Las Vegas Publisher Garners National Book Awards

Stephens Press, LLC was awarded eight national publishing awards in special ceremonies at the BookExpo America in Washington, D.C. today. Call of the Mountains: The Legacy and the Beauty of Southern California’s San Gabriel, San Bernardino and San Jacinto Mountains was named Best Regional Non-Fiction book by Independent Publishers.

Jim Barnes, managing editor of Independent Publishers and director of the IPPY awards, called Stephens Press “the up and coming regional publisher of the show this year” in presenting the award at a gala ceremony at the National Museum of Women in the Arts Friday night. “The independent publishing scene is where the exciting, ground-breaking ideas come from. It is the daring of these visionary publishers, authors and artists that these awards are designed to recognize” said Barnes.

Carolyn Hayes Uber, president of the three-year-old company accepted the awards and said “There are nearly 200,000 new titles published in North America each year. To have several of our books singled out for their quality at this stage of our corporate life is a real milestone and recognition of our creative team.”

ForeWord magazine also announced the winners of the 2005 Book of the Year Awards, a program established in 1998 to recognize quality books published by independent and university presses.

The Stephens title Will Cook for Sex: A Guy’s Guide to Cooking by Rocky Fino received the Silver award for Cookbook of the Year. Passing Through: An Existential Journey Across America’s Outback by Richard Menzies was awarded the Bronze prize for Travel-Essay Book of the Year. Young Las Vegas: Before the Future Found Us by Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter Joan Whitely, Long Journey from Wikame by Southwest artist Roy Purcell and Call of the Mountains by husband and wife team Ann and Farley Olander were all named Book of the Year finalists in their respective categories.

Librarians and booksellers across the U.S. selected winners. The entries were judged on criteria including originality, writing and production quality, and patron/customer interest in the subject matter.

Stephens Press is a subsidiary of Stephens Media Group which also owns the Las Vegas Review-Journal.