[Libs-Or] Oregon Book Awards

[MaryKay Dahlgreen]

>
Message-ID: <BBDA533B.51AC%dahlgreen_marykay at oslmac.osl.state.or.us>
In-Reply-To: <0F6F18EA-1612-11D8-BD1F-000393C608EA at gorge.net>
Mime-version: 1.0
Content-type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1"
Content-transfer-encoding: quoted-printable



FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 14, 2003
Contact: Kristy Athens
503.227.2583
Photos available on website: www.literary-arts.org

2003 Oregon Book Awards
Winners Announced

Special Awards Recipients Also Honored

PORTLAND, Ore. =AD The 17th annual Oregon Book Awards ceremony, held on
Thursday, November 13, recognized writers of excellence in poetry,
fiction, literary nonfiction and young readers literature; as well as
those who support literature. Poet Carolyn Kizer hosted the event,
which was attended by approximately 340 people at the Scottish Rite
Center in Portland.

The Stafford/Hall Award for Poetry was presented to Rita Ott Ramstad of
Brightwood for her book The Play of Dark and Light (Bellowing Ark
Press).
Judge Jimmy Santiago Baca said, =B3I love the way her poems start out in
common every day experience and then turn inward to the human heart: to
its aspirations, faults, loves, hopes, dread and dreams.=B2
Finalists:
Jane Bailey of Salem, The Fine Art of Postponement (National Federation
of State Poetry Societies Press)
Casey Kwang of Ashland, Copia (Pinball Publishing)
Robert McDowell of Talent, On Foot, in Flames (University of Pittsburgh
Press)
Clemens Starck of Dallas, China Basin (Story Line Press)

The Ken Kesey Award for the Novel was presented to Cai Emmons of Eugene
for her book His Mother=B9s Son (Harcourt). Judge Pam Houston said, =B3This
is a novel that is both extremely suspenseful and deeply complicated,
which in my experience is a rare combination.=B2
Finalists:
April Henry of Portland, Learning to Fly (Thomas Dunne Books)
Jane Kirkpatrick of Moro, A Name of Her Own (WaterBrook Press)
Alan Siporin of Eugene, Fire=B9s Edge (Wounded Bear Press)

The H.L. Davis Award for Short Fiction was presented to Tracy Daugherty
of Corvallis for his book It Takes a Worried Man (Southern Methodist
University Press). Judge Pam Houston said, =B3These stories do for
Houston what some of Welty=B9s finest stories do for New Orleans, what
Ron Carlson=B9s early stories do for Salt Lake City: take a place we
think we know, and entice us into its hidden corners, the places where
the best and the worst of a city resides.=B2
Finalists:
Douglas Rennie of Portland, Badlands (Creative Arts Book Company)
Lidia Yuknavitch of Corbett, Real to Reel (FC2)

The Frances Fuller Victor Award for General Nonfiction was presented to
Barbara S. Mahoney of Wilsonville for her book Dispatches and Dictators
(Oregon State University Press). Judge Peter Gilbert remarked, =B3It is
said that journalism is the first draft of history. =8A Readers will be
grateful that Mahoney tells the story of this great newspaperman [Ralph
Barnes].=B2
Finalists:
Rick Harmon of Portland, Crater Lake National Park (Oregon State
University Press)
Kim Stafford of Portland, The Muses Among Us (The University of Georgia
Press)

The Sarah Winnemucca Award for Creative Nonfiction was presented to
Chris Chester of Portland for his book Providence of a Sparrow (The
University of Utah Press) and to Floyd Skloot of Amity for his book In
the Shadow of Memory (University of Nebraska Press). Judge Paul West
called Chester=B9s book, =B3a staggering, wholly unmawkish album of mingled
lives, as if Charles Darwin were presiding over Noah=B9s Ark.=B2 West
called Skloot=B9s book, =B3a stream of lucid, fearful essays in which he
has managed the extraordinary feat of not only describing his ailment =8A
but plunging into it with almost a bridegroom=B9s ardor.=B2
Finalists:
Carol Ann Bassett of Eugene, A Gathering of Stones (Oregon State
University Press)
Gabrielle Glaser of Portland, The Nose (Atria Books)
Kim Stafford of Portland, Early Morning (Graywolf Press)

The Angus L. Bowmer Award for Drama will next be given in 2004.

The Eloise Jarvis McGraw Award for Children=B9s Literature was presented
to Eric A. Kimmel of Portland for his book Three Samurai Cats (Holiday
House). Judge Linda Perkins said, =B3Respectful of the original Japanese
story, this well-paced adaptation retains a reserved tone but injects
droll humor.=B2
Finalists:
Petra Mathers of Astoria, Herbie=B9s Secret Santa (Atheneum Books for
Young Readers)
Valerie Rapp of Portland, Life in a River (Lerner Publishing Group)
Nicole Rubel of Aurora, No More Vegetables! (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Cynthia Rylant of Portland, Henry and Mudge and the Tall Tree House
(Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers)

The Leslie Bradshaw Award for Young Adult Literature was presented to
Heather Vogel Frederick of Portland for her book The Voyage of Patience
Goodspeed
(Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers). Judge Amy Alessio said,
=B3The best young adult novels respect their readers with an exciting
plot, a well-researched setting and three-dimensional characters, and
this book provides all that with flair and skill.=B2
Finalists:
Brian A. Connolly of Bend, Wolf Journal (Xlibris Corporation)
Kezi Matthews of Portland, Flying Lessons (Cricket Books)
Elizabeth Rusch of Portland, Generation Fix (Beyond Words Publishing)
Graham Salisbury of Lake Oswego, Island Boyz (Wendy Lamb Books)

Each winning author received $500 (the prize was shared in creative
nonfiction). All finalists will be invited to take part in the Oregon
Book Award Author Tour, which brings OBA finalists to public libraries
and independent bookstores throughout the state.

Also recognized were the recipients of this year=B9s OBA Special Awards:
Poet Clemens Starck presented the C.E.S. Wood Retrospective Award,
which celebrates a distinguished career in Oregon letters, to George
Hitchcock. Hitchcock was born in Hood River in 1904 and has been
nationally recognized as a poet, playwright, fiction writer, editor,
publisher, journalist and teacher. From 1964-1984, Hitchcock edited and
published kayak, a literary magazine that played a major role in the
poetry scene of the mid-to-late 20th century.

Author and artist Walt Curtis presented the Stewart H. Holbrook Award
for Outstanding Contributions to Oregon=B9s Literary Life (Holbrook
Award) to poet David Hedges, former president of the Oregon State
Poetry Association. Hedges is credited for reviving the OSPA in the
late1990s. He has also served on the boards of the Portland Poetry
Festival and Oregon Cultural Heritage Commission, and on numerous grant
and contest panels.

Willamette Writers president Cynthia Whitcomb presented the Walt Morey
Special Award honors Jerry Isom, director of Books for Kids. Books for
Kids is a project administered by Portland-based writers organization
Willamette Writers that collects new and used books for =B3less
fortunate=B9 children and teenagers and distributes them free of charge
via more than 45 agencies and organizations in the Portland, Eugene and
Medford areas. Isom is credited with increasing the visibility and
distribution of the program from approximately 1,000 books in 1997 to
more than 13,000 in 2002.

The Special Awards recipients are selected by the Oregon Book Awards
Advisory Council from nominations made by the public.

This year=B9s judges:
Out-of-state judges are instructed to choose up to five finalists in
each category, including a winner, using literary merit as the sole
selection criterion. Each judge has the option of making no award, if
s/he deems the submissions inadequate. In all cases, judges=B9 decisions
are final.

Amy Alessio is teen coordinator for the Schaumburg Township District
Library in Illinois. She is a member of the board of directors for the
Young Adult Library Services Association and has spoken and published
about encouraging teens to read.

Jimmy Santiago Baca=B9s awards and honors include the Wallace Stevens
Chair at Yale, the National Endowment Poetry Award, Vogelstein
Foundation Award, National Hispanic Heritage Award, Berkeley Regents
Award, Pushcart Prize, Southwest Book Award, American Book Award, and
the International Prize. Forthcoming is Winter Poems Along the Rio
Grande from New Directions.

Peter Gilbert is executive director of the Vermont Humanities Council
and Robert Frost's executor. A graduate of Dartmouth College,
Georgetown University Law Center, and the University of Virginia, he
was previously assistant to the president and associate provost at
Dartmouth College, and faculty member at Phillips Academy in Andover.

Pam Houston is author of two books of short stories, Cowboys Are My
Weakness and Waltzing the Cat, and a collection of essays, A Little
More About Me. She is the director of creative writing at the
University of California, Davis. Her novel, Sighthound, will be
published by W.W. Norton in 2004.

Linda Perkins, library services manager at the Berkeley Public Library,
has served on the American Library Association=B9s John Newbery, Randolph
Caldecott and Pura Belpre award committees. Her reviews have appeared
in the Wilson Library Bulletin, San Francisco Chronicle, New York Times
Book Review, BayViews and Booklist.

Educated at Oxford and Columbia, Paul West has published some dozen
novels and a dozen works of nonfiction, most recently Cheops: A
Cupboard for the Sun and Oxford Days, a memoir. His most recent novel,
The Immensity of Here and Now, was published in September. The
government of France recently made him a Chevalier of Arts and Letters.

This evening is made possible by a grant from the PGE Foundation, the
corporate foundation of Portland General Electric. Media sponsorship is
provided by Oregon Public Broadcasting. The Oregon Book Awards & Author
Tour program is also supported by Brian Booth & Gwyneth Gamble Booth,
Leslie Bradshaw Endowment Fund, The Collins Foundation, Robert H. and
Cecelia Huntington Fund of The Oregon Community Foundation, The Ruth
Manary Fund of The Samuel S. Johnson Foundation, James F. & Marion L.
Miller Fund of The Oregon Community Foundation, Walt Morey Endowment
Fund, Oregon Arts Commission, Oregon Center for the Book/Oregon State
Library, Multnomah County Library, Pacific Northwest Booksellers
Association, Rose E. Tucker Charitable Trust, Western States Arts
Federation, and the Wyss Foundation. Literary Arts is funded in part by
the Regional Arts & Culture Council, the Oregon Arts Commission and the
National Endowment for the Arts.

The Oregon Book Awards is a program of Literary Arts, a statewide,
non-profit arts organization dedicated to promoting the importance of
language as a means to express, explore and experience the world in
which we live. Other Literary Arts programs are Poetry In Motion=AE,
Oregon Literary Fellowships, Writers in the Schools, Poetry Downtown
and Portland Arts & Lectures, which continues its 2003-2004 season with
Tobias Wolff on Dec. 2. For more information about any Literary Arts
event, please contact Barbara Verchot at 503.227.2583 or visit the
website: www.literary-arts.org.

# # #


MaryKay Dahlgreen
Marykay.dahlgreen at state.or.us