April 2, 2025 — After months of scrutiny of all entries, Midland Authors judges have compiled their lists of semifinalists for the 2025 awards competition.
Thanks to the judges for all the time and effort they devoted to evaluating the entries in each of the seven categories.
If you are an author who submitted a book published in 2024 and you are not on the list of semifinalists, please understand that this is not a comment on the quality of your writing, or on the topic chosen. We were truly overwhelmed by the excellence of all entries, but there were only so many books that we could highlight on this shortlist. We encourage you to keep writing and to submit future works in our ongoing and annual competition.
Congratulations to all authors of the books listed below!
In a week, our judges will have decided on the finalists in each category, and a week after that, on the winner and the honorable mention books.
Thank you all very much for supporting the Society of Midland Authors.
Children’s Fiction
— Edward Underhill, This Day Changes Everything (Wednesday)
— Bob Holt, The Unlucky Kid (Kids Can Press)
— Cristina Oxtra, What Lolo Wants (Kids Can Press)
— Ruth Spiro, One Small Spark: A Tikkun Olam Story (Dial)
— Sarah Nelson, Firefly Galaxy (Barefoot)
— Linda Nemec Foster and Anne-Marie Oomen, The Lake Huron Mermaid: A Tale in Poems (Wayne State University Press)
— Ty Chapman, James Finds the Beat (Free Spirit Publishing)
Children’s Nonfiction
— Janet Nolan, Bats Beneath the Bridge (Albert Whitman & Company)
— Ruth Spiro, How to Explain Robotics to a Grown-Up (Charlesbridge)
— Marlene Targ Brill, Jane Addams: The Most Dangerous Woman in America (Ohio University Press)
— James W. Loewen and Nate Powell, Lies My Teacher Told Me: A Graphic Adaptation (The New Press)
— Shannon Anderson, B Is for Belonging (Free Spirit Publishing)
— Helen Frost, The Mighty Pollinators (Candlewick)
Biography and Memoir
— Stacy Cordery, Becoming Elizabeth Arden: The Woman Behind the Global Beauty Empire (Viking)
— Ray E. Boomhower, The Ultimate Protest: Malcolm W. Browne, Thich Quang Duc, and the News Photograph That Stunned the World (High Road)
— Scott Dominic Carpenter, ParisLost and Found: A Memoir of Love (Travelers’ Tales)
— Trish O’Kane, Birding to Change the World: A Memoir (Ecco)
Adult Nonfiction
— Ariana Katz and Jessica Rosenberg, For Times Such as These: A Radical’s Guide to the Jewish Year (Wayne State University Press)
— Kim Mager with Lisa Pulitzer, A Hunger to Kill: A Serial Killer, a Determined Detective, and the Quest for a Confession That Changed a Small Town Forever (St. Martin’s Press)
— Casey A. Huegel, Cleaning Up the Bomb Factory: Grassroots Activism and Nuclear Waste in the Midwest (University of Washington Press)
— Mark Larson, Working in the 21st Century: An Oral History of American Work in a Time of Social and Economic Transformation (Agate)
— Kenn Kaufman, The Birds That Audubon Missed: Discovery and Desire in the American Wilderness (Avid Reader)
— Patrick Wohl, Down Ballot: How a Local Campaign Became a National Referendum on Abortion (3 Fields)
— Austin Frerick, Barons: Money, Power, and the Corruption of America’s Food Industry (Island Press)
Adult Fiction
— Jeremy Griffin, Scream Queen (Black Lawrence Press)
— Ananda Lima, Craft: Stories I Write About the Devil (Tor)
— Amy Lee Lillard, Exile in Guyville (BOA Editions)
— Barbara Gregorich, Exit Velocity (BookBaby)
— Kevin Prufer, Sleepaway (Acre)
— Cristina Henriquez, The Great Divide (Ecco)
— Miles Harvey, The Registry of Forgotten Objects (Mad Creek Books)
Poetry
— Ae Hee Lee, Asterism (Tupelo Press)
— Janice N. Harrington, Yard Show (BOA Editions)
— Alice Friman, On the Overnight Train (LSU Press)
— Amie Whittemore, Nest of Matches (Autumn House Press)
— Elizabeth Willis, Liontaming in America (New Directions)
— Diane Seuss, Modern Poetry (Graywolf Press)
— Simone Muench and Jackie K. White, The Under Hum (Black Lawrence Press)
— Brittany Rogers, Good Dress (Tin House)
— Dennis Hinrichsen, Dominion + Selected Poems (Green Linden Press)
History
— Patricia Cleary, Mound City: The Place of the Indigenous Past and Present in St. Louis (University of Missouri Press)
— Charles Cosgrove, They Both Reached for the Gun: Beulah Annan, Maurine Watkins, and the Trial That Became Chicago (Southern Illinois University Press)
— Sarah E. Lirley, Sudden Deaths in St. Louis: Coroner Bias in the Gilded Age (Southern Illinois University Press)
— Cathy Jean Maloney, Olmsted’s Riverside: Stewardship Meets Innovation in a Landmark Village (Southern Illinois University Press)
— Harry Castleman and Wally Podrazik, Watching TV: American Television Season by Season, Fourth Edition (Syracuse University Press)
— Daniel F. Harrison, Michigan’s Venice: The Transformation of the St. Clair Maritime Landscape, 1640–2000 (Wayne State University Press)
— Felicia George, When Detroit Played the Numbers: Gambling’s History and Cultural Impact on the Motor City (Wayne State University Press)