"Season of Water and Ice," the debut novel by Ann Arbor resident Donald Lystra, has won the 2009 Midwest Book Award for fiction, awarded by the Midwest Independent Publishers Association.

MIPA is an organization of more than 75 independent and university presses. The award was conferred May 12 in St. Paul, Minn. "Season of Water and Ice" also has been named a Michigan Notable Book for 2010 by the Library of Michigan.

From MIPA's press release:

"Set in rural northern Michigan in 1957, 'Season of Water and Ice' chronicles the unlikely friendship between a lonely fourteen-year-old boy and a pregnant teenage girl. Critics have praised the book for its simple, graceful prose and its honest evocation of time and place.

"Donald Lystra began his writing career late in life, after working for many years as an engineer. He was awarded a Creative Writing Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in 2008, and his work received Special Mention in the Pushcart Prizes. He has been a Writing Fellow at the MacDowell Colony in Perterborough, New Hampshire, where he was honored by the Gerald Freund award for emerging writers. A lifelong resident of Michigan, Lystra and his wife divide their time between Ann Arbor and a farm in Leelanau County.

"'Season of Water and Ice' is available from the publisher, Switchgrass Books, an imprint of Northern Illinois University Press, or from the Chicago Distribution Center."