Dallas author/literary agent James Donovan has won the 2009 nonfiction award from the Writers’ League of Texas for his book, A Terrible Glory:  Custer and the Little Big Horn.

The award, which comes with a cash prize of $1,000, will be presented during the Texas Book Festival on Oct. 31 at the State Capitol in Austin. The other three winners are Stefan Merrll Block’s The Story of Forgetting for fiction, Kathi Appelt’s The Underneath for children’s books and Medititations on Rising and Falling by Philip Pardi in poetry. Also in the fiction category, Dallasite C. W. Smith was one of the four finalists for his novel, Purple Hearts.

Until last year, the awards were known as the Violet Crown Awards (a nickname for the city of Austin) and the Teddy  Children’s Book Awards. Previous winners include novelist Sarah Bird, thriller writer Mary Willis Walker and novelist Clay Reynolds.