Foreword Reviews, a book review journal focusing on independently published books, announced the winners of its INDIES Book of the Year Awards last week. The awards recognize the best books published in 2018 from small, indie, and university presses, as well by self-published authors.

And your Texas winners are:

Retablos (978-0-87286-786-4) by Octavio Solis (City Lights Publishers) won the silver in Adult Nonfiction: Autobiography & Memoir

Mine (978-0-8263-5954-4) by Sarah Viren (University of New Mexico Press) won the silver in Adult Nonfiction: Essays

This Little Piggy Went to the Liquor Store (978-1-61254-277-5) by AK Turner (Brown Books Publishing Group) won the silver in Adult Nonfiction: Humor

Greed on Trial (978-1-61254-969-9) by Theresa Barta (Brown Books Publishing Group) won gold in Adult Nonfiction: Political & Social Sciences

When The Uncertainty Principle Goes To 11 (978-1-944648-52-7) by Philip Moriarty (BenBella Books) won gold in Adult Nonfiction: Science

Laika's Window (978-1-59534-862-3) by Kurt Caswell (Trinity University Press) won silver in Adult Nonfiction: Science

Hearts Unbroken (978-0-7636-8114-2) by Cynthia Leitich Smith (Candlewick Press) won silver in Young Adult Fiction

You can view all of the winners here: https://www.forewordreviews.com/awards/winners/2018/

“Being surrounded by the year’s best books from independent writers and publishers is a humbling and invigorating experience that we take seriously at every step of the judging process,” says Managing Editor Michelle Anne Schingler. “As the INDIES progress, our editors, and our librarian and bookseller judges, have the honor and the privilege of discovering and rediscovering independent titles that give us hope about the future of publishing and that, at their best, make us consider the world around us anew.”

Over two thousand entries were submitted in fifty-six categories, with Foreword’s editors choosing approximately ten finalists per genre. Those finalists were then mailed to individual librarians and booksellers charged with picking the gold, silver, and bronze winners.

Foreword editors also selected Editor’s Choice winners in nonfiction and fiction. The Very Marrow of Our Bones, an ECW Press title by Christine Higdon, was named the fiction honoree; and Call Them by Their True Names—by Rebecca Solnit, Haymarket Books—was honored as the winner in nonfiction.

Tin House was named the INDIES’s Publisher of the Year. “Traditional publishers forget to prioritize new, exciting, and diverse voices,” says Schingler. “For the past twenty years, Tin House has helped to fill that gap, publishing brilliant works from an array of daring literary voices. We were stunned by their releases this year, from thrilling debut science fiction titles to boundary-breaking poetry collections, and we can’t wait to see what they produce next.”