Receiving the Colorado Book Award for her fiction series featuring the crime-fighting duo of Father John O’Malley and Vicky Holden and the Wind River Reservation is becoming something of a habit for Boulder author Margaret Coel.
Coel’s “Eye of the Wolf,” in which a psychopath murders three Shoshone Indians and poses their bodies on an old battlefield, took home the award for Popular Fiction at the 15th annual Colorado Book Awards ceremony Wednesday at the Donald R. Seawell Grand Ballroom at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts.
Coel also won the award in 2001 for “The Spirit Woman” and was nomined two other times, for “The Eagle Catcher” and the “Dream Stalker.”
In the gala emceed by E-Town radio host Nick Forster, with music from Nick Urata, lead vocalist for the rock group DeVotchKa, Nick Arvin was given the general Fiction Award for “Articles of War,” the story of a young Iowa farm boy sent to battle during World War II.
Other winners included:
Anthology/Collection – “Comeback Woves: Western Writers Welcome the Wolf Home,” by Gary Wockner, Gregory McNamee and SueEllen Campbell. Fifty-one writers offer their own perspectives on the animal.
Children’s Literature – “Prehistoric Actual Size,” by Steve Jenkins. The author/illustrator uses cut-paper collages to teach us about the behemoths.
Creative Nonfiction – “The Guiness Book of Me,” by Steven Church. Church describes his formative years in this humorous take on his obsession with the famous book.
History/Biography – “Blood Struggle: The Rise of Modern Indian Nations,” by Charles Wilkinson. The University of Colorado law professor explains how American Indian leaders are working toward self-determination.
Nonfiction – “Town of Snowmass Village: Wild at Heart,” by Janis Lindsey Huggins. The author, a botanist by trade, spent five years preparing the comprehensive guide to the plants, birds, mammals and ecology of the Aspen/Snowmass area.
Pictorial – “14,000 Feet: A Celebration of Colorado’s Highest Mountains,” by Walter R. Borneman, with photos by Todd Caudle. This is a coffee-table book detailing the history and legacy of the state’s tallest peaks.
Poetry – “Body Painting,” by Jane Hilberry. A book of verse centered around things sexual and sensual.
Young Adult Literature – “Click Here (To Find Out How I Survived the Seventh Grade)” by Denise Vega. Vega describes the angst that a young girl goes through as she enters junior high school.
This story has been corrected in this online archive. Originally, it described “Snowmass Village: Wild at Heart” as a pocket guide to the trails and ecosystems surrounding the town. A better description of the book is as a comprehensive guide to the plants, birds, mammals and ecology of the Aspen/Snowmass area.
