Fort Lewis College Visiting Instructor in the Writing Program Kate Niles recently won the Editor’s Choice Award for Fiction from ForeWord Magazine, a reviewer of books by independent publishers. Her novel, The Basket Maker, was chosen from over 500 books to receive this honor.

“I’m thrilled,” said Niles. “I always felt the book was worthy of an award, and this is a nice vindication of that feeling. It is also a nice vindication for my publisher, Joan Schweighardt, who does an amazing job with almost nothing.”

Kate Niles

With the stunning skyline of New York City as its backdrop, ForeWord Magazine took center stage at Book Expo America (BEA) earlier this month to announce the winners of its sixth annual Book of the Year Awards (BOTYA). It was only appropriate that BEA, the largest book publishing event in the U.S., serve as the venue for BOTYA program. Also presented were the prestigious Editor’s Choice Prize for Best Fiction and Best Nonfiction, which come with $1,500 cash prizes for each.

Hundreds of representatives spanning the entire scope of book publishing gathered for the event at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, and saw works honored in categories ranging from Biography to Travel Essays. ForeWord publisher Victoria Sutherland and managing editor Alex Moore presented the awards, which culminated in the naming of Niles’ The Basket Maker as the recipient for Editor’s Choice prize for fiction, and Egyptology: Search for the Tomb of Osiris by Emily Sands, Nick Harris, Helen Ward and Ian Andrew as the winner in the Editor’s Choice prize for nonfiction.

Kate Niles' The Basket Maker recently won ForeWord Magazine's Editor's Choice Award for fiction.

The Basket Maker, the debut novel of Niles, addresses the disturbing and emotionally complex issue of sexual abuse of a child by a parent, and crafts it into an unforgettable and powerful story of humanity and hope.

Egyptology: Search for the Tomb of Osiris is an artistic and educational triumph delivered in the form of an archeological scrapbook.

Sutherland said that this year yielded a record number of 1,500 BOTYA entries, which were narrowed down to 500 finalists, and then to the 184 winners.

Established in 1998, BOTYA recognizes excellence, spirit, original voices, and vision in the independent press industry. Past winners include Peace like a River by Leif Enger, The Road Home by Jim Harrison, and Taking the Wall by Jonis Agee for fiction; and Mercators Atlas and And the Crowd Goes Wild by Joe Garner for nonfiction.

”This year’s awards reflect the diverse quality of writing and production in the independent press industry, and ForeWord’s ongoing mission to champion those efforts,” said Sutherland. “BOTYA is the result of the incredible teamwork of scores of gifted authors, dedicated publishing house representatives, and experienced, insightful judges, all of whom are on the daily frontlines of making a difference in the world by putting good books into the hands of appreciative readers."”

”The quality of the submissions this year was just outstanding, which made a difficult job even tougher,” said Moore, part of the judges’ team for the awards. “What we saw across the board was a level of originality and accomplishment that has raised the bar for every.aspxect of BOTYA. It says a tremendous amount about what independent publishing is capable of and has accomplished, the recognition and credibility of these awards, and what it means to have reached this point.”

The Basket Maker was released by GreyCore Press on May 15, 2004.

“The Basket Maker is a stunning literary accomplishment, a page turner that deals delicately and intelligently with the subject of sexual abuse and celebrates the process of healing so earnestly that the reader cannot help but be a part of it,” noted GreyCore’s official website at www.greycore.com.

Critics and contemporaries have praised the work.

“In a fresh, clear voice Niles weaves a novel from five perspectives: three generations of women, the ghost of a chieftain and the meditations of the mountains,” wrote Sena Jeter Naslund, author of Four Spirits and Ahab’s Wife.“Sometimes whimsical, sometimes starkly realistic, always psychologically insightful, The Basket Maker would have us all construct for ourselves a belief system that affirms our uniqueness. In this hopeful novel, community nurtures children where family fails, and the reader is treated to an original vision of the American West.”

“The Basket Maker is an engaging first novel — complex, evocative, heartfelt, keen, amusing, sad — and its speakers manage to be both tough and tender, wise and wide-eyed, all at the same time,” raved Kent Haruf, a National Book Award finalist for Plainsong.“Niles has a new clean fictional voice and she deserves a wide audience.”

“This work is muscular, a rare combination of sinuosity and strength,” said Craig Childs, author of Soul of Nowhere and The Secret Knowledge of Water. It is diversely written, as anything should be in nature, blowing many directions at once, rich with oddities, certainty and bewilderment, and irrefutably beautiful. Niles’ writing is a landscape in itself. She is witness to the sweet and significant details that only a person painfully acquainted with the earth and the convolutions of human relationships might notice. This book is the opposite of paralysis. It is alive and moving.”

According to the book’s jacket copy, isolation suits young Sarah Graves, the novel’s main character. As long as she doesn’t enlarge her world, her secret is safe; and as long as her secret is safe, her world is not likely to split apart. But when she learns that a boy at school has suffered terrible burns over most of his body, she cannot help but envision a friendship based on a mutual knowledge of unspeakable pain.

The Basket Maker weaves together the story of Sarah and Trent’s uneasy alliance with the stories of the adults in their lives.

There is a mother who worships academic knowledge and yet has so shut herself off from knowledge of the world around her that she can no longer properly care for her children. There is also another mother whose desire to protect her ailing child nearly causes her to push away what she needs most to heal; an old woman whose inability to act is tied to embarrassment regarding the circumstances of her husband’s death; the ghost of an Indian chief who has, out of lingering rage and grief, failed to let go into the spirit world; and a father who has been swallowed whole by his own lack of nurture.

With intelligence and a delicate touch, Niles creates a world in which love, passion, abuse and the possibility of healing all coexist. The forces that shape us and drive us forward are as compelling here as the forces of nature that once shaped the American Southwest region where the story unfolds.

Niles is the recipient of a Colorado Council on the Arts Individual Fellowship for 2003. She teaches in the Writing Program at Fort Lewis College and holds degrees in anthropology, archeology and creative writing. Her book of poems, Geographies of the Heart, was published by Blue Heron Press in 1997, and her poetry, short stories and essays have appeared in literary journals and have been broadcast on public radio. The Basket Maker was a finalist in the Heekin Group Foundation Awards for a novel-in-progress.

Niles’ colleagues are not surprised by her success as an author, and say that she brings the same dedication and work ethic to her everyday job at the college.

“For several years, we’ve known we found a jewel when we hired Kate Niles to teach in the Writing Program at Fort Lewis College,” said Bridget Irish, the program’s director. “Kate is an amazingly creative teacher who establishes deep rapport with her students. She has been tapped to teach writing in a variety of Writing Program courses and consistently receives rave student evaluations. She also teaches in the college’s human heritage and honors programs, with the same results. In fact, this fall she will be coordinating our honors program. Kate’s compassion, intelligence and variety of interests allow her to be successful teaching students at every level of preparedness. Her sense of humor and work ethic is really appreciated by those of who work with Kate.

“Kate’s only non-negotiable request is that her personal writing time be protected when we schedule her teaching load,” added Irish. “Obviously, this has paid off for her as she has written a beautiful, award-winning novel. She also manages to keep her family as a top priority in her life, making her one very busy woman who is very much in demand. We just hope we don’t lose any more of Kate’s time!”

Hardcover copies of The Basket Maker are available for $24.95 at www.greycore.com. The book is available locally at Maria’s Bookshop and the Fort Lewis College Bookstore.

For more information, contact Niles at 970-382-6818 or niles_k@fortlewis.edu.

Author Chris Aaland is the director of communications and publications in the Fort Lewis College Office of Marketing and Communications.