These Portland authors are amongst this yr’s Oregon Book Awards finalists

These Portland authors are amongst this yr’s Oregon Book Awards finalists

Published 10:06 am Monday, February 9, 2026

A scan of the 2026 Oregon Book Awards finalist checklist reveals a pattern: Portland authors, in all places.

Literary Arts, a nonprofit devoted to supporting writers and readers, introduced its 2026 Oregon Book Awards finalists on Tuesday, Feb. 9, together with a big lineup of Portland locals. The winners of every class shall be introduced reside on the 2026 Oregon Book Awards Ceremony, hosted by Kimberly King Parsons at Portland Center Stage at The Armory on Monday, April 20.

“The finalists include debut authors as well as long-standing authors familiar to many readers,” Susan Moore, director of packages for writers at Literary Arts, mentioned in an announcement. “From personal explorations of identity and belonging to reimaginings of history and place, these literary works demonstrate the many ways Oregon’s authors engage with the questions and challenges of our time. Literature is vital to understanding both our lived experience and the world around us.”

The nonprofit has honored greater than 900 Oregon writers and publishers since 1987, and distributed greater than $1 million in fellowships and award monies by way of this program. This yr’s finalists had been chosen by panels of out-of-state judges, from a complete of 200 submitted titles.

Let’s try who made the checklist from Portland:

Ken Kesey Award for Fiction

• Olufunke Grace Bankole of Portland, “The Edge of Water” (Tin House)
• Ling Ling Huang of Portland, “Immaculate Conception: A Novel” (Dutton)
• Kevin Maloney of Portland, “Horse Girl Fever” (Clash Books)
• Karen Thompson Walker of Portland, “The Strange Case of Jane O.” (Random House)

Stafford/Hall Award for Poetry

• H. G. Dierdorff of Portland, “Rain, Wind, Thunder, Fire, Daughter” (University of Nevada Press)
• Jennifer Perrine of Portland, “Beautiful Outlaw” (Kelsey Street Press)
• Lisa Wells of Portland, “The Fire Passage” (Four Way Books)

Frances Fuller Victor Award for General Nonfiction

• Rebecca Grant of Portland, “Access: Inside the Abortion Underground and the Sixty-Year Battle
  for Reproductive Freedom” (Avid Reader Press)
• Jamie Mustard of Portland, “Child X: A Memoir of Slavery, Poverty, Celebrity, and Scientology”
  (BenBella Books)
• Leah Sottile of Portland, “Blazing Eye Sees All: Love Has Won, False Prophets, and the Fever
  Dream of the American New Age” (Hachette Book Group/Grand Central Publishing)

Sarah Winnemucca Award for Creative Nonfiction

• Judith Barrington of Portland, “Virginia’s Apple: Collected Memoirs” (Oregon State University
  Press)
• Karleigh Frisbie Brogan of Portland, “Holding: A Memoir About Mothers, Drugs, and Other
  Comforts” (Steerforth)
• Justin Hocking of Portland, “A Field Guide to the Subterranean: Reclaiming the Deep Earth and
  Our Deepest Selves” (Counterpoint Press/Catapult Book Group)
• Wayne Scott of Portland, “The Maps They Gave Us: One Marriage Reimagined” (Black Lawrence
  Press)
• Lidia Yuknavitch of Portland, “Reading the Waves” (Riverhead Books)

Eloise Jarvis McGraw Award for Children’s Literature

• Zoey Abbott of Portland, “This Year, a Witch!” (Caitlyn Dlouhy Books/Simon & Schuster)
• Michelle Sumovich of Portland, “I Have Three Cats…” (Penguin Random House)
• Elizabeth Rusch of Portland, “All About Patterns” (Charlesbridge)

Leslie Bradshaw Award for Middle Grade and Young Adult Literature

• Rosanne Parry of Portland, “A Wolf Called Fire” (Greenwillow Books/HarperCollins)
• Sara Ryan of Portland, “Mountain Upside Down” (Dutton Books for Young Readers)
• Shana Targosz of Portland, “River of Spirits (The Underwild #1)” (Aladdin Books/Simon &
  Schuster)

Award for Graphic Literature

• Breena Bard of Portland, “Wildfire” (Little, Brown Ink)
• Steven Christian of Portland, “Welcome To Iltopia: An Eyelnd Feevr Augmented Reality
  Experience” (Iltopia Studios)
• Rowan Kingsbury of Portland, “Avery and the Fairy Circle” (Flying Eye Books)
• Aron Nels Steinke of Portland, “Speechless” (Graphix/Scholastic)
• David F. Walker of Portland, “Big Jim and the White Boy” (Ten Speed Graphic)

Special Award: Stewart H. Holbrook Literary Legacy Award

In 2026, Literary Arts will honor the next group with the Stewart H. Holbrook Literary
Legacy Award, in recognition of excellent, long-term assist of Oregon’s literary neighborhood:

• Willamette Writers of Portland, Oregon