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NW Voices

Jan

29

2021

An Original Essay by 2021 PNBA Award Winner Silvia Moreno-Garcia

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 …

Jan

22

2021

2

remarks

Do-Si-Don’t Even: An Original Essay
by 2021 PNBA Award Winner
Donna Barba Higuera

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 …

Jan

15

2021

E. J. Koh

Things You Don’t Know … All of It Lies Inside of Books: An Essay by 2021 PNBA Award Winner E. J. Koh

When I was fifteen, my parents returned to South Korea and left me behind with my brother in America. My mother started writing me letters in Korean, a language I could not fully understand at the time. Over a decade after she wrote me, I translated her letters into English. In one letter, she writes: …

Feb

27

2018

Brian Doyle

2018 Indie Spirit Honor Winner: Brian Doyle

The Pacific Northwest Book Award Committee recognized late author Brian Doyle with an Indie Spirit Honor for his body of work and vigorous support of independent booksellers in the Northwest and beyond. Doyle passed away in May 2017. We republish this essay that he wrote upon winning a 2016 PNBA Award in memory of his …

Feb

12

2016

Some Thoughts on Book Etiquette: An Essay by 2016 PNBA Award Winner Patrick DeWitt

  It was five or so years ago when I met my French translator, Philippe. We’d been corresponding by email for some time, our discussions initially consisting of questions relating to the translation of my first novel. But once the work was completed we continued the back and forth, establishing a friendship beyond professional matters. …

Jan

26

2016

Thor Hanson

Recommended for You: An Essay by 2016 PNBA Award Winner, Thor Hanson

As a reader, I find recommendations difficult to ignore. Even when the pile beside my evening chair is in danger of toppling, something new, received at the insistence of a friend, simply must be cracked open. The same goes for gifts. While I have no trouble composting an unwanted fruitcake, or exchanging a shirt with …

Jan

22

2016

3

remarks

Dana Simpson

Me and My Unicorn: An Essay by 2016 PNBA Award Winner, Dana Simpson

Sometimes a unicorn shows up in your life and makes everything better. I wasn’t really expecting one. A few years ago, I had nearly realized an ambition I’ve had since age 12: I had scored a contract to develop a comic strip for newspaper syndication. I won that contract, in the Comic Strip Superstar contest, …

Jan

19

2016

Brian Doyle

That Silvery-Lit Corner: An Essay by 2016 PNBA Award Winner, Brian Doyle

What did I think of when I learned that my peculiar collection of essays had won a Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award? Weirdly, not the barrels of cash and fine wines and excellent cheeses that would surely come my way, or the hordes of somber graduate students that would soon be studying my semicolons, or the …

Jan

15

2016

1

remark

Megan Kruse

On Becoming: An Essay by 2016 PNBA Award Winner, Megan Kruse

I left my hometown in Washington at seventeen, riding the Amtrak Cascades line south to Seattle and then the Empire Builder east. My father hugged me goodbye on the gray platform. It was, as always, raining. You know what they say, Meg, he said. You can never come home again. Those words confirmed the worst …

Jan

12

2016

2

remarks

Martha Brockenbrough, author of The Game of Love and Death

The Surprising Truth About Novel Ideas: An Essay by 2016 PNBA Award Winner, Martha Brockenbrough

“Where do you get your ideas?” This is probably the single most common question authors are asked. I think part of the reason is a notion—or maybe a hope—that all you need to write a book is a good idea. Alas, it’s rarely that straightforward. Almost no one has an idea for a book and sits down to …

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