And the 2025 Audie Award in Fiction and Weatherford Award in Fiction!

I just want to thank all of you who’ve read and supported Rednecks and my other work over the years. From a boy, many years ago, reading Where the Wild Things Are in his room, to the Southern Book Prize, is a dream I could hardly imagine.

A special thanks to my buddy, freelance editor, former officemate, and native WV son Jason Frye, to whom the book is dedicated; to my editor, George Witte, and agent, Julie Stevenson, and everyone at St. Martin’s Press who supported this novel; to all the good folks at the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum and Bitter Southerner for working so hard to keep stories like these not just alive, but growing; to my mom, my sister, and my old man’s memory and spirit, which continue to guide me.

I like to think my grandmother — and her father, my great-grandfather, who inspired Doc Moo — would be proud.

An enormous congrats to Annabelle Tometic (The Mango Tree) and Meredith Adamo (Not Like Other Girls) who won the Nonfiction and Young Readers categories, respectively.

Rednecks also received the 2025 Audie Award in Fiction at the 30th Annual Audie Awards Gala in NYC. Thank you so much to our incredible narrator Ramiz Monsef for voicing this story — I hope we get to work together more in the future.

And last but not least, Rednecks has also received theWeatherford Award in Fiction alongside No Perfect Mothers by my new friend Karen Spears Zacharias.

“The Weatherford Awards are given by Berea College and the Appalachian Studies Association annually to honor books that ‘best illuminate the challenges, personalities, and unique qualities of the Appalachian South.’ The three categories recognized are fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. The conferring of this annual award in each of the three categories has come to be recognized as a major Appalachian event.”

Thank you so much to the award committee, the Appalachian Studies Association, and Berea College for bestowing this award. The past winners of the Weatherford Award read like a list of my literary heroes — Ron Rash, Barbara Kingsolver, Charles Frazier, Lee Smith, Silas House, Wiley Cash, John Ehle — the list goes on.

As for Rednecks, I hope it might continue to open the eyes, minds, and hearts of new readers. Family, community, and love cannot be easily broken, and we are stronger together than apart. Solidarity forever!