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- Quality of Writing\/Artistry<\/li>\n
- Provides Insight into Utah landscape and\/or culture and\/or author has a connection to Utah (i.e., is or was a Utahn)<\/li>\n
- Has the indefinable quality that makes a book special and unforgettable<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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This year’s finalists include the following in no particular order:<\/p>\n
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<\/a>SILENCE & SONG (F<\/em>C2, 2015), by Melanie Rae Thon<\/strong><\/p>\nBillions of life stories are being played out every day, individual lives intersecting with the lives of others, leaving an indelible mark. Stories weaving in and out of one another creating intricate designs, occasionally marred by an event so large it transects many lives and alters the landscape of the soul. Melanie Rae Thon\u2019s Silence and Song<\/em> beautifully portrays two such events. The first, the accidental death of a man filling water tanks for fugitives crossing the United States border from Mexico. The second, a late night murder of a young convenience store employee by a roving drug addict in Seattle– intertwined with haunting images of the destruction caused by nuclear fall-out in Chernobyl.<\/p>\n
Thon\u2019s book is really two long fictions linked by a short prose poem and as a whole reminds us to be conscious as our lives cross the path of others, for each person has a back story.\u00a0 And just as flowers grow up amidst the melee of Chernobyl, Thon\u2019s narrative portrays the convergence of beauty and pain in the lives of those affected by trauma; the despair, healing, and the eventual beauty that can arise from the aftermath of destruction.<\/p>\n
A Montana native, Thon currently resides in Salt Lake City, where she is a professor of creative writing and environmental humanities at the University of Utah. She is the author of four novels and four collections of short stories, a recipient of a Whiting Writer\u2019s Award, two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, and winner of the Utah Book Award.<\/p>\n
Read the 15 Bytes profile of Melanie Thon by Michael McLane here<\/a>.<\/p>\n
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<\/a><\/strong>UNMOORED (Winter Beach Press<\/em>, 2015), by Jeri Parker<\/strong><\/p>\nRennie England is shattered by the untimely death of her father. She feels as if the world has spun off its axis, taking her sense of identity with it. She no longer knows where she begins or ends. The self she has always known, has lost its moorings.\u00a0Jeri Parker\u2019s debut novel,\u00a0Unmoored<\/em> as well as her memoir A Thousand Voices<\/em>, portray the complex relationships between key players in a person\u2019s life and whom they become. In\u00a0Unmoored<\/em>, Rennie is forced to evaluate the complicated relationship she has always had with her father as memories\u00a0surface through the grieving process. The watershed of memory unexpectedly unleashed by death reveals the powerful residual connection between her father and everything else she has experienced in her life.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/em>Unmoored<\/em>\u00a0is made powerful by the author\u2019s ability to invoke rich images of the natural landscape, as well as the sometimes stark reality of human nature.\u00a0Seething with raw emotion, readers feel as if they are experiencing the critical moments in Rennie\u2019s past, firsthand.<\/p>\n
Now living in Salt Lake City but raised in Eastern Idaho, Parker has a love for its woodlands and rivers. And as with the main character of her novel, she too is a painter as well as a writer. Through both broad strokes and intricate details, Parker\u2019s novel creates a moving portrait of love and loss impossible to forget.<\/p>\n
Read the 15 Bytes review by Krystal K. Baker of Unmoored<\/em> here<\/a>.<\/p>\n
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<\/a>SILENCE & SONG (F<\/em>C2, 2015), by Melanie Rae Thon<\/strong><\/p>\n