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 …
Two Pacific Northwest booksellers recently joined the American Booksellers Association Board of Directors. Jenny Cohen of Waucoma Books in Hood River, OR and Tegan Tigani of Queen Anne Book Company in Seattle, WA started on the board this spring. They were the point people on a bookstore bus tour for booksellers at a recent national …
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 …
I’m so pleased that Tides will receive a 2018 Pacific Northwest Book Award. I’m honored to be among such a wonderful list of writers living on this craggy coast. When I think of the west I think of the Pacific, that “small gulf” Ferdinand Magellan named long ago for its pacificity. We now know it’s …
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 …
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, …
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 …
When Craig Thompson won a 2012 Pacific Northwest Book Award for the graphic novel Habibi, the awards committee declared that the book “should take its place alongside groundbreaking classics, such as Maus and Persepolis.” Praise doesn’t get any higher in the graphic book arena. I’m not certain a middle grade (and up!) cosmic adventure featuring …
Shelf Awareness recapped Tuesday’s appearance on the Today Show by Three Cups of Tea author Greg Mortenson. Mortenson has remained out of the spotlight since a 2011 controversy regarding the misappropriation of funds generated by his work for the Central Asia Institute, the Bozeman centered nonprofit he established to build schools in underdeveloped communities in …
My local bookstore is the beloved Elliott Bay Book Company in Seattle. This is where I scour the shelves for acceptable novels of dystopian distress for my extremely opinionated children, where I discover small press essay collections for my wife, and where I signed the first fresh-off-the-press copy of The Mushroom Hunters right after the …
