PULLMAN, Wash.— Washington State University (WSU) Press is pleased to announce that Spirit in the Rock: The Fierce Battle for Modoc Homelands received an honorable mention in the 20th annual Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards.
Foreword Magazine, Inc. hosts an annual awards program celebrating the best books from university and independent publishers. Authors and publishers submitted more than 2,000 individual titles spread across 65 genres. Foreword selected the finalists, and an expert team of booksellers and librarians from across the country chose the winners. “Choosing finalists for the INDIES is always the highlight of our year, but the job is very difficult due to the high quality of submissions,” said Victoria Sutherland, founder/publisher of Foreword Reviews.
Spirit in the Rock tells the story of the 1873 Modoc War—the most expensive Indian conflict in American history, and the only one in which a general—E. R. S. Canby—was killed. Award-winning broadcast journalist and author Jim Compton (1941–2014) did the research and writing, but after his unexpected death, his wife Carol Arnold, a retired trial attorney, edited and submitted the manuscript to WSU Press, fulfilling Compton’s publishing ambitions.
“As soon as we read the manuscript, we knew we had a winner. Jim Compton captured the war’s personalities and events in a riveting narrative that reads like a novel. It was a privilege to publish it,” WSU Press editor-in-chief Robert Clark said.
Spirit in the Rock is paperback, 6″ x 9″, 340 pages in length, and lists for $27.95. It is available through bookstores nationwide, or direct from WSU Press at 800-354-7360 or online at wsupress.wsu.edu. A nonprofit academic publisher associated with Washington State University in Pullman, Washington, WSU Press concentrates on telling unique, focused stories of the Northwest.
Founded in 1998 and based in Traverse City, Michigan, USA, Foreword Magazine, Inc. is the only media company completely devoted to independent publishing. Publishers of a Folio: award-winning bi-monthly print review journal, special interest products, and daily online content feeds, Foreword exclusively covers university and independent (non “Big 5”) publishers, the books they publish, and their authors.
Their complete history category award list can be found at: https://www.forewordreviews.com/awards/winners/2017/history/.