Carter Sickels’ THE PRETTIEST STAR is the 2021 winner of the Weatherford Prize for Best Books about Appalachia. Founded in 1970, the Weatherford honors books that “best [illuminate] the challenges, personalities and unique qualities of the Appalachian South.” The novel also received a glowing review from The Post and Courier. They write: “THE PRETTIEST STAR dazzles with its tenderness, honesty, and riveting brutality...It is queer fiction of the highest order, which is to say, a story of our humanity laid bare, a story for everyone...[S]mall yet searing insights poke a million holes in your heart — holes through which the light of THE PRETTIEST STAR can dazzle their way in.” Hub City Press published the book on May 19, 2020.