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.
