Literary Arts Names the Winners of the 2024 Oregon Book Award

Author-illustrator Kwame Alexander emceed this year’s Oregon Book Awards, which were announced in a March 8 ceremony hosted by Portland, Ore.’s Literary Arts. Publishers submitted 190 titles from across the state. Literary Arts winnowed the list to 37 finalists, and out-of-state judges chose seven Oregon authors to receive top awards across seven genre categories. 

• Ken Kesey Award for Fiction: Patrick de Witt, The Librarianist (Ecco)
• Stafford/Hall Award for Poetry: Daniela Naomi Molnar, Chorus (Omnidawn)
• Graphic Literature: Kerilynn Wilson, The Faint of Heart (Greenwillow)
• Frances Fuller Victor Award for General Nonfiction: Josephine Woolington, Where We Call Home: Lands, Seas, and Skies of the Pacific Northwest (Ooligan) 
• Sarah Winnemucca Award for Creative Nonfiction: Erica Berry, Wolfish: Wolf, Self, and the Stories We Tell About Fear (Flatiron) 
• Leslie Bradshaw Award for Young Adult and Middle Grade Literature: Waka T. Brown, The Very Unfortunate Wish of Melony Yoshimura (Quill Tree)
• Eloise Jarvis McGraw Award for Children’s Literature: Nora Ericson, Too Early, illus. by Ellie MacKay (Abrams Books for Young Readers)

The annual Stewart H. Holbrook Literary Legacy Award went to Bend, Ore., author and literary advocate Ellen Waterston (Walking the High Desert), founder of workshop center and event space The Writing Ranch, literary arts nonprofit The Nature of Words, and the Waterston Desert Writing Prize.