May 18, 2020
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
LAS VEGAS, NV — A.D. Hopkins, a native of Stuart, Virginia was named the gold award winner for Best New Voice, Fiction in the prestigious IBPA Benjamin Franklin Awards program for his novel THE BOYS WHO WOKE UP EARLY.
The gold award was announced by the Independent Book Publishers Association May 6 during an on-line event, due to the Covid-19 lockdown which forced cancellation of the usual awards banquet.
Now in its 32nd year, the awards program nominated 164 finalists in 54 categories, but only one gold award was given in each category.
“Winning an IBPA Benjamin Franklin Award says to bookstores, reviewers, and readers, ‘This is one of the best books published in this category and it deserves to be noticed’,” said Patagonia Books publisher and incoming IBPA Board Chair Karla Olson. “The finalists, which reflect the highest standards of professionalism and attention to detail, celebrate the innovation and diversity coming out of today’s independent publishing community.”
Published by Imbrifex Books, THE BOYS WHO WOKE UP EARLY is a coming-of age story set in western Virginia in 1960, at the dawn of the Civil Rights Era when the Jim Crow system and the Ku Klux Klan were far from dead. Troubled teen Stony and his buddy Jack, a compulsive liar, become bumbling boy detectives and are drawn into the realities of small-town politics, racism, and violence.
A.D. Hopkins spent 46 years as a journalist in Virginia, North Carolina, and Las Vegas. Much of that time he was an investigative reporter and editor, and part of it he was a touring correspondent focusing on small-town life. Hopkins’ fiction reflects realities and people he met in the small towns, police stations, and courthouses of Virginia. He lives in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Boys Why Woke Up Early is his debut novel. A.D. is available for interviews, Q&A, and speaking engagements. To learn more please visit his Facebook page or Imbrifex.com.