This is our year to gather together VIRTUALLY to celebrate and honor the best Christian fiction of the year. The Christy Award® Gala Webcast will be held the evening of Friday, November 7th and will feature a premiere cast of the industry’s authors to announce The Christy Award winners in nine categories, The Christy Book of the Year®, and The Amplify Award for Christian Fiction.
The special evening will be hosted by radio personality and award-winning novelist Chris Fabry and will include keynotes by Fletcher Jones Chair of Great Books at Pepperdine University, Dr. Jessica Hooten Wilson and award-winning and Christy Book of the Year 2024 author, T.I. Lowe. The event will also include award-winning novelists Jaime Jo Wright, Johanna Rojas Vann, Lori Z. Scott, Katie Powner, Jamie Ogle, Rachelle Nelson, Vanessa Miller, Gabrielle Meyer, Crystal Caudill and Amanda Barratt.
The Art of Writing program will return next year when we are again in-person (every other year). Two official, in-person Watch Parties will be held in St. Louis (at the annual JustRead Rendezvous) and in Grand Rapids (Baker Book House).
Details are on our registration page.
Chris Fabry is an award-winning author of more than 80 books, including Saving Grayson and his latest, The Forge, based on the film by the Kendrick Brothers. He’s the winner of the Carol Award and five Christy Awards, and was inducted into the Christy Award Hall of Fame. Chris is also the host of Chris Fabry Live on Moody Radio.
T. I. Lowe is an ordinary country girl who loves to tell extraordinary stories. She is the author of 21 novels, including the #1 international bestseller and critically acclaimed Under the Magnolias and her debut breakout Lulu's Café. Her novel Indigo Isle won the prestigious Christy Award in the contemporary romance category and was subsequently named Christy Award Book of the Year. She lives in coastal South Carolina with her husband and family. Fans of Delia Owens and Nicholas Sparks will enjoy Lowe's novels brimming with Southern charm and coastal vibes. Perfect for beach reads and book clubs!
Jessica Hooten Wilson is the Fletcher Jones Chair of Great Books at Pepperdine University. She is the author of Reading for the Love of God: How to Read as a Spiritual Practice, The Scandal of Holiness: Renewing Your Imagination in the Company of Literary Saints which received a 2022 Christianity Today Award of Merit and most recently Flannery O’Connor’s Why Do the Heathen Rage?: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at a Work in Progress. Her work Giving the Devil His Due: Demonic Authority in the Fiction of Flannery O’Connor and Fyodor Dostoevsky won the 2018 Christianity Today Book of the Year award in arts and culture. In 2019 she received the Hiett Prize for Humanities from the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture. Other awards include a Fulbright Fellowship to Prague, an NEH to study Dante in Florence, a Biola University sabbatical fellowship funded by the John Templeton Foundation, and the 2017 Emerging Public Intellectual Award. She is a Senior Fellow at The Trinity Forum.
Amanda Barratt is the bestselling author of numerous historical novels and novellas including The Warsaw Sisters, Within These Walls of Sorrow, and The White RoseResists. She is the recipient of multiple Christy Awards as well as the Carol Award. Her novel, Within These Walls of Sorrow, won the 2023 Christy Award Book of the Year. Amanda is passionate about illuminating oft-forgotten facets of history through a fictional narrative. She lives in Michigan.
Crystal Caudill is the author of “dangerously good historical romance.” Her debut novel, Counterfeit Love, was a 2023 Carol Award finalist, and her novella, “Star of Wonder,” won the 2024 Christy Award for short form. She loves history, hot tea, all things bookish, and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. She is a stay-at-home mom, caregiver, and chaos organizer. When she isn’t writing, Crystal can be found hanging with her family and playing board games at her home outside Cincinnati, Ohio. Find out more at crystalcaudill.com.
Gabrielle Meyer is a Christy Award winning, bestselling author of over 45 books. She lives in central Minnesota on the banks of the upper Mississippi River with her husband and four children. As an employee of the Minnesota Historical Society, she fell in love with the rich history of her state and enjoys writing fictional stories inspired by real people, places, and events. You can learn more about Gabrielle and her books at www.gabriellemeyer.com.
Vanessa Miller is a USA Today Bestselling author. Her writing has been centered on themes of redemption and books about strong Black women in pivotal moments of history. Miller’s book, The American Queen won the prestigious Christy Award, the Audie Award and was the 2024 American Fiction Award winner for Historical Fiction. The American Queen is a North Carolina Reads pick for 2025. Her novel, The Filling Station, has received starred reviews from Library Journal and Booklist. It is a Positively Charlotte book club pick and a USA Today Bestseller. Vanessa’s books have received countless favorable reviews. The American Queen has been featured in GMA, Washington Post and Essence Magazine roundups.
Rachelle Nelson grew up reading fantasy novels and getting her clothes muddy in the pine forests of Idaho. These days, she still loves hiking through forests and libraries, though she’s a bit less fond of mud. Her debut novel, Sky of Seven Colors won the Carol Award and Christy Award in 2024. Embergold, her newest standalone, released in 2025 through Enclave Publishing. Rachelle doesn’t write true stories, but she does write about truth. When she’s not doing that, she sings in a band with her husband who makes her happier than should be legal. If you like good food and honest conversations, you’re her favorite kind of person.
Jamie Ogle is a predawn writer, homeschool mom by day, and a reader by night. Inspired by her fascination with the storied history of faith, she writes historical fiction infused with hope, adventure, and courageous rebels. She lives in Iowa with her husband and their three children, and can usually be found gardening, beekeeping, and tromping through the woods.
Katie Powner is a Christy Award-winning author who lives in Montana, where cows still outnumber people. She writes contemporary fiction about redemption, relationships, and finding the dirt road home. She loves red shoes and candy, and she's a mom to the third power (biological, adoptive, and foster). Learn more at katiepowner.com
As an elementary teacher of over 25 years, Lori Z. Scott carries her love of children from the classroom into her writing. Inspired by local and nationwide events endangering kids of all ages, Lori wrote Offsides, the 2024 Young Adult winner of The Christy Award. Prior to this milestone, Lori penned a ten-title, bestselling early chapter book series, contributed to more than a dozen books, and published upward of 200 short stories, articles, essays, poems, and devotions for magazines like Focus on the Family and Brio. When she’s not writing, Lori loves to draw, wear fuzzy socks, play board games, go to church, and tell lame jokes. Guess which one is her favorite?
Johanna Rojas Vann is a big fan of words—speaking them, reading them, and (especially) writing them. As a novelist, she's passionate about stories that highlight the complexity and beauty of diverse families. But nothing brings her more joy than her role at home as wife and mom of three. She lives and writes in Nashville, TN where the coffee is good and the people are even better. Her debut novel, An American Immigrant, won the Christy Award for First Novel in 2024.
Jaime Jo Wright is the ECPA best-seller, Christy Award-Winning author of "The House on Foster Hill" and "The Vanishing at Castle Moreau", and is also a 3-time finalist in the Christy Awards. She is a coffee-fueled and cat-fancier extraordinaire who has entwined her life with her pirate, Captain Hook, and two side-kicks who think they're adults. They're not. She resides serenely in Wisconsin's rural woodlands with her five cats, an axolotl, and too many houseplants to be reasonable. Her literary vocation involves penning Gothic tales with a strong preference to the master of dark, Edgar Allan Poe. She prefers that her literary passages through dark hallways end with a spark of hope, and some have compared her hauntings to Scooby-Doo endings.
We thank the following publishers for their sponsoring support of The Christy Award® program:
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