Kansas City author recognized ahead of Kansas Book Festival

TOPEKA, Kan. (WIBW) - A Kansas City author was honored at Washburn University Friday.

Catherine Browder won the 2023 Hefner Heitz Kansas Book Award in Fiction for a collection of short stories. Browder’s stories, gathered in a collection titled Resurrection City: Stories from the Disaster Zone, were inspired by the aftermath of a 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

“It’s about this sort of triple whammy that hit Japan, with the tsunami, the earthquake, and the nuclear thing,” Tom Avreill, Washburn Professor Emeritus of English and Kansas Book Festival Board Member, explained. “She did a series of stories around that disaster that are so heartwarming and real, and some of them are set in the States and some in Japan. it’s just a wonderful collection.”

“So many really great books, Kansas is really rich in its writing community right now,” Avreill said. “That’s what the Book Award is about, but it’s also all about the Book Festival, and bringing 50 writers in who all have recent books.”

The Kansas Book Festival will be held Saturday on Washburn’s campus. You can find more information here.

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