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As a long-time sponsor of the Colorado Book Awards, I frequently attend the Awards Ceremony held by the Colorado Humanities.  For the past several years it has been held in Aspen (always a fun weekend!), but this year they moved it to the Governor’s Mansion in Denver, only to quickly sell-out that venue.  Fortunately, there is a beautiful facility just a half-mile from our address at Outskirts Press in Parker, Colorado, which is where I will be along with Lifetime Achievement Award Kent Haruf’s family, and others in attendance, this coming Saturday night for the Colorado Book Awards.

Here’s the press release from The Colorado Humanities:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Colorado Humanities & Center for the Book Recognizes Kent Haruf with Lifetime Achievement Award in Parker

GREENWOOD VILLAGE, CO (5/17/2016) Colorado Humanities and Center for the Book will award Kent Haruf with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Colorado Book Awards celebration on Saturday, May 21, 2016 in Parker, CO. Haruf is the author of Plainsong, a finalist for the National Book Award, and Eventide, Benediction, and Our Souls at Night, among other works. The posthumous Lifetime Achievement Award will be presented to Haruf’s family.

The Colorado Book Awards will be presented, and winners will read briefly, at the Parker Arts, Culture and Events Center, 20000 Pikes Peak Ave., Parker, 80138. Parker is home to the National Writers Association and long-time Colorado Book Award sponsor Outskirts Press. Outskirts Press founder  Brent Sampson is the bestselling author of several books, including Sell Your Book on Amazon, The Book Marketing COACH and Self-Publishing Simplified.

Sponsored by Outskirts Press and First Western Trust, the Colorado Book Awards recognize outstanding contributions by Colorado authors, editors, illustrators and photographers in multiple categories.

2016 Colorado Book Award Finalists

Anthology
Going Down Grand: Poems from the Canyon by Pete Anderson and Rick Kempa, editors (Lithic Press)

Abbey in America: A Philosopher’s Legacy in a New Century by John A. Murray, editor (University of New Mexico Press)

Stories of Music, Volume 1 by Holly E. Tripp, editor (Timbre Press)

Children’s Literature

Do Princesses Make Happy Campers? by Carmela LaVigna Coyle, illustrated by Mike Gordon (Taylor Trade Publishing)

A Chicken Followed Me Home by Robin Page  (Beach Lane Books)
Ninja, Ninja, Never Stop! By Todd Tuell, illustrated by Tad Carpenter (Abrams Appleseed)

Creative Nonfiction

Grow: Stories from the Urban Food Movement by Stephen Grace (Bangtail Press)
Finding Abbey: The Search for Edward Abbey and His Hidden Desert Grave by Sean Prentiss (University of New Mexico Press)

The Spiral Notebook: The Aurora Theater Shooter and the Epidemic of Mass Violence Committed by American Youth by Stephen and Joyce Singular (Counterpoint)

General Nonfiction

Children of Katrina by Alice Fothergill and Lori Peek (University of Texas Press)

The Republic of Conscience by Gary Hart (Blue Rider Press)

Rust: The Longest War by Jonathan Waldman (Simon & Schuster)

Historical Fiction

The Last Midwife by Sandra Dallas (St. Martin’s Press)

And the Wind Whispered by Dan Jorgensen (Bygone Era Books)

The Shepherdess of Siena by Linda Lafferty (Lake Union Publishing)

History

Prophets and Moguls, Rangers and Rogues, Bison and Bears: 100 Years of the National Park Service by Heather Hansen (Mountaineers Books)

Colorado: A Historical Atlas by Thomas J. Noel (University of Oklahoma Press)

Old Blue’s Road by James Whiteside (University Press of Colorado)

Juvenile Literature

Book Scavenger by Jennifer Chambliss Bertman  (Henry Holt and Company)

The Lightning Queen by Laura Resau (Scholastic Press)

Look Both Ways in the Barrio Blanco by Judith Robbins Rose (Candlewick Press)

 

Literary Fiction

How to Walk Away by Lisa Birman (Spuyten Duyvil)

Pickup at Union Station by Gary Reilly (Running Meter Press)

Three Rivers: A Novel by Tiffany Quay Tyson (Thomas Dunne Books).

 

Mystery

The Reckoning Stones by Laura Di Silverio (Midnight Ink)

Murder on the Horizon by M.L. Rowland (Berkeley Prime Crime)

Lake of Fire by Mark Stevens (Midnight Ink)

Pictorial

Colorado’s Yampa River by John Fielder and Patrick Tierney (John Fielder Publishing)

Love Songs of Middle Time by C.H. Rockey (CH Rockey and David Hall)

Sage Spirit: The American West at a Crossroads by Dave Showalter  (Braided River)

 Poetry

(gentlessness) by Dan Beachy-Quick  (Tupelo Press)

The Octopus Game by Nicky Beer (Carnegie Mellon University Press)

All Pilgrim by Stephanie Ford (Four Way Books)

Bad Fame by Martin McGovern (Able Muse Press)

SciFi/Fantasy

Clockwork Lives by Kevin J. Anderson and Neil Peart (ECW Press)

Lord Byron’s Prophecy by Sean Eads (Lethe Press)

Short Story Collection

Night in Erg Chebbi and Other Stories by Edward Hamlin (University of Iowa Press)
The Skull of Pancho Villa and Other Stories by Manuel Ramos (Arte Publico Press)

Thriller

The Virus by Janelle Diller (WorldTrek Publishing)

Dark Waters by Chris Goff (Crooked Lane Books)

The Comfort of Black by Carter Wilson (Oceanview Publishing)

Young Adult

Audacity by Melanie Crowder (Philomel Books)

Dangerous Lies by Becca Fitzpatrick (Simon & Schuster)

Fig by Sarah Elizabeth Schantz (Margaret K. McElderry Books)

For more information, please visit coloradohumanities.org or call 303.894.7951, x19.

What do you get when you combine beauty, brains, and talent with over 60,000 Instagram followers? If you are Fast & Furious actress and best selling poet Mirtha Michelle Castro Marmol, you get two Amazon best-sellers in the same week, as just announced in the December 1 issue of our Outskirts Press self-publishing newsletter.

Elusive Loves; Amores Esquivos is the actress/poet/author’s highly-anticipated follow-up to her Outskirts Press debut Letters, To the Men I Have Loved, which was published in June 2014 and quickly shot to best seller status on both Outskirts Press and Amazon. It has been one of our top 10 best-sellers 16 times out of the last 17 months!

So when it came time to publish her follow-up, Mirtha Michelle leveraged her highly influential social media presence months in advance to build up buzz and anticipation for Elusive Loves; Amores Esquivos.  The results were no less impressive, as Elusive Loves hit #1 in her category on Amazon even BEFORE the Nov 15 launch date she had told her 63,000 Instagram followers.

That tends to happen when you count celebrities like Selena Gomez and Kim Kardashian among your friends, and invite Hollywood A-listers like Vin Diesel and Michelle Rodriguez to your book-launching parties.

But perhaps the biggest reason for her success is her “platform” and the tenacious way in which she builds upon it, supports it, and embraces it.  It also doesn’t hurt that both of her books are honest, inspiring, and intimate studies of love and relationships, which brings us back to the beauty, brains, and talent I mentioned earlier.

Keep it up, Mirtha Michelle! We’re with you.

As a side note, I know we’re in the middle of an on-going blog series about our migration to Responsive Website Design, and we’ll get back to that with the new RWD Author Webpages next time…

Yesterday I mentioned I would be sharing my temporary book cover for the book I plan to write in 30 days this November during the National Novel Writing Month challenge (NaNoWriMo).  The book is called Idle Hands and the caption I’m toying with including on the cover says: “Two young millionaires. Too much time to kill. To hell with the American Dream.”   That … kinda… tells you what it’s about. And, of course, the title and cover provide hints, as well:

The NaNoWriMo website still has the message that they will be “resetting” their website for the 2014 campaign this week, but that doesn’t mean I’m sitting idling by… I’ve been working out some character and plot details in my head (it’s keeping me from sleeping), and I’ve started to work on a cover for the book.  Some might say (quite accurately) that is putting the cart before the horse, but I’ve found that having a temporary cover helps me “visualize” the finished book being out there in the world, and that helps me write it.  Whatever, works, write?  I mean, right?   The name of my books is “Idle Hands” and other than a horror-spoof movie from the 90’s starting Seth Green, I didn’t find another creative property with that title, so unless I think of something better, that’s probably going to be the title I stick with.  I’ll have the cover mock-up this week to post.

More good news. Our Executive VP at Outskirts Press, Kelly Schuknecht, has decided to participate in NaNoWriMo with me this November. She “won” two years ago.  (“Winning” is NaNoWriMo’s way of recognizing participants who successfully write 50,000 words in 30 days).  Anyone else want to join us? Sign-up at http://nanowrimo.org