Two University of New Mexico Press books are finalists in the Oklahoma Book Awards contest, as announced recently by the Oklahoma Center for the Book.
To Honor the Dead by native Oklahoman Joseph W. Shaw, now of Albuquerque, is a finalist in the fiction category. Shaw’s first novel tells the story of truck driver Colter Tyree’s prodigal homecoming. In the story, a corrupt local law enforcement officer and a mixed-blood southern Cheyenne trickster and Vietnam veteran named Oliver Wendell Holmes Lonewolf begin a deadly dance of escalating violence and long overdue redemption.
The Chouteaus by Edmond resident Stan Hoig is a finalist in the non-fiction category. Hoig, a journalist and professor emeritus at the University of Central Oklahoma, provides an intimate look into the lives of four generations of the Chouteau family as they voyaged up the Western rivers to conduct trade and ultimately influence the nation's westward movement.
The two books are among 35 finalists in fiction, nonfiction, children’s, poetry, and design categories. The winners will be announced at the Oklahoma Book Award ceremony April 4, at the Edward L. Gaylor-T. Boone Pickens Oklahoma Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City.
For more information contact Amanda Sutton, UNM Press 272-7190 or asutton@unm.edu.
Media Contact: Carolyn Gonzales, (505) 277-5920; e-mail: cgonzal@unm.edu