Allen Arnold keynotes the annual Christian fiction event

Lynn Austin tops the Christy Award winners of all time, winning her eighth in Monday evening’s event at the Rosen Centre in Orlando, Fla. In accepting her award for Wonderland Creek (Bethany House/Baker Publishing Group) in the Historical category, Austin said that “God is able to do above all we could ask or imagine.”

Anne Elisabeth Stengl took home the Visionary award for Veiled Rose (Bethany House/Baker Publishing Group) after winning the First Novel category last year—a first in Christy Award history.

Ginny Yttrup’s Words (B&H Books), which she said told her “very personal story,” was a finalist in two categories and won in First Novel. 

The other winners named were: Promises to Keep, Ann Tatlock (Bethany House/Baker Publishing Group); The Maid of Fairbourne Hall, Julie Klassen (Bethany House/Baker Publishing Group); The Queen, Steven James (Revell/Baker Publishing Group); Waterfall, Lisa T. Bergren (David C Cook; Wolfsbane, Ronie Kendig (Barbour Publishing); and The Amish Midwife, Mindy Starns Clark and Leslie Gould (Harvest House Publishers).

Christy-winning author Liz Curtis Higgs emceed, while Allen Arnold, formerly fiction publisher with Thomas Nelson, gave the keynote address, “Captured by Story: Unpublished Thoughts on Finding True North in a Changing Landscape.”

“The trends are never the secret to success,” Arnold said. Encouraging writers to look to God for creativity, he exhorted: “Quit being fear-based. Quit bowing at the altar of statistics.”

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