Western Writers of America Announces 2018 Spur Award Winners

By: Robert Diamond Mar. 09, 2018

TUCSON, Ariz., March 9, 2018 /PRNewswire/ David Grann's "Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI" has won the Spur Award for Best Historical Nonfiction Book, and Jeff Guinn's "Silver City" has won for Best Traditional Western Novel.

Western Writers of America made the announcement Friday on the eve of the Tucson Festival of Books. Winners and finalists will be honored June 20-23 in Billings, Mont., during WWA's annual convention.

Doubleday published Grann's book, a National Book Award finalist. G.P. Putnam's Sons published "Silver City."

Since 1953, Western Writers of America (WesternWriters.org) has promoted and honored the best in Western literature with the annual Spur Awards, selected by panels of judges. Awards, for material published last year, are given for works whose inspiration, image and literary excellence best represent the reality and spirit of the American West.

Leo W. Banks's "Double Wide" (Brash Books) won for Best Contemporary Novel and Best First Novel, and Jane Little Botkin's "Frank Little and the IWW: The Blood That Stained an American Family" (University of Oklahoma Press) won for Best Biography and Best First Nonfiction Book.

Other winners:
Historical Novel: David Osborne's "The Coming" (Bloomsbury USA)
Mass-Market Paperback Novel: Charles G. West's"Hell Hath No Fury" (Pinnacle/Kensington)
Romance Novel: Gina Welborn and Becca Whitham's "The Promise Bride" (Zebra)
Contemporary Nonfiction: Flannery Burke's "A Land Apart: The Southwest and the Nation in the Twentieth Century" (University of Arizona Press)
Juvenile Fiction: Matthew P. Mayo's "Stranded" (Five Star Publishing)
Juvenile Nonfiction: "Glorious Fourth of July and Other Stories from the Plains" by Catherine Rademacher Gibson and recounted by Mary Gibson Sprague (South Dakota Historical Society Press)
Storyteller (Illustrated Children's Book): Jean Abernethy's "Fergus and the Greener Grass" (Trafalgar Square Books)
Short Fiction: Rod Miller's "Lost and Found" (Saddlebag Dispatches)
Short Nonfiction: Ben Mauk's "States of Decay: A Journey Through America's Nuclear Heartland" (Harper's Magazine)
Poem: Marlene Bussma's "She Saddles Her Own Horse" (self-published)
Song: Jean Prescott and Darrell Arnold's "The Pitchfork Grays" (Line Camp Music)
Drama Script: Taylor Sheridan's "Wind River" (Acacia Filmed Entertainment/Film 44/Savvy Media/Media Holding)
Documentary Script: MJ Isakson and Eric Frith's "Down The Fence" (Down the Fence Films)