The award is names in honor of Pulitzer Prize winner Willa Cather, one of the country's foremost novelists. The WILLA Literary Award is awarded annually for outstanding literature featuring women's stories set in the West.
Winners for 2012:
CONTEMPORARY FICTION
WINNER: Raising Wrecker by Summer Wood -- Wrecker is born in 1965 in flower-powered San Francisco. By his third birthday, his mother has landed in prison and he's been taken by the state. So when an uncle claims the boy and brings him to a place called Bow Farm, Wrecker is scared and angry and quick to cause chaos. Here among the California redwoods, a clan of eccentrics will come together to raise one remarkable child, and feel themselves transformed. Charting two decades of an unconventional family.
FINALIST: Fracture by Susan Cummins Miller
FINALIST: Séance in Sepia by Michelle Black
CREATIVE NONFICTION
WINNER: Rightful Place by Amy Hale Auker -- Thirty essays on land and life in the American West; poetic prose describing the author's experiences as a wife, mother, cook, ranch hand, and writer living the cowboy life
FINALIST: Light on the Devils: Coming of Age on the Klamath by Louise Wagenknecht
FINALIST: Bull Canyon: A Boat Builder, A Writer, and Other Wildlife by Lin Pardey
HISTORICAL FICTION
WINNER: The Bride's House by Sandra Dallas -- In 1880's Georgetown, Colorado, seventeen-year-old Nealie Bent deals with lies, secrets, and heartache before choosing the man who will give her the Bride's House. Years later, Nealie's daughter, Pearl, grows up in the Bride's House. When the enterprising young Frank Curry comes along and asks for Pearl's hand in marriage, Pearl's father sabotages the union. But Pearl has inherited her mother's tenacity of heart, and her father underestimates the lengths to whichthe women in the Bride's House will go for love.
FINALIST: Mercury's Rise by Ann Parker
FINALIST: A Race to Splendor by Ciji Ware
POETRY
WINNER: Married Into It by Patricia Frolander -- This poetry book provides a revealing glimpse into the life of a female rancher, in Wyoming. It shows the hardships and joys involved into the demanding occupation. The book provides poetic views on family, community and the land itself.
FINALIST: The Singing Bowl by Joan Logghe
FINALIST: Dirt Songs: A Plains Duet by Linda M. Hasselstrom and Twyla M. Hansen
ORIGINAL SOFTCOVER FICTION (TRADE OR MASS MARKET)
WINNER: The American Cafe by Sara Sue Hoklotubbe -- Thirty-six-year-old Sadie Walela's hopes of making a fresh start in her native Cherokee county are not going well when on the opening day of her restaurant, American Cafâe, she is threatened by an old woman with a sawed-off shotgun and learns that the restaurant's previous owner has been shot to death.
FINALIST: Captive Trail by Susan Page Davis
FINALIST: Unbridled by Tammy Hinton
CHILDREN’S/YOUNG ADULT FICTION & NONFICTION
WINNER: The Year We Were Famous by Carole Estby Dagg -- Based on the true story of the author's great-aunt and great-grandmother, this is a fast-paced historical adventure set during the time of the suffragist movement, the 1896 presidential campaign, and the changing perception of "a woman's place" in society.
FINALIST: Forgiven by Janet Fox
FINALIST: A Book for Black-Eyed Susan by Judy Young
FINALIST: A Book for Black-Eyed Susan by Judy Young
