LOGAN — Utah State University’s Mountain West Center for Regional Studies has named the winners of its 2026 Evans Awards, recognizing two books that document influential lives in the American West, including a biography of Logan-born poet May Swenson.
The 2026 Evans Biography Award was presented to John G. Turner for Joseph Smith: The Rise and Fall of an American Prophet, while Margaret A. Brucia received the 2026 Evans Handcart Award for The Key to Everything: May Swenson, A Writer’s Life.
A national jury selected Turner’s biography, which examines the life of Joseph Smith Jr., founder of what became The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Drawing from newly available diaries, church records and sermon transcripts, the book traces Smith’s journey from an impoverished farm laborer to a religious leader.
Brucia’s biography explores the life of acclaimed American poet May Swenson, who was born in Logan in 1913 to Danish immigrant parents. The book focuses on the years between 1936 and 1959, when Swenson lived in New York City, and relies heavily on her unpublished diaries and correspondence with friends, family and colleagues. It also examines her development as a writer during the Great Depression, the Federal Writers’ Project and the emergence of gay culture.
The Evans Awards recognize outstanding biographies, autobiographies and memoirs centered on people who helped shape the character of the Interior West. The Evans Biography Award includes a $10,000 prize, while the Evans Handcart Award carries a $2,500 prize. The awards are funded through an endowment established in 1983 by the family of David Woolley Evans and Beatrice Cannon Evans.
“The Evans Awards offer an incredible opportunity for Utah State University to showcase pinnacle works of the American West,” Mountain West Center for Regional Studies Director Molly Cannon said. “We are grateful for the Evans Family and their continued support of writers and scholars in our communities.”
The regional jury also recognized Laurie Lee Hall’s memoir, Dictates of Conscience: From Mormon High Priest to My New Life as a Woman, as the Evans Handcart Award finalist. The memoir recounts Hall’s transition from serving in a patriarchal leadership role within The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to living as a woman.
Award recipients were selected from books published in 2024 and 2025 that were submitted to national and regional juries.
The winners will be honored Sept. 25 during an awards ceremony held in conjunction with the Arrington Mormon History Lecture on Utah State University’s Logan campus.