The 2024 Colorado Book Awards honor authors in 15 categories

The 33rd annual Colorado Book Awards honored the state’s literary scene with presentations from some new names and well-known authors Friday night at the Tivoli Turnhalle Theater on Denver’s Auraria campus.

The competition is presented by the Center for the Book at Colorado Humanities.

In the competition for the best novel, which this year combined the categories of fiction and literary fiction, “The Applicant: A Novel” by Nazli Koca won for her debut novel about a Turkish woman in her twenties on a student visa who tries to find happiness in Berlin.

In the nonfiction category, Chip Colwell’s So Much Stuff: How Humans Discovered Tools, Invented Meaning, and Made More of Everything won in the General Nonfiction category, while John Carter’s Losing Music: A Memoir took home the Creative Nonfiction award.

In the second year since the CBAs added the popular romance category, “Brynn and Sebastian Hate Each Other” by author Bethany Turner took first place. And in the new short story category, Theodore McCombs won for his collection titled “Uranians: Stories,” five speculative pieces about alternate worlds and the role queerness plays in them.

The Colorado Sun was once again a sponsor of the awards ceremony and, as every year, offers excerpts and author interviews with many of the finalists and winners in its SunLit section throughout the year.

Here is the full list of this year’s winners.

anthology

“Reading Colorado: A Literary Travel Guide”
Peter Anderson

Creative non-fiction

“Losing Music: A Memoir”
John Carter

General non-fiction

“So Much Stuff: How Man Discovered
Tools, invented meaning and made
More of everything”
Chip Colwell

Historical fiction

“Die beautifully”
Buzzy Jackson

Story

“Women from the Colorado Gold Rush”
JvL Bell and Jan Gunia

Secret

“Blood Betrayal: A Detective Inaya
Rahman novel”
Exma Zehanat Khan

novel

“The Applicant: A Novel”
Nazli Koca

poetry

“How you walk alone in the dark”
Erin Block

romance

“Brynn and Sebastian hate each other”
Bethany Turner

Science fiction/fantasy

“Dark moon, shallow sea”
David R. Slayton

Short story

“Uranians: Stories”
Theodore McCombs

thriller

“Not my child”
Nichelle Giraldes

Children’s literature

“Lia & Luís: Confused!”
Ana Crespo and Giovana Medeiros

Youth literature

“Brave Bird at Woulded Knee: A Protest Story on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation”
Rachel Bithell and Eric Freeberg

Youth literature

“Rez Ball”
Byron Graves