We are thrilled to announce the 2025 Front Range Book Prize Winner and Finalist Shortlist! From more than 200 manuscripts of all types, lengths, styles, and genres submitted to Alternating Current Press for the book prize, we’ve narrowed the second round of reading down to this shortlist and selected a winner.

The Front Range Book Prize celebrates Colorado authors and themes, and our winner, Elisabeth Hyde, has been a Boulder resident since 1988. Rife with tension, tenderness, and lyrical prose, Hyde’s winning novel, Night of the Shooting Stars, covers a 24-hour period in which a 17-year-old girl fails to return to her family’s lake house in northern Vermont, forcing the girl’s estranged parents to work through their own marital struggles and a parent’s worst nightmare in their child’s unthinkable absence. Hyde receives $1,000 + publication at Alternating Current Press, including full publicity, worldwide distribution, and a Colorado book tour of readings and signings throughout the state.

Congrats, as well, to our runner-up, Erin Robertson, who will receive a silver medallion and have the opportunity to join our 2026 through 2027 publishing seasons with her personal and powerful poetry book about the 2021 Marshall Fire in Boulder County, Singed Seeds: A Marshall Fire Year.

Winner!

• Night of the Shooting Stars by Elisabeth Hyde

Finalist!

• Singed Seeds: A Marshall Fire Year by Erin Robertson

Thanks to these authors for placing their incredible work in our hands. Congratulations to the winner and runner-up selections; we can’t wait to share your books with our enthusiastic readers.

For the visually impaired or those using TTS reading aids: this is the end of the announcement.

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