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Today, Literary Arts announced the finalists for the 2020 Oregon Book Awards.
Unsurprisingly, this year's nominees include Oregon literary mainstays Barry Lopez, who won the first nonfiction Oregon Book Award in 1987, and Peter Rock's haunting novel The Night Swimmers. But the list also includes debut authors like Kimberly King Parsons, whose Black Light: Stories was a finalist for the National Book Award.
Past Oregon Book Awards have marked promising debuts or the final jewel on a long, successful literary career. Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club won in 1997, before it went on to be an anthem for frustrated young men. Ursula K. Le Guin won a total of four Oregon Book Awards across three genres, and her final award came in 2014 for The Unreal and The Real: Collected Stories, just a few years before her death.
The winners of the 2020 Oregon Book Awards will be announced at Portland Center Stage at the Armory on April 27th. The ceremony will be hosted by previous winners Omar El Akkad and Elena Passarello.
Check out the complete list of this year's finalists below.
Related: The Best Books Portland Authors Read In 2019
Ken Kesey Award for Fiction
Kesha Ajọsẹ Fisher of Portland, No God like the Mother
Kimberly King Parsons of Portland, Black Light: Stories
Peter Rock of Portland, The Night Swimmers
Karen Thompson Walker of Portland, The Dreamers
Gabriel Urza of Hood River, The White Death: An Illusion
Stafford/Hall Award for Poetry
Carl Adamshick of Portland, Birches
Shaindel Beers of Pendleton, Secure Your Own Mask
Lynn Otto of Newberg, Real Daughter
Allan Peterson of Ashland, This Luminous: New and Selected Poems
Ashley Toliver of Portland, Spectra
Frances Fuller Victor Award for General Nonfiction
Carol Barrett of Portland, Pansies
George Estreich of Corvallis, Fables and Futures: Biotechnology, Disability, and the Stories We Tell Ourselves
Barry Lopez of Finn Rock, Horizon
Rebecca M. Robinson of Portland, Voices from Bears Ears: Seeking Common Ground on Sacred Land
David Wolman and Julian Smith of Portland, Aloha Rodeo: Three Hawaiian Cowboys, the World's Greatest Rodeo, and a Hidden History of the American West
Sarah Winnemucca Award for Creative Nonfiction
Beth Alvarado of Bend, Anxious Attachments
Debra Gwartney of Finn Rock, I am a Stranger Here Myself
Rebecca Lawton of Summer Lake, The Oasis This Time: Living and Dying with Water in the West
Liz Prato of Portland, Volcanoes, Palm Trees, and Privilege: Essays on Hawai'i
Wendy Willis of Portland, These Are Strange Times, My Dear: Field Notes from the Republic
Eloise Jarvis McGraw Award for Children's Literature
Cathy Camper of Portland, Lowriders: Blast from the Past
Deborah Hopkinson of West Linn, Carter Reads the Newspaper
Jody J. Little of Portland, Mostly the Honest Truth
Rosanne Parry of Portland, A Wolf Called Wander
Rebecca Stefoff of Portland, Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species
Leslie Bradshaw Award for Young Adult Literature
Deborah Hopkinson of West Linn, How I Became A Spy: A Mystery of WWII London
April Henry of Portland, The Lonely Dead
Connie King Leonard of Milwaukie, Sleeping in My Jeans
Rosanne Parry of Portland, Last of the Name
Nancy Richardson Fischer of Hood River, When Elephants Fly
Award for Graphic Literature
Cat Farris of Portland, My Boyfriend is a Bear
Maria Capelle Frantz of Portland, The Chancellor and the Citadel
Greg Means and MK Reed of Portland, Penny Nichols
Dylan Meconis of Portland, Queen of the Sea
Aron Nels Steinke of Portland, Mystery Club (Mr. Wolf's Class #2)