DC-based Texas writer Elizabeth Bruce's debut novel, AND SILENT LEFT THE PLACE, won Washington Writers' Publishing House's Fiction Prize and ForeWord Magazine's Bronze Prize in Fiction and was one of two finalists for the Texas Institute of Letters' Best Work of First Fiction. Set in South Texas in April of 1963, SILENT tells the story of Thomas Riley, a WWI veteran who came back from the Great War middle-aged and silent. He can speak, but he doesn't speak in this lyric tale of violence, redemption, and love reclaimed in the cruel dry land of Texas. PEN/Malamud Winner Richard Bausch said, "Bruce's characters leap off the page at you; they have vividness and substance...one feels the life there...a deeply gifted writer." For more information about Bruce's work, visit http://www.elizabethbrucedc.com.