The 2018 Christy Awards, which recognize works of Christian fiction that have had an impact on contemporary culture, took place at Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tenn., on Nov. 7. Bethany House took home three awards, including the night's top prize, Book of the Year, with True to You by Becky Wade. The author also took home the award for best contemporary romance.
Tying in second place for the most Christy Awards this year, WaterBrook and Revell won two awards apiece. A complete list of winners is below.
Leading up to the Christys, the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association (ECPA) hosted its annual PubU conference from Nov. 6-7, as well as the 2018 Art of Writing conference, which was in its second year. Over 250 people combined attended the back-to-back conferences, which were formed in part as a way to bolster attendance at the annual Christy Awards.
“When ECPA took on the Christy Awards, we moved it to align with PubU, but we had a gap between the conclusion of PubU and the Christy Award Gala. We decided to do a bridge event for writers and publishers,” Stan Jantz, president and CEO of the ECPA, told PW. “This year we had comments from publishers and authors who really appreciated the Art of Writing. The conference was for writers to learn from publishing professionals about the business.”
Panels included Mythbusters: Publishing Edition, which featured Bethany House publicist Amy Green, CEO and publisher of Gilead Publishing Dan Balow, and executive editor for WaterBrook and Multnomah Shannon Marchese. It addressed common mistakes about Christian fiction publishing, including the belief that series sell better than standalone novels, new authors need a large platform to be considered, and that Christian fiction will soon die out. (Seventy percent of Christian publishing professionals queried for the panel said that myth of the dying genre isn’t typically true or is almost never true.)
The second panel, Difficult Topics, Happy Endings, and Hope, featured authors Joanne Bischof, Jerry Jenkins, Carla Laureano, and Charles Martin in a conversation about writing. Beth Adams, senior editor at Howard Books, moderated.
“I see a real maturity in Christian fiction today,” said Jenkins during the panel. “If people read it, they’ll find it’s real and gritty. We’ve grown up in the last 30 years.”
Sarah Arthur, author of A Light So Lovely: The Spiritual Legacy of Madeleine L’Engle, Author of A Wrinkle in Time (Zondervan, Aug.), spoke at both the Art of Writing and the Christy Awards in honor the 100th anniversary of Madeline L’Engle’s birth this year.
A complete list of 2018 Christy Award winners is as follows:
General Fiction: Life After: A Novel by Katie Ganshert (WaterBrook)
Contemporary Romance: True to You by Becky Wade (Bethany House)
Mystery/Suspense/Thriller: The House on Foster Hill by Jaime Jo Wright (Bethany House)
Short Form: 12 Days at Bleakly Manor by Michelle Griep (Barbor Publishing)
Historical: Isaiah’s Daughter by Mesu Andrews (WaterBrook)
Historical Romance: The Lacemaker by Laura Frantz (Revell)
First Novel: Missing Isaac by Valerie Fraser Luesse (Revell)
Visionary: The Man He Never Was by James Rubart (Thomas Nelson)
Young Adult: The Delusion by Laura Gallier (Winder, Tyndale House)
Book of the Year: True to You by Becky Wade (Bethany House)
