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Proudly Made Named Foreword INDIES Finalist, Adding to Growing List of Awards for PA Wilds Memoir

WARREN, PA — Proudly Made: A Story of Reinvention in the Big Woods and Small Towns of the Pennsylvania Wilds, the debut memoir by Tataboline “Ta” Enos, founder and CEO of the nonprofit PA Wilds Center, has been named a finalist for the 2025 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award in the Regional category — the latest in a string of honors for the book since its release in June 2025 through Sunbury Press’ Catamount Press imprint, which focuses on northern Appalachia.

The Foreword INDIES program is among the most respected recognition programs for independently published books. Finalists are evaluated by teams of librarians and booksellers, with gold, silver, and bronze winners to be announced in June 2026.

The Foreword INDIES website says: “Fans of ‘The Glass Castle’ and ‘Wild’ will love this unforgettable 20-year journey that heralds the difference one person with a little mettle can make, and the greater good that can come when many of us work together.”

A Growing Record of Recognition

The Foreword INDIES finalist designation joins a growing list of honors for the book, which has earned national recognition across literary, civic, and author circles:

Governor’s Keystone Award (2025): Enos was selected by Governor Josh Shapiro as one of 18 Pennsylvanians honored for outstanding community leadership — a recognition of both the book’s impact and her two decades of work building the PA Wilds strategy into a nationally recognized rural development model.

Sunbury Press Sunny Award — Best Seller (2025): Recognized as one of the top-selling and most impactful titles across Sunbury Press’s 18 imprints and more than 1,700 titles.

Silver Book Award, Nonfiction Authors Association: Judges called the memoir “exceptional” and “very much worth the read,” noting that its “emphasis on sustainability is one of the book’s key strengths.”

Finalist, Independent Authors Network Book of the Year Award, 2025

Longlist, Writers Conference of Northern Appalachia Book of the Year, 2025

Nominated to the Pennsylvania Center for the Book for the Library of Congress’ Great Reads from Great Places program

About the Book

Proudly Made chronicles Enos’ personal journey — growing up in rural Pennsylvania and Alaska, returning home, and overcoming self-doubt to help lead what has become a nationally recognized model for place-based rural development. Woven through her memoir is the parallel story of the Pennsylvania Wilds, a 13-county region in north-central Pennsylvania that has grown from a struggling, overlooked landscape into a $2 billion outdoor recreation and tourism economy that is helping to fuel rural revitalization.

The book has been praised by the Aspen Institute Community Strategies Group, featured on CSPAN and in The Daily Yonder, and recognized by the Brookings Institution, among others, as a candid, solutions-oriented account of how grassroots leadership, creativity, collaboration, and a fierce sense of place can help rural areas thrive.

“Locally-led, place-based development is happening in communities all across the country and is so deserving of investment,” said Enos.

About the Author

Ta Enos is the founder and CEO of the PA Wilds Center, a nonprofit that works across 13 rural counties in north-central Pennsylvania to integrate conservation, outdoor recreation, and small business development to help build a thriving regional economy. A Warren County native, former journalist, and fourth-generation Pennsylvanian, Enos has spent close to two decades working on the PA Wilds and loves what she does.

Proudly Made is available through Sunburypress.com, the PA Wilds online marketplace at shop.pawilds.com and many local booksellers, as well as Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, Bookshop.org, Amazon, and independent bookstores worldwide.

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Q&A with Ta Enos

Author of Proudly Made | Founder & CEO, PA Wilds Center

The following Q&A is available for use by journalists and editors. Media looking to review the book can request an Advance Reader Copy from the author at tataboline@gmail.com. Pictures of the book or author are available at https://www.ta-enos.com/media.

Q: Proudly Made has earned an array of awards and recognitions. What do you think is driving that response?

I think people are hungry for rural stories that don’t traffic in decline or despair. There’s a tendency in national media to tell rural America’s story through the lens of what’s been lost. This book is about what’s possible — what already is happening — when we invest in rural people leading their own development. I also think readers across the country see their own communities in this story, whether they’re in Appalachia, the Midwest, or the Mountain West. That has meant a great deal to me.

Q: The book has drawn comparisons to Cheryl Strayed’s Wild and Jeannette Walls’ The Glass Castle. How does that feel?

Those are books I read and loved, by writers I admire, so the comparisons almost make my heart skip. What’s striking is that they’ve come independently from multiple directions without prompting — award judges, other authors, everyday readers. One judge specifically noted similarities to The Glass Castle in the childhood hardship and voice, writing that the book is ‘rich in emotion amid hardship’ and that the voice is ‘charming, modest, and inviting — her storytelling filled with indelible images that linger long after the last page.’ Sam MacDonald, a writer I admire who is also from rural PA and is very familiar with the place and movement I write about in Proudly Made, described the book as ‘equal parts literary memoir and activist template’ that ‘advances the great tradition of American place-based writers like Thoreau, Zora Neale Hurston, and Annie Dillard.’ I mean, just having my name mentioned anywhere near writers of that caliber means so much to me. I’d also say that writing about difficult personal times can be really uncomfortable. Like: do I really want to put these details out there? I am so glad that honesty is resonating. It makes it worth it.

Q: Governor Shapiro honored you with the Keystone Award. What did that recognition mean to you personally?

Funny story. The week I learned about the award, our nonprofit was actually trying to line up a celebratory signing picture with the Governor for a 35-year lease he’d signed for us to operate our mission-driven PA Wilds Conservation Shops at key state parks. The stores are super inspiring — they sell products made by rural small businesses, and are operated in partnership with DCNR, who is foundational investor and amazing partner in our work (I write about the building of this mission-driven commerce platform in my book). In PA’s state park system, 35-year leases are a big deal, and we wanted the picture with the Governor and our Board and partners to mark the occasion. Governors are busy people, as you can imagine, so we’d tried several times to make it happen without success. Then we hear there’s a chance he might be coming through the region. A short time later, I get word that he is going to call me directly at a certain time. I was thinking it was about the picture right up to the moment he said the reason he was calling was to tell me that he and the First Lady wanted to recognize me with this award. I was so caught off guard I think my response was something like, is the picture still on? It took me a beat to switch gears! Gov. Shapiro was very gracious, and I thought it was classy that he personally made the calls to the award winners. The award was very appreciated. Hundreds of people have helped get the Wilds work where it is, so to me the award wasn’t just for me – it was for all of us.

Q: Who do you hope reads this book, and what do you hope they take away?

Rural readers and rural communities are absolutely at the heart of this. We have a saying in the Wilds: “Be the They.” Stop waiting for someone else to fix things. So many rural areas have faced years of disinvestment that has led to these complex, stacked challenges to revitalization. I hope with Proudly Made, rural readers across the country see themselves in a bigger, more hopeful story and feel the encouragement to act. Tony Pipa at the Brookings Institution put it well when he said the book is full of grit, creativity, and an unrelenting belief in a place and its people. That’s what I hope rural readers carry with them.

I also wrote this for national philanthropic funders and policymakers who are trying to figure out how to make meaningful investments rural America. There is incredible, sophisticated, replicable work happening in rural places — the PA Wilds is just one example — and it is deeply worthy of investment. The Nonfiction Authors Association award judges described the book as documenting ‘a networked vision for development that involved public agencies, private businesses, and local artisans working toward shared goals.’ Nathan Reigner, Director of Pennsylvania’s Office of Outdoor Recreation, called it ‘a new and essential guidebook for every rural economic developer and community organizer.’ Every time I meet with a national philanthropic funder, I follow up with a copy of the book and the message: This is what long-term strategic investment in rural America can look like and result in.

Q: What has the response been like locally — and has the book had any impact on the PA Wilds work more broadly?

The response has been really moving and continues to grow. I’ve heard from strangers who stayed up until 3 a.m. reading it. From a woman who grew up in rural PA, moved away, and found herself unexpectedly inspired by the book as she pursues a hotel project near her hometown. From former county commissioners who said they don’t read books — but couldn’t put this one down. From economic developers, planners, community leaders, hiking club members, university programs.

I’ve gotten a lot of letters from people inside the work — partners and community members who watched pieces of the PA Wilds initiative unfold up close, who wrote to say the book finally gave them the fuller backstory. I take those as a huge compliment, and a nod to my journalism roots.

On the partnership and visibility side, the book has done real work. It has deepened relationships with national organizations who are citing the PA Wilds as a model in their research and policy conversations. That national visibility is opening doors to conversations about rural development well beyond Pennsylvania.

The local response has been equally gratifying. Grow Rural PA, a nonprofit partner, has been gifting the book to local leaders, taking pictures of the moment, and sharing it on social media because they feel it’s important for people to understand this story. The Keystone Trails Association, a statewide nonprofit, has been promoting it through their Great Outdoors Reading Challenge. Some county leadership classes have used it. That kind of community embrace is so gratifying. The book was always meant to serve the work. And I’m just thrilled it’s doing that.

Reader reviews have reinforced this in ways I couldn’t have anticipated. On Amazon, readers describe it as a blueprint for rural revival, a must-read for anyone in economic and tourism development, and a coming home story that inspires. Someone else called it refreshingly unpolished in the best way — like someone actually telling you their story rather than trying to sound important. In the age of AI, I take “refreshingly unpolished” as high praise!

Q: What’s next for you and for the book?

I just got back from a speaking engagement at the West Virginia Outdoor Economy Summit and am looking forward to contributing to PA’s inaugural Outdoor Economy Summit & Industry Expo in April, and to sharing my author and nonprofit founder journey with a journalism class at Penn State next month. This fall, I’m slated to keynote the Alliance for Creative Rural Economies Symposium, near Pittsburgh. The book is being considered for the Appalachian Leadership Institute’s reading list, which to me is an honor unto itself. A geek for the cause, one major goal I have is to have the book considered for inclusion in the reading curriculum in high schools across the 13-county PA Wilds region. I just think it is really important to continue building awareness for this work in the next generation, and that pride of place. I’ve created a Teacher’s Guide that aligns the book with PA Core Standards in ELA, Civics and Economics. If there are any schools out there that would like to consider it, please reach out!