The Homesman screenplay Wins WWA Spur Award

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ENCAMPMENT, Wyo., March 12, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- The Homesman, based on Glendon Swarthout's 1988 Spur Award-winning novel, won the 2015 Spur Award for Best Western Drama Script, while Jerome A. Greene's American Carnage: Wounded Knee, 1890 won for Best Nonfiction-Historical Book, Western Writers of America has announced.

Actor Tommy Lee Jones wrote The Homesman screenplay with Kieran Fitzgerald and Wesley A. Oliver. Jones also starred with Hilary Swank in the Ithaca Films production, which is about a frontier woman and a claim jumper who escort three insane women back to civilization in the 1850s. Greene's book, published by the University of Oklahoma Press, details the tragic confrontation between the 7^th Cavalry and Lakota Indians in South Dakota.

Since 1953, Western Writers of America has honored the best in Western literature with the annual Spur Awards, selected by panels of judges. Awards, for material published last year, are given for works whose inspiration, image and literary excellence best represent the reality and spirit of the American West.

James D. Crownover's Wild Ran the Rivers (Five Star Publishing) won for Best Western Historical Novel and Best First Novel, and Jefferson Glass's Reshaw: The Life & Times of John Baptiste Richard (High Plains Press) won the inaugural Spur for Best First Nonfiction Book.

Winners and finalists will be honored during WWA's convention June 23-27 in Lubbock, Texas.

Other winners:

Traditional Novel: Patrick Dearen's The Big Drift (TCU Press).

Contemporary Novel: CB McKenzie's Bad Country (Minotaur/Thomas Dunne Books).

Contemporary Nonfiction: Angela Day's Red Light to Starboard: Recalling the Exxon Valdez Disaster (Washington State University Press).

Biography: Philip Burnham's Song of Dewey Beard: Last Survivor of the Little Bighorn (Bison Books/University of Nebraska Press).

Storyteller (illustrated children's book): author-illustrator Donald F. Montileaux's Tasunka: A Lakota Horse Legend (South Dakota State Historical Society Press).

Juvenile Fiction: Rod Miller's Rawhide Robinson Rides the Range (Five Star Publishing).

Juvenile Nonfiction: Nancy Oswald's Edward Wynkoop: Soldier and Indian Scout (Filter Press).

Short Nonfiction: Richard W. Etulain's "Calamity Jane: A Life and Legends" (Montana The Magazine of Western History).

Short Fiction: Andrew Geyer's "Fingers" (Stephen F. Austin University Press).

Poem: Alan Birkelbach's "A Little Longer Than the Moment" (Cowboy Poetry Press).

Song: Doug Figgs and Todd Carter's "Charlie and Evangeline" (self-published).

Documentary Script: Kami Horton's State of Jefferson (Oregon Public Broadcasting).

For more information, log on to www.westernwriters.org.

SOURCE Western Writers of America

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