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Western Connecticut State University’s MFA in Creative and Professional Writing is honored to announce the winners of our 2020 Housatonic Book Award!
Nonfiction
Winner: David Treuer – The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee

Finalists
Stephen Benz – Topographies
Maureen Stanton – Body Leaping Backward: Memoir of a Delinquent Girlhood
Fiction
Winner: Cristina Alger – Girls Like Us

Finalists
Leah Hager Cohen – Strangers and Cousins
Kiley Reid – Such A Fun Age
Sarah Elaine Smith – Marylou Is Everywhere
Bryan Washington – Lot
Poetry
Winner: Jeff Walt – Leave Smoke

Finalists
Reginald Dwayne Betts – Felon
Kris Bigalk – Enough
Beverly Burch – Latter Days of Eve
Rebecca Lehmann – Ringer
Abby E. Murray – Hail and Farewell
Vivian Shipley – An Archeology of Days
Mariano Zaro – Decoding Sparrows
*Judges did not award a prize in the YA/MG category for 2020