Journalist and author A.D. Hopkins wins prize for debut novel

“The Boys Who Woke Up Early,” published by Las Vegas-based Imbrifex Books, won the gold award in the category of historical adult fiction published in 2019.

The novel is a coming-of-age story set in western Virginia in 1960 and follows its young lead characters as they, and their small rural town, navigate racism and changing times.

Foreword Reviews is a book review journal for independently published books. The INDIES Book of the Year competition recognizes the best books published by small, independent and university presses.

More than 2,100 entries were received in 55 categories. That field was pared down to nine finalists for each genre, and gold, silver, bronze and honorable mention winners then were selected.

Hopkins was born in Patrick County, Virginia, and spent 46 years as a journalist in Virginia, North Carolina and Las Vegas. He wrote features and investigative stories for the Review-Journal and edited The Nevadan, the paper’s Sunday magazine. He is a member of the Nevada Newspaper Hall of Fame.

The Foreword INDIES award is the second prestigious first-place award that Hopkins’ novel has received. Hopkins also was named gold award winner for Best New Voice: Fiction in the Independent Book Publishers Association’s Benjamin Franklin Awards program.

Hopkins says that while both awards surprised him, “I was more surprised by the (Foreword) history one, because I didn’t think of it as a historical novel.”

Achieving such recognition now for a different form of writing also surprises Hopkins.

“I went into journalism in the first place because I wanted to learn how to write so I could write books,” he says.

Hopkins says he’s now working on a sequel to “The Boys Who Woke Up Early” that picks up the main character’s story a few years later.

Contact John Przybys at jprzybys@reviewjournal.com. Follow @JJPrzybys on Twitter.