The Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance has announced their 2018 Book Prize finalists. Thirty titles across eight different categories have been selected as representing the best in Southern literature by independent Southern booksellers.
No One Is Coming to Save Us by Stephanie Powell Watts is a finalist in Fiction (Southern Fiction). Stephanie served as the Final Judge for the NCWN 2018 Doris Betts Fiction Prize (the winners of which will be announced on Monday, May 7!).
Wiley Cash’s The Last Ballad is a finalist in Fiction (Literary). Wiley gave the Keynote Address at the NCWN 2017 Fall Conference.
Robert Beatty, who taught at the NCWN 2015 Fall Conference, had his new novel, Serafina and the Splintered Heart (Serafina Book 3), place as a finalist in the category of Fiction (Juvenille Fiction).
Wilmington’s Taylor Brown and David Joy of Western NC were nominated for Fiction (Literary) for their novels The River of Kings and The Weight of This World, respectively; and Asheville’s Joanne O’Sullivan’s novel Between Two Skies is a finalist in the category of Fiction (Young Adult).
For a complete list of finalists, click here.
The Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance (SIBA) is a trade association which represents over 300 bookstores and thousands of booksellers in Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana, Alabama, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia and Mississippi.
Finalists for the 2018 Southern Book Prize go to juried panels of booksellers who will then decide on the winners in each category. Winners will be announced on July 4, “Independents Day.”