THE PRETTIEST STAR by Carter Sickels is the winner of the 2021 Southern Book Prize in Fiction. Announced on February 14, the prize is awarded to “the best Southern book of the year” as nominated by Southern indie booksellers and voted on by their customers. Land Arnold of Letters Bookshop in Durham, North Carolina writes: “Intimate and, at times, heartbreaking, Sickels has written a powerful novel that turns the wonderful trick of creating unique characters and telling under represented stories to delve into the universal themes of family, of coming home, of what it means to simply be.” Hub City Press published the novel on May 19, 2020.