Hendersonville author Dave Richards named a finalist in USA Best Book Awards

From a press release:

Hendersonville author Dave Richards named a finalist in USA Best Book Awards

Hendersonville author Dave Richards was named a Finalist in the “General History” category of the 2014 USA Best Book Awards by USA Book News for his first book, Swords in Their Hands: George Washington and the Newburgh Conspiracy.

Launched in 2004 by the online magazine USABookNews.com, the USA Best Book Awards recognize outstanding works by both mainstream and independent publishers. This year more than 2,000 books were entered in its annual competition for awards and recognition in 100 categories.

Published this spring by Pisgah Press in Asheville, Richards’s 386-page book tells the story of an event that can best be described as the closest thing to a military coup that America has ever experienced. As the Revolution nears success, George Washington’s officers in the Hudson Highlands, unpaid for months or even years, fear that they will never get their back pay and postwar pensions. In Philadelphia, one political faction wants Congress to have real taxation authority so it can obtain the revenue needed to pay the army; another insists that only the states should retain the power of the purse. Eventually, some proponents of federal authority, with the help of key army officers, set in motion a plot to terrify the states and their supporters in Congress into giving them what they want—by hanging an army reportedly “ready for revolt” over their heads.
Mr. Richards, a former serviceman, holds a bachelor’s degree in Russian language and literature from George Washington University and a master’s in Slavic and East European languages and literatures from Ohio State. Before devoting himself to historical research and writing, he worked as a teacher.

Pisgah Press, established in Asheville in 2011, has published books by a number of WNC authors, from fiction writers Michael Hopping and Sarah-Ann Smith to poet Donna Lisle Burton, from radio talk-show host Jeff Messer to mystery writer RF Wilson. Richards, along with several other Pisgah authors including well-known playwright and director C. Robert Jones, (whose series Lanky Tales, Vol. I for “tween” readers will launch this month), will read from and sign their books at the Sixth Annual Asheville Bookfest, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Dec. 6 at the Haywood Park Hotel Atrium in Asheville. For information, visit www.pisgahpress.com or www.ashevillebookfest.com.