Ted Chiang, the author of Exhalation, a collection of short fiction that won a Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award and was named a New York Times Best Book of 2019, responded to questions from members of the 2020 PNBA Awards committee. Exhalation is your second heralded collection. What draws you to the short story form? I …
Like many children who suffer from an abundance of imagination and a shortfall of social skills, I was always on the lookout for a door into a more magical world. Narnia, Middle Earth, Starfleet, Sherwood Forest– I wasn’t picky. Anywhere with spaceships, swordfights, or telepathic dragons would do. Reality stubbornly refused to provide me with …
The first time I saw a collection that took my breath away, it was on a small island in the San Juans, on the mantel of a fireplace at a friend’s mom’s house. It was an assortment of rocks that had been gathered and gifted over many years. There were different sizes, colors, and textures …
The shortlist for the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association 2020 Pacific Northwest Book Awards has 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. The Association produces educational and promotional events and materials for its members and offers literacy, free …
The Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association, the indie bookstore booster behind this blog, announced the winners of their annual book awards today. Congratulations are in order for Sherman Alexie (Seattle, WA) for Blasphemy; Jonathan Evison (Bainbridge Island, WA) for The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving; Eowyn Ivey (Palmer, AK) for The Snow Child; Lucia Perillo (Olympia, WA) for …
PNBA member authors and Award Winners are listed alphabetically. For information about joining PNBA, contact PNBA.org A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W XYZ Diana Abu-Jaber dianaabujaber.com Diana Abu-Jaber is the author of four novels and numerous short stories, essays and articles published in Salon, The Washington Post, …
This Is My America released at the beginning of a reckoning that’s been long overdue—the untended roots of race in America. These origins draw parallels not only to slavery and mass incarceration but to open wounds festering below the surface. My novel was born from many early lessons on race as a Black girl growing …
My brother and I made our dad’s headstone ourselves. We bought a bag of Quikrete from Home Depot. We built a form, poured the cement, and carefully pressed metal letters in as the slab cured. We kept the words simple; Loyd’s name, relevant dates, and a fragment of his favorite poem. If you love something, …
People tend to think of mushrooms as the fleshy food items found in the produce aisle, each one growing in isolation and popping up suddenly after the rains. But a mushroom is only one fragment of a fungus colony. When a mushroom pops up, it’s because the mycelium, a network of long microscopic fibers, has …
Lupe Wong Won’t Dance is the story of a twelve-year-old girl who doesn’t want to do something. Pretty universal. But Lupe’s journey isn’t just about one girl trying to weasel out of square dancing in P.E. with comedic results. It’s a book about how it feels to be twelve-years-old, and told you have to do …