Posts Categorized: whitney awards

Whitney Award Winners and Gala Photo Gallery

28 Apr, 2014 by in Heather Gardner Photography, lds storymakers, whitney awards 1 comment

whitney_awards

On Saturday, the best of the best gathered for the Whitney Awards gala to honor this year’s awards winners.

What are the Whitney’s you ask?

From their website

“The Whitneys are an awards program for novels written by LDS authors. Elder Orson F. Whitney, an early apostle in the LDS church, prophesied “We will yet have Miltons and Shakespeares of our own.” It is our hope to be a part of that journey toward excellence by honoring the LDS writers also working toward that goal.”

Congratulations to all the winners and thanks to a wonderful group of authors, publishers, judges, our president and the committee who put in countless hours of work to get the results. This year I had the chance to work as a committee member and judges coordinator, and realized just how much has to go in (by many hands) to coordinating the process. You can find all the titles nominated and past years’ winners on Wikipedia.  Thanks so much to everyone who received our numerous emails and mailings, and to those who were kind along the way!

Here are my photos from the event and the 2013 Whitney Award Winners…

Best Novel of the Year

Blackmoore by Julianne Donaldson

Best Youth Novel of the Year

Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson

Best General Fiction

Mile 21 by Sarah Dunster

Best Historical

Esther the Queen by Heather B. Moore

Best Romance

Blackmoore by Julianne Donaldson

Best Mystery/ Suspense

Deep Cover by Traci Hunter Abramson

Best Speculative

Dark Memories by Jeffrey S. Savage

Best Young Adult Speculative

Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson

Best Young Adult General

All the Truth That’s in Me by Julie Berry

Best Middle Grade

The Runaway King by Jennifer A. Nielsen

Best Novel by a New Author

Pivot Point by Kasie West

Lifetime Achievement

Blaine Yorgason

Outstanding Achievement Award

Rachel Ann Nunes

View all the Gala photos as  they are edited and uploaded this week on Heather Gardner Photography’s  facebook and smugmug page.

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Whitney Awards 2013 Are Open For Nomination- Link Up

07 Sep, 2013 by in whitney awards Leave a comment

The last couple of years I’ve had a chance to work with this wonderful program and wanted to let you all know about The Whitney Awards!

ABOUT THE WHITNEY AWARDS 

What are the Whitneys? (excerpt from the official website) 
The Whitney Awards honor novels in the following categories: General Fiction, Romance, Suspense/Mystery, Speculative Fiction, Speculative Young Adult Fiction, General Young Adult Fiction, Middle Grade, Historical, Best Novel of the Year, Best Novel in Youth Fiction, and Best Novel by a New Author.
Novels can be nominated by any reader (via this website or by mail), and nominees are voted on by an academy of industry professionals, including authors, publishers, bookstore owners, distributors, critics, and others.

See all of the awesome books that  won Whitneys, last year, in 2012 here.

 We are now accepting nominations for your favorite books published in 2013 by an LDS author. New LDS Fiction has a great list of new releases/ eligible books on their site.
Nominate your favorite book published by an LDS author in 2013 now and not later than December 31, 2013 here.
The 2013 Whitney Awards will be presented:
April 26, 2014 at the Whitney Award Gala, Davis Convention Center, Layton, Utah


Spread the word : If you are an LDS author and your book was published in 2013 link us to your book via the linky list, or comment below. 
Let’s help spread the word about your titles and readers, keep those nominations rolling in 🙂

LDS Storymakers 2013 and Whitney Award Winners

14 May, 2013 by in Heather Gardner Photography, mindy holt, whitney awards 1 comment

I had the chance once again this year to go to the LDS Storymakers conference author signings. There is always a group of all of my favorite people in the whole world gathered there in one place. If you ever get the change to attend it is well worth it. I snapped some quick photos of the ones I found in the line and picked up signed author swag to give away to Fire and Ice readers! To enter to win a pile of bookmarks plus some exclusive Insomnia swag from J. R. Johansson follow me or comment on Instagram @fireicephotos. I will pick a winner on Friday. This one is open internationally.

Also announced at the conference were this years Whitney award winners. I read 14 of the finalist books this year as an academy member. You can see what I thought of them on Goodreads. Congrats to this years winners!

2012 WhITNEY WINNERS

Best Young Adult Speculative Novel: EVERNEATH By Brodi Ashton
Best Young Adult General Novel: AFTER HELLO By Lisa Mangum
Best Middle Grade Novel: THE FALSE PRINCE By Jennifer A. Nielsen
Best General Novel: THE RENT COLLECTOR By Camron Wright
Best Historical Novel: MY LOVING VIGIL KEEPING By Carla Kelly
Best Romance Novel: EDENBROOKE By Julianne Donaldson
Best Mystery/Suspense Novel: CODE WORD By Traci Hunter Abramson
Best Speculative Novel: THE HOLLOW CITY By Dan Wells
Best Youth Novel of the Year: THE FALSE PRINCE By Jennifer A. Nielsen
Best Novel by a New Author: EDENBROOKE By Julianne Donaldson
Best Novel of the Year: THE RENT COLLECTOR By Camron Wright
Lael Littke: LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
Carol Lynch Williams: OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT AWARD

Next years Whitneys will be under the direction of  the fabulous Mindy Holt from Min Reads and Reviews and LDSWBR. Looking forward to working together with her in 2013.

Thanks so much to all the awesome authors who contributed swag and let me take a photo. The gallery of Storymakers photos I took is on Smugmug and on the Heather Gardner Photography page on facebook.