The winners for the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association’s 2026 Pacific Northwest Book Awards have been announced.
The Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association (PNBA) is a non-profit association of independent bookstores from five Northwest states: Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and Alaska. Since 1965, the annual Book Awards have recognized such luminary figures in Northwest literature as Ivan Doig, Ursula K. Le Guin, David James Duncan, Cheryl Strayed, Molly Gloss, Brian Doyle, Chuck Palahniuk, and Pete Fromm. Many of these authors were honored by PNBA before they received national attention. A history of past winners of the Pacific Northwest Book Award can be viewed on the Pacific Northwest Book Awards homepage. Nwbooklovers.org has coverage of books from past shortlists as well as coverage of and essays from past award winners.
PNBA’s Awards Committee is comprised of volunteer booksellers from throughout our member region. This year’s Committee considered nominated titles published during 2025 for a 2026 award. Here is the shortlist, which was announced in September.
Original essays by winning authors will be published on this blog over the next several weeks, beginning this week.
Some authors will also have celebration events for each author at their local, independent bookstores.
One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This
Omar El Akkad (West Linn, OR)
Alfred A. Knopf
Seattle Samurai: A Cartoonist’s Perspective of the Japanese American Experience
Kelly Goto (Seattle, WA)
Chin Music Press
Sinkhole, and Other Inexplicable Voids
Leyna Krow (Spokane, WA)
Penguin Books
Karen Russell (Portland, OR)
Alfred A. Knopf
Aron Nels Steinke (Portland, OR)
Graphix
Coll Thrush (Vancouver, BC)
University of Washington Press
