Calgary-based author of mysteries and young adult novels David A. Poulsen is a finalist in the Young Adult category for the High Plains Book Awards.  The awards were established by the Billings Public Library Board to recognize regional literary works that examine and reflect on life on the High Plains.

The winners will be announced at an awards banquet that is held in conjunction with the 2017 High Plains BookFest on Saturday, October 21, 2017. Each winner will receive a $500 cash prize.

36 books have been selected as finalists in 12 categories for the 11th Annual High Plains Book Awards.  Of the 36 finalist books, twelve authors hail from Canada, eleven are from Montana and the remainder represent nine US States.

David A. Poulsen has been a broadcaster, teacher, football coach, and actor, who spends eighty to one hundred days each year as a visiting author in schools across Canada. He is the author of more than twenty books, including Old Man, which was shortlisted for the Forest of Reading White Pine award, and Numbers which won the Sakura Medal in Japan. He lives in the foothills west of Claresholm, Alberta.

And Then the Sky Exploded tells the story of ninth-grader Christian Deaver who learns his great-grandfather was part of the team that built the atomic bombs dropped on Japan in World War II. During a school trip to Japan, he meets a Hiroshima survivor and tries to make amends. But what can one teenager do?