the uncharted seas of Columbus’ famous voyage and into adventures that include sea beasts and secrets from Bal’s own past. Though keeping track of all the Spanish-named seamen can be a challenge, Mlawski’s central characters—Jinniyah, a genie Bal summons, and Catalina, a fellow storyteller, in addition to Bal himself—are imaginative and well-developed, and her swashbuckling pace and intriguing plotting keep readers at seat’s edge. This story is told entirely from Bal’s perspective, but by placing him on the Santa Maria and inside the Caribbean villages the expedition visits, Mlawski invites young readers to see the familiar Columbus story from another perspective—and to consider the power of stories to shape perception in everyday life. Backmatter includes a helpful author’s note and pronunciation guide.

Though set in the 1490s, this provocative blend of fantasy and history offers loads of contemporary appeal.—Kirkus Reviews

And you’ll see several of the blurbs for this book on the cover reveal post, but here are a couple more great quotes we got from Victoria Strauss and Lesley Livingston:

“This rollicking historical fantasy has it all—nail-biting adventure, exciting mystery, fabulous magics, and characters you can really root for. I enjoyed every word.”—Victoria Strauss, author of Passion Blue and co-founder of Writer Beware

“Hammer of Witches is everything I crave in a story—magic, adventure, danger, depth, a rich historical setting, and an irresistibly charming hero. What a fantastic voyage!”—Lesley Livingston, author of Wondrous Strange

Awakening

AwakeningAs I said, you probably have already seen the cover reveal, but in case you missed it, here it is again! We’ve also got a good Kirkus review to share, as well as some Tankborn news.

[T]he second Tankborn entry presents exciting new mysteries about genetic engineering, illness and rebellions.

As a GEN (Genetically Engineered Non-human), Kayla ranks lowest in this caste-based society. The slightest insubordination on her part could prompt a trueborn to reset her—wipe away her soul and give her body a new personhood—or recycle her body for DNA. Driving around by lorry under the authority of a lowborn named Risa, Kayla uses her genetically strengthened arms to haul goods in and out of warehouses; she and Risa also carry information for the Kinship, a secret rebel network. This information travels inside Kayla’s annexed brain, a section inside every GEN’s brain that is accessed by hooking a datapod (painfully) to the tech-tattoo located on every GEN’s face. Sandler’s strength is suspense, elements of which include the medical mystery of a disease striking only GENs (Scratch is fatal and has bizarre properties), explosions in warehouses storing GEN food, wispy hints of a second revolt (even farther underground than the Kinship) and the web connecting it all. . . . [F]ans of genetic engineering and shadowy rebellions will find much to like.—Kirkus Reviews

In other news, I just found out that Tankborn was a finalist for last year’s Golden Duck Awards in the YA category (the Hal Clement Award). This is a good award that we don’t see very much coverage of—in fact, the award was given in September and I just heard about Tankborn being a finalist just this week. This one is given the same weekend as the Hugo awards. In addition, Galaxy Games: The Challengers by Greg Fishbone was a finalist in the middle grade category (the Eleanor Cameron Award for Middle Grades). I’d love to see more librarians and teachers paying attention to this award!

Summer of the Mariposas

Summer of the MariposasAnd let’s round up this good news report with some news about Summer of the Mariposas, which was just nominated for the Andre Norton Award! This makes me very excited. It’s actually a career first for me, to be able to have an author nominated for this award. And Guadalupe Garcia McCall is in some very good company for nominees. Whoever wins, what an honor to have Guadalupe’s wonderful work recognized.

*happy dance*

If you’re in the Arizona area, here’s your chance to meet Guadalupe and have her sign your book. She’s going to be in Tucson next month, March 9-10, for the Tucson Festival of Books on the University of Arizona campus. Check out the site for more information, such as schedule, etc. The festival is free and open to the public!

Whitney Award nominations

- Stacy 3 Comments

The Whitney Awards are a fairly new award given out at the LDS Storymakers conference that honors novels written by LDS writers, both in the niche LDS market and in the national market. Every year, you can nominate titles for the committee to read and vote upon.

They’ve started to announce the books that have gotten enough nominations to be considered “official nominees”—these are the books that will be considered and whittled down to finalists.

You don’t have to be LDS to nominate books, but the author or authors do need to be members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, a fact that’s hard to determine sometimes when looking at books published for the national market. I have a particular interest in the Speculative and Young Readers (mislabeled Young Adult) categories, given my interests, and while several good books have been nominated, I think that several haven’t made the list for official nominations yet that ought to be.

So, if you have an interest in books by LDS authors published in 2010 that aren’t already official nominations—see the Rules page here for criteria; note that books for young readers need to be at least 20,000 words long and novels for adults need to be 50,000 words long—please feel free to pop over and nominate, especially if you know for a fact that a particular writer is LDS that hasn’t ever been considered for the award. As I said, sometimes it’s hard to determine if an author qualifies; I hate to just assume that someone with ties to BYU is LDS, because I knew plenty of non-Mormons while there as a student, and there are quite a few LDS authors who never lived in Utah or went to BYU as well. Sometimes bios don’t include that information, for obvious reasons—it’s not a professional credit to announce your church affiliation.

Remember, this is just the preliminary nomination—books of merit that should be considered. From there, the committee will whittle each category down to five finalists, and then (I’m fuzzy on the process, but they outline it on their site) will vote on which ones get the awards. So, in my opinion, the list of nominees should be pretty long.

In case anyone was wondering, below are the titles I nominated, to ensure that a large range get considered. I didn’t re-nominate anything that had already had enough votes to get on the list. If you like these books, consider nominating them, or others published last year by LDS authors. My list focuses on the national market, because that’s the market I know best, but you can also nominate books published in the LDS market (sold in LDS bookstores and catalogs).

I had several nominations. This first was for debut novel, but I’m not sure if the author is actually LDS. She has some affiliation with BYU and lives in Utah, but as we all know, that doesn’t mean she is. If anyone can confirm or deny (privately), I can let the committee know.

  • Kristin Chandler, Wolves, Boys, and Other Things that Might Kill Me, Viking

In speculative and/or young readers:

  • James Dashner, The Scorch Trials, Random House (YA or speculative)
  • Ally Condie, Matched, Dutton (it comes out at the end of this month; I’ve read an ARC)
  • James A. Owen, The Dragon’s Apprentice, Simon & Schuster
  • Aprilynne Pike, Spells, HarperTeen
  • Becca Fitzpatrick, Crescendo, Simon & Schuster
  • Mette Ivie Harrison, The Princess & the Snowbird, Bloomsbury
  • Bree Despain, The Lost Saint, Egmont (it comes out Dec. 28; what with the cutoff being so late but the nominations coming so early, I wonder if her Dark Divine ever got nominated for debut last year?)
  • Carol Lynch Williams, Glimpse, Paula Wiseman Books/S&S
  • Julie Berry, Secondhand Charm, Bloomsbury