The 33rd annual Colorado Book Awards celebrated the state’s literary scene with presentations to some new names and familiar authors Friday night at the Tivoli Turnhalle Theater on the Auraria campus in Denver.
The competition is presented by Colorado Humanities’ Center for the Book.
In the competition for best Novel, which this year consolidated the General Fiction and Literary Fiction categories, “The Applicant: A Novel” by Nazli Koca won for her debut about a 20-something Turkish woman on a student visa struggling to make her way in Berlin.
In the nonfiction realm, Chip Colwell’s “So Much Stuff: How Humans Discovered Tools, Invented Meaning, and Made More of Everything” won for General Nonfiction, while John Cotter’s “Losing Music: A Memoir” took the prize for Creative Nonfiction.
In the second year since the CBAs added the popular Romance category, author Bethany Turner’s “Brynn and Sebastian Hate Each Other” grabbed top honors. And in the new Short Story category, Theodore McCombs won for his collection titled “Uranians: Stories,” five speculative pieces about alternate worlds and the role that queerness plays in them.
The Colorado Sun once again helped sponsor the awards and, as it has each year, offers excerpts and author interviews from many finalists and winners throughout the year through its SunLit feature.
Here’s the complete list of this year’s winners.
Anthology
“Reading Colorado: A Literary Road Guide”
Peter Anderson
Creative Nonfiction
“Losing Music: A Memoir”
John Cotter
General Nonfiction
“So Much Stuff: How Humans Discovered
Tools, Invented Meaning, and Made
More of Everything”
Chip Colwell
Historical Fiction
“To Die Beautiful”
Buzzy Jackson
History
“Women of the Colorado Gold Rush Era”
J.v.L. Bell and Jan Gunia
Mystery
“Blood Betrayal: A Detective Inaya
Rahman Novel”
Ausma Zehanat Khan
Novel
“The Applicant: A Novel”
Nazli Koca
Poetry
“How You Walk Alone in the Dark”
Erin Block
Romance
“Brynn and Sebastian Hate Each Other”
Bethany Turner
Science Fiction/Fantasy
“Dark Moon, Shallow Sea”
David R. Slayton
Short Story
“Uranians: Stories”
Theodore McCombs
Thriller
“No Child of Mine”
Nichelle Giraldes
Children’s Literature
“Lia & Luís: Puzzled!”
Ana Crespo and Giovana Medeiros
Juvenile Literature
“Brave Bird at Wounded Knee: A Story of Protest on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation”
Rachel Bithell and Eric Freeberg
Young Adult Literature
“Rez Ball”
Byron Graves