2020 Braun Book Awards Winners
By Word Alive Press

After careful review and significant deliberation, Word Alive Press is thrilled to announce the winning manuscripts for our 2020 Braun Book Awards!

Non-Fiction Winner: Nikki White for Identity in Exodus

In this book, Nikki White walks you through the life of Moses—a person whose identity was significantly disrupted through displacement and trauma—in order to try and address the identity crisis currently faced by so many people in the Church today. Citing well-researched examples of the struggles typically faced by new and second-generation immigrants, returning missionaries and their children, adoptees, those with social anxiety or mental health issues, and personal experiences, Nikki shows how we can come to find our true identity, like Moses, from a corporate sense of “sent-ness” as God’s People.

“I was in a torpor of work-induced screen-fatigue when I received the call. It took some persistence to convince me that I had, in fact, actually won something! I am thankful beyond words, and looking forward to working with the Word Alive Press team to ensure that Identity in Exodus is worthy of this honour.” —Nikki White

Fiction Winner: Dale Harris for Though I Walk

The truths of the past are often the hardest to face. When Grace said goodbye to her fiancé Stephen Walker in 1937, as he left Halifax to participate in an archaeological dig in Greece, she had no idea that World War II would soon erupt across Europe and keep them apart for nearly ten years. Though they are eventually reunited after the war, the trauma of what he did and saw in Greece keeps Stephen from ever speaking about it. When he dies suddenly of a heart attack in 1967 however, Grace finds among his effects the journal he kept during that dark time. As she reads it, she uncovers a story she never imagined, about the man she thought she knew.

“I was overjoyed to learn that my novel Though I Walk (previously Walkers) had been selected as the winner of the 2020 Braun Book Award for fiction. Having lived with this story for so many years, I am thrilled to be given this opportunity now to share it with others. I hope that it brings much glory to God and touches many with a deep sense of his love for us.” —Dale Harris

Congratulations to Nikki and Dale!

We would also like to celebrate the authors of the following exceptional manuscripts that made our shortlist and longlist for the awards:

Fiction Shortlist

Terrie Todd for April’s Promise
Terrie Todd for The Last Piece
Johanna Janssenfor When the Last Stone Falls
Connie Cook for The Cradle Record
Casey Bradford for Such a Time as This
Diana Lamothe for Broken Arrow

Fiction Longlist

Robert Stermscheg for Stealth
Benno Kurvits for The Sahalee Watchman
Lauren Harrison for None So Blind
Christopher Timm for In the Absence of Eagles
Harold McNabb for Spirit Code

Non-Fiction Shortlist

Brad Mellette for Rules of Engagement
Ryan Bondy for Joyful Finances
Brenda and Ashley Tindall for The Way I See Things
Roger Yenkins for Church: Community of Faith
Stephanie Kauffman for Fingerprints on Pandora’s Box
Daniel Klassen for How Do We Glorify God?

Non-Fiction Longlist

Derek Bradley for 356 1/4 A Thankfulness Project
J David Peever for Blueprint
Lori Maughan for No Longer Will We Say
Deborah June Annunziata for While We Were Waiting
Philip Powers for Your Glory
Colt Charlebois for The Inner Game

Thank you again to each and every participant! We were deeply humbled by the remarkable entries that we received this year.

About this Contributor:

Word Alive Press is a Christian book publishing company that provides professional book publishing, sales, marketing and distribution services all in one facility!