The Georgia Writers Association (GWA) announced the winners of the 2023 Georgia Author of the Year Awards (GAYA) during a virtual ceremony on June 17.
This year’s awards honored authors in 15 categories, ranging from fiction and poetry to memoir/biography and children’s literature, with a record-breaking 148 nomin
The 59th annual GAYA also awarded its Posthumous Lifetime Achievement Award to Valerie Boyd, biographer of Zora Neale Hurston, who also won for Specialty Book Award as editor of Bigger Than Bravery: Black Resilience and Reclamation in a Time of Pandemic.
Of particular note were two self-published winners: Monica Lee Weatherly, Professor of English at Georgia State University, for her poetry chapbook It Felt Mississippi, and Susan Carlisle for her romance novel Racing to You.
“We’re thrilled to bring together such a strong group of established and upcoming Georgia authors in our lineup of winners and finalists,” says Garrard Conley, Executive Director of GWA. “Personally, I’m also very pleased to see two well-deserving self-published authors among the winners. We believe that this important award should be open to any and all Georgia writers who produce great work, regardless of publication status. We can’t wait to see what next year will bring.
2023 Winners & Finalists
POSTHUMOUS LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
Valerie Boyd
MEMOIR/BIOGRAPHY
Winner: Odyssey: Young Charles Darwin, The Beagle, and the Voyage that Changed the Worldby Tom Chaffin
Finalist: Bodies Out of Place: Theorizing Anti-Blackness in U.S. Society by Barbara Harris Combs
CHILDREN’S BOOK
Winner: Penny, The Engineering Tail of the Fourth Little Pig, Kimberly Derting and Shelli R. Johannes Illustrated by Hannah Marks
Finalist: Nigel and the Moon by Antwan Eady, Illustrated by Gracey Zhang
COOKBOOK
Winner: Eat Plants, B*tch by Pinky Cole
Finalist: Our Fermented Lives: A History of How Fermented Foods Have Shaped Cultures & Communities by Julia Skinner
DETECTIVE/MYSTERY
Winner: Anywhere You Run: A Novel by Wanda M. Morris
Finalist: Such a Pretty Smile: A Novel by Kristi DeMeester
ESSAY
Winner: Sifting Artifacts: Essays by Kathy A. Bradley
Finalist: A Month of Sundays: The New Mexico Columns by Harry Musselwhite
FIRST NOVEL
Winner: The Cicada Tree by Robert Gwaltney
Finalist: Mama Tried by Kathy Des Jardins
HISTORY
Winner: Against All Odds: A True Story of Ultimate Courage and Survival in World War II by Alex Kershaw
Finalist: A Road Running Southward: Following John Muir’s Journey through an Endangered Land by Dan Chapman
INSPIRATIONAL
Winner: The Self Delusion: The New Neuroscience of How We Invent—and Reinvent—Our Identities by Gregory Berns
Finalist: You’re Only Human: How Your Limits Reflect God’s Design and Why That’s Good News by Kelly M. Kapic
LITERARY FICTION
Winner: Sister Mother Warrior by Vanessa Riley
Finalist: The Hollow Kind by Andy Davidson
POETRY CHAPBOOK
Winner: It Felt Like Mississippi by Monica Lee Weatherly
Finalist: Poem at the Edge of the World by Julia Caroline Knowlton
POETRY FULL-LENGTH BOOK
Winner: Call it in the Air by Ed Pavlić
Finalist: Palabras que respiran / Words that Breathe by Cecilia Lee
ROMANCE
Winner: Stealing Ares by Kim Conrey
Finalist: Racing to You by Susan May Carlisle
YOUNG ADULT
Winner: Does My Body Offend You? by Mayra Cuevas and Marie Marquardt Finalist: Omar Rising by Aisha Saeed
SHORT STORY COLLECTION
Winner: Tower: Stories by Andy Plattner Finalist: Haints on Black Mountain: A Haunted Short Story Collection by Ann Hite
SPECIALTY BOOK
Winner: Bigger Than Bravery: Black Resilience and Reclamation in a Time of Pandemic by Valerie Boyd (editor)
Finalist: Frankie Welch’s Americana: Fashion, Scarves, and Politics by Ashley Callahan