Congratulations to the winners of the 2015 Oregon Book Awards, announced by Literary Arts on April 13!
ELOISE JARVIS MCGRAW AWARD FOR CHILDREN’S LITERATURE
Susan Hill Long of Portland
Whistle in the Dark (Holiday House)
LESLIE BRADSHAW AWARD FOR YOUNG ADULT LITERATURE
April Henry of Portland
The Body In the Woods (Henry Holt)
FRANCES FULLER VICTOR AWARD FOR GENERAL NONFICTION
Alex Tizon of Eugene
Big Little Man: In Search of My Asian Self (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
SARAH WINNEMUCCA AWARD FOR CREATIVE NONFICTION
Justin Hocking of Portland
The Great Floodgates of the Wonderworld (Graywolf Press)
ANGUS L. BOWMER AWARD FOR DRAMA
Andrea Stolowitz of Portland
Ithaka
STAFFORD/HALL AWARD FOR POETRY
Emily Kendal Frey of Portland
Sorrow Arrow (Octopus Books)
KEN KESEY AWARD FOR FICTION
Cari Luna of Portland
The Revolution of Every Day (Tin House Books)
READERS CHOICE AWARD
Willy Vlautin of Scappoose
The Free (Harper Perennial) [For NWBL’s Q&A with Willy Vlautin about the novel, click here.]
SPECIAL AWARDS:
STEWART H. HOLBROOK LITERARY LEGACY AWARD
Tom Spanbauer of Portland
WALT MOREY YOUNG READERS LITERARY LEGACY AWARD
Jann Tankersley of McMinnville
C.E.S. WOOD DISTINGUISHED WRITER AWARD
Ralph Salisbury of Eugene
Founded in 1984, Literary Arts is a community-based nonprofit literary organization with a national reputation for serving readers and writers. Their office and event space are located in downtown Portland. Programs include Portland Arts & Lectures at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, one of the country’s largest lecture series; Oregon Book Awards & Fellowships, which celebrates Oregon’s writers and independent publishers; Writers in the Schools, which hires professional writers to teach semester-long creative writing workshops in Portland’s public high schools; and Wordstock: Portland’s Book Festival, which builds community around literature through author events, workshops, a book fair, and more. They also host guided discussion groups around great works of literature through a program called Delve.
Their mission is to engage readers, support writers, and inspire the next generation with great literature.