Susan Wright Beard of Salisbury, author of “You Can’t Be That,” has won a 2014 Independent Publisher Book Award, presented to the year’s best titles published in important and growing divisions of independent publishing.
She won a bronze medal in religious fiction for her story of a woman seeking to be the minister of a Southern Baptist church. The gold medal went to “Treason: A Catholic Novel of Elizabethan England,” by Dena Hunt (Sophia Institute Press); and the silver went to “The Lamp of Darkness: The Age of Prophecy, Book One,” by Dave Mason with Mike Feuer (Lionstail Press).
Other winners in the area include best regional fiction for the southeast:
Gold: “Long Gone Daddies,” by David Wesley Williams (John F. Blair, Publisher)
Silver: “Shorter’s Way,” by Grace Hawthorne (Deeds Publishing)
Bronze: “Chimes from a Cracked Southern Belle,” by Susan Reinhardt (Grateful Steps Publishing House)
Southeast regional nonfiction:
Gold: “Down Bohicket Road: An Artist’s Journey,” by Mary Whyte (University of South Carolina Press)
Silver: “Mud Creek Medicine: The Life of Eula Hall and the Fight for Appalachia,” by Kiran Bhatraju (Butler Books)
Bronze (tie): “The Blue Monk,” by David Bricker (Essential Absurdities Press)
“January in Slavery: An Oral Narrative of the South,” by Calvin M. Logue (CreateSpace)
Best regional fiction:
Gold: “In the Garden of Stone,” by Susan Tekulve (Hub City Press) (See story about the author, this page.)
Silver: “The Fog Machine,” by Susan Follett (Lucky Sky Press)
Bronze: “Visiting the Sins,” by Melanie Denman (Word Association Publishers)
True crime:
Gold: “Met Her on the Mountain: A Forty-Year Quest to Solve the Appalachian Cold-Case Murder of Nancy Morgan,” by Mark I. Pinsky (John F. Blair, Publisher). He has a degree from Duke University.
Visionary fiction:
Gold: “Mystic Tea,” by Rea Nolan Martin (Wiawaka Press)
Silver: “The Rockin’ Chair,” by Steven Manchester (The Story Plant)
Bronze: “Cobalt Blue,” by Peggy Payne (Roundfire Books). She is a Chapel Hill author.