Saturday evening, booklovers gathered at the Seattle Public Library Central Branch to announce and celebrate the winners of the Washington State Book Awards. The ceremony was hosted by Nancy Guppy, host and producer of the Seattle Channel’s “Art Zone with Nancy Guppy.” The winners receive a $500 honorarium to go with the recognition. The Washington Center for the Book administers the awards; winners were chosen by juries of literary luminaries from the state, including Paul Hanson, manager of Village Books in Bellingham, Jamil Zaidi, former bookseller and assistant manager at Elliott Bay Book Company and now a book sales rep, and recently-retired children’s book buyer from Third Place Books, Judy Hobbs.
Fiction: The Hour of Lead by Bruce Holbert (Counterpoint Press)Poetry: Bugle by Tod Marshall (Canarium Books)
The Mountain Poems of Stonehouse translated by Red Pine (Copper Canyon Press)
Biography/ Memoir: Loitering: New and Collected Essays by Charles D’Ambrosio (Tin House Books)
History/General Nonfiction: Trying Home: The Rise and Fall of an Anarchist Utopia on Puget Sound by Justin Wadland (Oregon State University Press)
Scandiuzzi Children’s Book Winners:
Picture Book: Two Speckled Eggs written and illustrated by Jennifer K. Mann (Candlewick Press)
Books for middle readers (ages 9-12): Phoebe and Her Unicorn by Dana Simpson (Andrews McMeel Publishing)
Books for young adults (ages 13-18): The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender by Leslye Walton (Candlewick Press) This novel was also a PNBA Award Winner.
For more about the awards, you can click to see the Seattle Times write-up by Mary Ann Gwinn.
