“Silence” recognized for excellence in the War & Military Fiction Category
June 16, 2022—Silence, an Islandport Press novel set in Maine, has won silver in the War & Military Fiction Category at the 2021 Foreword Reviews INDIES Book of the Year Awards.
The novel, written by William Carpenter (left), examines the bitter legacy of terrorism through the lens of conflict and loss. Main character Nick Colonna, a young veteran left deaf after an IED explosion killed his crew, struggles to find solace on the Maine coast. In addition to the Foreword award, Silence won gold at the Independent Publisher Book Awards last month and was a finalist for the 2022 Maine Literary Award for Best Fiction.
“We are dedicated to producing quality fiction and believe our independent press annually produces some of the best so-called regional fiction in the United States,” said Dean L. Lunt, founder and editor-in-chief of Islandport. “It is always great to see these books and the authors get some outside recognition. “Silence,” like most original Islandport novels, was edited by Genevieve A. Morgan, one of the best fiction editors in the business.”
The Foreword INDIES honor the best of independent publishing. This year alone more than 2,700 entries were submitted in 55 categories. Foreword’s editors narrowed the field to approximately 10 finalists per genre. Those finalists were then delivered to more than 100 individual librarians and booksellers to pick the Gold, Silver, Bronze, and Honorable Mention winners.
“You can be certain that this year’s lineup of medal winners will thrill all readers,” says Matt Sutherland, Foreword’s executive editor. “This annual exercise in Indie excellence continues to surprise us both qualitatively and quantitatively—which makes the judging process for our editors that much more difficult because there are so many books deserving recognition.”
Carpenter grew up in Waterville, Maine, graduated from Dartmouth and got a PhD at the University of Minnesota, taught at the University of Chicago, then returned to Maine to help found the College of the Atlantic, where he has taught for 48 years. He is the recipient of the Pablo Neruda award, the Black Warrior award, and the AWP award in poetry. He lives in an old coastal inn and spends summers exploring Maine islands in his family sloop, Northern Light.