Literary Arts is pleased to announce the winners of the 2007 Oregon Book Awards. From nearly 125 entries, the seven winners were announced by poet Naomi Shihab Nye to a sold-out crowd of more than 500 people on Sunday, December 2 at the Portland Art Museum. The audience included Portland City Commissioner Sam Adams and many past recipients of Oregon Book Awards and Oregon Literary Fellowships.

Three of the winners were honored for their first-published books. In addition, special awards were presented to Mark Mizell of Seaside and Kim Stafford of Portland for outstanding contributions to the Oregon literary community.

The Stafford/Hall Award for Poetry was presented to Tom Blood of Portland for The Sky Position (Marriage Records).
Judge Donald Revell praised Blood’s gift of perception as “a beautiful act of absolute sympathy and attention,
a continuous evidence of perfect compassion.”

Finalists:
Kathleen Halme of Portland, Drift and Pulse (Carnegie Mellon University Press)

Paul Merchantof Portland, Some Business of Affinity (Five Seasons Press)

Floyd Skloot of Portland, The End of Dreams (Louisiana State Univeristy Press)

The Ken Kesey Award for the Novel was presented to Alison Clement of Corvallis, for Twenty Questions (Atria Books).
Judge Antonya Nelson described Clement’s work as “deceptively straightforward” with “characters eerily ordinary and recognizable.”

Finalists:
Monica Drake of Portland, Clown Girl (Hawthorne Books)

Robert Hill of Portland, When All Is Said and Done (Graywolf Press)

The H.L. Davis Award for Short Fiction was presented to Charles D’Ambrosio of Portland for The Dead Fish Musuem, (Alfred A. Knopf).
Judge Antonya Nelson admired D’Ambrosio’s work for its “fluid, complex treatment of language” and “wide cast of characters and worldviews.”

The Frances Fuller Victor Award for General Nonfiction was presented to Garrett Epps of Eugene for
Democracy Reborn: The Fourteenth Amendment and the Fight for Equal Rights in Post-Civil War America (Henry Holt).
Judge Robert Polito proclaimed Epps’ work as “smart, stylish, dramatic, probing, vivid, and moral.”

Finalists:
Rene Denfeld of Portland, All God’s Children: Inside the Dark and Violent World of Street Families (PublicAffairs)

John Bellamy Foster of Eugene, Naked Imperialism: The U.S. Pursuit of Global Dominance (Monthly Review Press)

Ben Saunders of Eugene, Desiring Donne: Poetry, Sexuality, Interpretation (Harvard University Press)

Kristian Williams of Portland, American Methods: Torture and the Logic of Domination (South End Press)

The Sarah Winnemucca Award for Creative Nonfiction was presented to Lee Montgomery of Portland, for
The Things Between Us (Free Press).
Judge: Lee Gutkind described Montgomery’s work as “vivid and riveting like cinema” and praised her ability to craft “real-life characters with evocative sensitivity.”

Finalists:
Jeff Lee Manthos of Corvallis, Steel Beach: My Life As A Naval Aircrewman 1972—1976 (Inkwater Press)

Joel Preston Smith of Portland, Night of a Thousand Stars and Other Portraits of Iraq (Nazraeli Press)

The Eloise Jarvis McGraw Award for Children’s Literature was presented to Shannon Riggs of Salem, for
Not In Room 204 (Albert Whitman & Company).
Judge Jim Murphy lauded Riggs’ work as “straightforward, yet moving text with engaging illustrations” that “produce a powerful story…”

Finalists:
Deborah Hopkinson of Corvallis, Up Before Daybreak: Cotton and People in America (Scholastic Nonfiction)

Lori Ries of Tigard, Aggie and Ben:Three Stories (Charlesbridge)

Margriet Ruurs of Shedd, In My Backyard (Tundra Books)

Elizabeth Rusch of Portland, Will It Blow? Become a Volcano Detective at Mount St. Helens (Sasquatch Books)

The Leslie Bradshaw Award for Young Adult Literature was presented to Susan Fletcher of Wilsonville, for
Alphabet of Dreams (Atheneum).
Judge Jim Murphy described Fletcher’s work as “poetic language, rich with evocative details.”

Finalists:
Margaret J. Anderson of Corvallis, Olla-Piska: Tales of David Douglas (Oregon Historical Society Press)

Kerry Cohen Hoffman of Portland, Easy (Simon and Schuster)

Graham Salisbury of Portland, House of the Red Fish (Wendy Lamb Books)

Special Awards
The Walt Morey Young Readers Literary Legacy Award was presented to Mark Mizell of Seaside.

The Stewart H. Holbrook Literary Legacy Award was presented to Kim Stafford of Portland.

A program of Literary Arts, the Oregon Book Awards are presented annually for the finest accomplishments by Oregon writers who work in genres of poetry, fiction, literary nonfiction, drama and young readers literature. All finalists are promoted in libraries and bookstores across the state, and invited to take part in the Oregon Book Awards Author Tour. The tour brings public readings by finalists to a number of locations throughout Oregon including:

North Bend, January 23, 2008
Eugene, January 24, 2008
Astoria, April 23, 2008
Newport, April 24, 2008

The Oregon Book Awards program is sponsored by the Oregon Cultural Trust and the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional support is provided by Brian & Gwyneth Booth, Betty Bradshaw, Leslie Bradshaw Endowment, The Collins Foundation, Rocky & Julie Dixon, Gard Communications, Gray Family Fund of The Oregon Community Foundation, The Heathman Hotel, Robert H. and Cecelia Huntington, The Ruth Manary Fund of The Samuel S. Johnson Foundation, Keller Foundation, Maybelle Clark Macdonald Fund, Mancini Family, Walt Morey Endowment Fund, Multnomah County Library, Oregon Arts Commission, Oregon Center for the Book at the Oregon State Library, Oregon Writers’ Endowment, PacifiCorp Foundation, Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association, Portland Art Museum, Regional Arts & Culture Council, Rick & Halle Sadle, Rose E. Tucker Charitable Trust, U.S. Bank and Vibrant Table Catering.

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