A novel by A.D. Hopkins, a native of Stuart, Virginia, has won a second gold award in a well-known literary competition. The latest came in Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards, and honored Hopkins’s novel, The Boys Who Woke Up Early as best adult historical fiction of 2019 from an independent book publisher.
Foreword Reviews, a book review journal focusing on independently published books, created INDIES Book of the Year Awards to recognize the best books published from small, indie, and university presses, as well by self-published authors.
“For a couple of months a year, our editorial team gathers together for the collaborative work of reading through the thousands of worthy INDIES submissions we receive, whittling categories down to the few books that best represent the spirit and potential of independent publishing,” says Managing Editor Michelle Anne Schingler. “The task of judging books is never easy—our impulse, as readers, is to embrace all titles—but it’s work that we take seriously, as do the librarians and booksellers who further narrow the categories after us.
Over 2,100 entries were submitted in 55 categories, with Foreword’s editors choosing approximately 9 finalists per genre. Those finalists were then delivered to individual librarians and booksellers tasked with picking the Gold, Silver, Bronze, and Honorable Mention winners.
Published by Imbrifex Books, THE BOYS WHO WOKE UP EARLY is a coming-of age story set in fictional Early County, in western Virginia, in 1960, at the dawn of the Civil Rights Era when the Jim Crow system and the Ku Klux Klan were far from dead. Troubled teen Stony and his buddy Jack, a habitual liar, become bumbling boy detectives and are drawn into the realities of small-town politics, racism, and violence.
Earlier this year Hopkins was named the gold award winner for “Best New Voice, Fiction” in the prestigious IBPA Benjamin Franklin Awards program.
A.D. Hopkins was born in Patrick County, Virginia, and spent 46 years as a journalist in Virginia, North Carolina, and Las Vegas, Nevada. Much of that time he was an investigative reporter and editor, and part of it he was a touring correspondent focusing on small-town life. Hopkins’ fiction reflects realities and people he met in the small towns, police stations, and courthouses of Virginia. He lives in Las Vegas. The Boys Why Woke Up Early is his debut novel. To learn more, visit AD Hopkins.author, on Facebook or Imbrifex.com.
