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Fiction Shortlist

2022 Fiction Shortlist

We’re excited to announce the shortlist for the 2022 Indiana Authors Awards in the fiction category! Congratulations to the following Hoosier authors and their books: 

Laird Hunt, who was raised on a farm near Kokomo and now lives in Providence, R.I., and teaches at Brown University, for Zorrie, the story of the tenacious Zorrie Underwood. The book presents a life that starts in hardscrabble Depression-era Indiana and ultimately is convulsed and transformed by events of the 20th century.

Angela Jackson-Brown, Bloomington, for When Stars Rain Down, the story of Opal Pruitt and the summer of 1936 in Parsons, Ga., where the arrival of the Ku Klux Klan shakes the tight-knit community and challenges unspoken codes of conduct in their post-Reconstruction town.

D.A. Lockhart, who lived in Indianapolis and graduated from IU Bloomington and now lives in Windsor, Ontario, for Breaking Right, about ordinary Hoosiers whose extraordinary moments reveal complicated correlations between their beliefs, their relationships and the land beneath their feet.

Michael Martone, who was born in Fort Wayne and now lives in Tuscaloosa, Ala., for The Complete Writings of Art Smith, the Bird Boy of Fort Wayne. Inspired by the real-life pioneer of early aviation who invented the art of skywriting, this collection of stories forms a Midwestern mythology that celebrates facts, fiction and the impermanence of art.

Susan Neville, Indianapolis, for The Town of Whispering Dolls, stories about the residents of the rust belt town of Whispering Dolls, who dream of a fabled and illusory past even as new technologies reshape their world into something deeply strange.

Keep up with the other shortlist announcements here, and on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.