2012 Oregon Book Awards

Hello, 2012!!!! It's been a while since I've posted -- taking a bit of a breather after the 24 Days of Books blogging. Lots of exciting stuff coming up in 2012, including our 20th anniversary celebration (more on that to come). But first, a look back at 2011 highlights. In my next blog I'll announce the 2011 Broadway Books Bestsellers. Yesterday, Literary Arts announced the finalists for this year's Oregon Book Awards, as well as the recipients of this year's LA fellowships.

The award ceremony will be held Monday, April 23rd, at 7:30 pm at the Gerding Theater at the Armory in Portland (128 NW Eleventh Ave). This year's host will be one of my favorite authors, Timothy Egan (seriously, I might swoon -- literarily speaking). Egan is the author of The Big Burn, The Worst Hard Time (which won the National Book Award), and -- one of my personal favorites -- The Good Rain, among other books.  You can get tickets to the award ceremony by clicking here.

The list of finalists for this year's Oregon Book Awards is very impressive, full of lots of great reads and wonderful authors. Two books in particular stand out because they are not only finalists for the Oregon Book Awards but also won this year's Pacific Northwest Booksellers awards and were listed in the top ten of best local//NE books by The Oregonian, The Portland Mercury, and The Willamette Week: The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt (which also made the shortlist for both the Man Booker Prize and Canada's Giller Prize) and The Chronology of Water by Lidia Yuknavitch (which was also named to numerous "best books of 2011" lists from publications outside of the area AND was the third bestselling nonfiction book at Broadway Books in 2011). What a year for these two outstanding authors. Best of all, The Chronology of Water comes not just from a local author but also from a publisher based right here in our own neighborhood: Hawthorne Books.

Other finalists for this year's Oregon Book Awards include Brian Doyle for his debut novel Mink River, the top selling book at Broadway Books in 2011 (and also published by a regionally based publisher, OSU Press), and Carl Adamshick, whose poetry book Curses and Wishes was also a Broadway Books bestseller this year. 

Don't forget that YOU can be involved in the selection of one of the OBA categories, the Readers' Choice Award. On the Oregonian's book site, look on the left-hand side to find the link for voting. Last year's winner of the inaugural Readers' Choice Award was Willy Vlautin, for his novel Lean on Pete.

Congratulations to all of this year's finalists!