2013 Lariat Award

Five Star Publishing

Western Writers of America has selected Five Star Publishing to receive the 2013 Lariat Award. This special award is given to those who have achieved distinction in their support of Western Writers of America and the literature of the West.

Waterville, Maine-based Five Star, an imprint of Gale, part of Cengage Learning, debuted in 1995 with four original Western titles published in hardcover format. Five Star’s Westerns have earned rave reviews in Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, and Booklist, with hundreds of titles reviewed to date. Western Writers of America has honored multiple Five Star Western titles with Spur Awards for their superior quality.

Five Star has published several Spur Award-winning books, including The Kiowa Verdict by Cynthia Haselhoff, Doubtful Cañon, Hard Winter, and Legacy of a Lawman by Johnny D. Boggs, and the Spur Award-winning Short Story “Crucifixion River” in the anthology of the same name by Marcia Muller and Bill Pronzini.

Max Brand, Bill Brooks, Zane Grey, Fred Grove, Ray Hogan, L. P. Holmes, Louis L’Amour, Wayne D. Overholser, Stephen Overholser, Lauren Paine, Joanne Sundell, and Michael Zimmer have also been published by Five Star. In July, Five Star launches a new line of original Frontier Fiction with initial titles by John D. Nesbitt, Monty McCord, Tim Champlin and Pam Nowak.

The publications under the new program, offered in hardcover library bindings, will consist of a range of subgenres including, but not limited to, mystery, romance, and women’s fiction, all taking place in a frontier setting. They are written by well-known authors as well as emerging voices in Frontier Fiction.

The Lariat Award has been bestowed seven times. Previous awards have been presented to the University of Oklahoma Press, True West Magazine, Tom Doherty/Forge Books, Caxton Press, Dorchester Publishing/Leisure Books, Luther Wilson University Press Director, and High Plains Press.