Becoming Little Shell has been selected as one of five books shortlisted for the 2025 Reading the West Awards in the Memoir/Biography category. If you’re wondering what this is, here’s the lowdown:

More than 180 books were submitted for consideration in the 35th Annual Reading the West Book Awards. Independent booksellers across fourteen states read and reviewed all the books to choose their favorites. Now we’re asking you to help select the best of the best! Scroll through or click on the categories to see the shortlist titles. Cast your ballot by May 31, 2025. Winners will be announced June 12, 2025.

Here is some info on who is behind all of this in the first place:

Reading the West was conceived to celebrate the diversity, courage, tenacity, expertise, and indie spirit of the bookstores in the Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers Association. Our goal is to bring bookstores, books, and readers together, to promote the best of our regional authors and stories, and to feature the passionate recommendations of our booksellers.

I have mixed feelings about awards and, especially, ones that demand writers wave their hands and holler, “Vote for me!” Which is exactly what I am doing here. Awards help sales, and sales are still what makes more books possible.² Not just for me, but for other writers too. So please consider voting; I voted for myself to see how much of a hassle it is and it really wasn’t. So I sure would appreciate if you took a few moments to cast a ballot in Becoming Little Shell’s direction! HERE IS THE LINK. I’ll probably mention it a time or two between now and the deadline at the end of the month but I’ll try not to be obnoxious about it.

The above is shared directly from Chris’ Substack which you can find here.