Washington State Book Award - Recent Washington State Book Award Winners and Finalists

Recent Washington State Book Award Winners and Finalists

2012

Fiction

  • Winner: Peter Mountford, A Young Man's Guide to Late Capitalism (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
  • Finalists: Jonathan Evison, West of Here; David Guterson, Ed King; Stacey Levine, The Girl With Brown Fur: Tales Stories; Melinda Moustakis, Bear Down, Bear North: Alaska Stories

Poetry

  • Winner: Christine Deavel, Woodnote (Bear Star Press)
  • Finalists: Arlene Kim, What Have You Done to Our Ears to Make Us Hear Echoes?; Katrina Roberts, Underdog; Martha Silano, The Little Office of the Immaculate Conception

Biography/Memoir

  • Winner: Paul Lindholdt, In Earshot of Water: Notes from the Columbia Plateau (University of Iowa Press)
  • Finalists: Jana Harris, Horses Never Lie About Love: The Heartwarming Story of a Remarkable Horse Who Changed the World Around Her; Shiro Kashiba, Shiro: Wit, Wisdom & Recipes from a Sushi Pioneer; Katherine Malmo, Who In This Room: The Realities of Cancer, Fish, and Demolition; Ana Maria Spanga, Potluck: Community on the Edge of Wilderness

History/General Nonfiction

  • Winner: Erik Larson, In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin (Crown Publishers)
  • Finalists: Stephanie Coontz, A Strange Stirring: The Feminine Mystique and American Women at the Dawn of the 1960s; Jeff Crane, Finding the River: An Environmental History of the Elwha; John Findlay and Bruce Hevly, Atomic Frontier Days: Hanford and the American West; Thor Hanson, Feathers: The Evolution of a Natural Miracle

Scandiuzzi Children's Book Award

  • Winner, Picture Book: Nikki McClure (author and illustrator, To Market, To Market (Abrams Books for Young Readers)
  • Winner, Middle Grades and Young Adults: Katherine Schlick Noe, Something to Hold (Clarion Books)
2011

Fiction

  • Winner: Karl Marlantes, Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War (Grove/Atlantic)
  • Finalists: Carol Wiley Cassella, Healer; Susan Froderberg, Old Border Road: A Novel; Valerie Trueblood, Marry or Burn: Stories; Jess Walter, The Financial Lives of the Poets

Poetry

  • Winner: Frances McCue, The Bled: Poems (Factory Hollow Press)
  • Finalists: Kelli Russell Agodon, Letters from the Emily Dickinson Room; Don Mee Choi, The Morning News Is Exciting; Susan Rich, The Alchemist's Kitchen; Oliver de la Paz's website

Biography/Memoir

  • Winner: Doug Merlino, The Hustle: One Team and Ten Lives in Black and White (Bloomsbury)
  • Finalists: Claire Dederer, Poser: My Life in Twenty-three Yoga Poses; Kurt Hoelting, The Circumference of Home: One Man's Yearlong Quest for A Radically Local Life; Robert Michael Pyle, The Mariposa Road: The First Butterfly Big Year; Ana Maria Spagna, Test Ride on the Sunnyland Bus: A Daughter's Civil Rights Journey

History/General Nonfiction

  • Winner: David Laskin, The Long Way Home: An American Journey from Ellis Island to the Great War (Harper)
  • Finalists: Thea Cooper, Breakthrough: Elizabeth Hughes, the Discovery of Insulin, and the Making of A Medical Miracle; Frances McCue, The Car That Brought You Here Still Runs: Revisiting the Northwest Towns of Richard Hugo; David Shields, Reality Hunger: A Manifesto; Craig Welch, Shell Games: Rogues, Smugglers, and the Hunt for Nature's Bounty

Scandiuzzi Children's Book Award

  • Winner, Picture Book: Erik Brooks (author and illustrator, Polar Opposites (Marshall Cavendish)
  • Winner, Early Readers: Patrick Jennings (writer), Guinea Dog (Egmont USA)
  • Winner, Middle Grades and Young Adults: Lish McBride, Hold Me Closer, Necromancer (Henry Holt)
2010

Fiction

  • Winner: Jim Lynch, Border Songs (Knopf)
  • Finalists: Ryan Boudinot, Misconception; Pete Dexter, Spooner; Jamie Ford, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

Poetry

  • Winner: Lucia Perillo, Inseminating the Elephant (Copper Canyon Press)
  • Finalists: Sherman Alexie, Face; Shirley Kaufman, Ezekiel's Wheels; Tod Marshall, The Tangled Line; Heather McHugh, Upgraded to Serious; Judith Skillman, Prisoner of the Swifts

General Nonfiction

  • Winner: Carol Kaesuk Yoon, Naming Nature: The Clash Between Instinct and Science (Norton)
  • Finalists: Tony Angell, Puget Sound Through an Artist's Eye; Lyanda Lynn Haupt, Crow Planet: Essential Wisdom from the Urban Wilderness; Brenda Miller, Blessing of the Animals; David Williams, Stories in Stone: Travels Through Urban Geology

History/Biography

  • Winner: Timothy Egan, The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire That Saved America (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
  • Finalists: Daniel James Brown, The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of a Donner Party Bride; Lynda Mapes, Breaking Ground: The Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe and Unearthing of Tse-whit-zen Village; Jack Nisbet, The Collector: David Douglas and the Natural History of the Northwest; Mishna Wolff, I'm Down: A Memoir

Scandiuzzi Children's Book Award

  • Winner, Picture Book: Samantha Vamos, Before You Were Here, Mi Amor (illustrated by Santiago Cohen) (Viking Children's Books)
  • Winner, Early Readers: Bonny Becker, The Magical Ms. Plum (Knopf)
  • Winner, Middle Grades and Young Adults: Michael Harmon, Brutal (Knopf)
2009

Fiction

  • Winner: Jonathan Evison, All About Lulu (Soft Skull Press)
  • Finalists: Dave Boling, Guernica; Carol Cassella, Oxygen; David Guterson, The Other; Alex Kuo, White Jade and Other Stories

Poetry

  • Winner: David Wagoner, A Map of the Night (University of Illinois Press)
  • Finalists: Thomas Aslin, A Moon Over Wings; Linda Bierds, Flight: New and Selected Poems; Katrina Roberts, Friendly Fire; D. S. Butterworth, The Radium Watchdial Painters

General Nonfiction

  • Winner: Barbara Brotherton, editor, S'abadeb: The Gifts: Pacific Coast Salish Arts and Artists (Seattle Art Museum/University of Washington Press)
  • Finalists: Paul Bannick, The Owl and the Woodpecker: Encounters with North America’s Most Iconic Birds; Bruce Barcott, The Last Flight of the Scarlet Macaw: One Woman’s Fight to Save the World’s Most Beautiful Bird; Cliff Mass, The Weather of the Pacific Northwest; David Shields, The Thing About Life is That One Day You’ll Be Dead

History/Biography

  • Winner: Robert Clark, Dark Water: Flood and Redemption in the City of Masterpieces (Doubleday)
  • Finalists: Kate Jackson, Mean and Lowly Things: Snakes, Science, and Survival in the Congo; Debra Jarvis, It’s Not About the Hair: And Other Uncertainties of Life & Cancer; Jim Kershner, Carl Maxey: A Fighting Life; Richard Scheuermann, Finding Chief Kamiakin: The Life and Legacy of a Northwest Patriot

Scandiuzzi Children's Book Award

  • Winner, Picture Book: Barbara Kerley, What To Do About Alice? How Alice Roosevelt Broke the Rules, Charmed the World, and Drove Her Father Teddy Crazy! (illustrated by Edwin Fotheringham) (Scholastic Press)
  • Honorable Mention, Picture Book: Bonny Becker, A Visitor for Bear (illustrated by Kady M. Denton)
  • Winner, Middle Grades and Young Adults: Richard Farr, Emperors of the Ice: A True Story of Disaster in the Antarctic, 1910-13 (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
2008

Fiction

  • Winner: Matt Ruff, Bad Monkeys (HarperCollins)
  • Finalists: Nancy Horan, Loving Frank; Alex Mindt, Male of the Species; Ann Pancake, Strange as This Weather Has Been; Joseph Powell, Fish Grooming and Other Stories

Poetry

  • Winner: Samuel Green, The Grace of Necessity (Carnegie Mellon University Press)
  • Finalists: Marvin Bell, Mars Being Red; Mary Cornish, Red Studio; Peter Periera, What's Written on the Body

General Nonfiction

  • Winner: David R. Montgomery, Dirt: the Erosion of Civilizations (University of California Press)
  • Finalists: Kathleen Flinn. The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry: Love, Laughter and Tears at the World's Most Famous Cooking School; Lesley Hazelton, Jezebel: The Untold Story of the Bible's Harlot Queen; Robert D. Morris, The Blue Death: Disease, Disaster and the Water We Drink; Robert Michael Pyle, Sky Time in Grays River: Living for Keeps in a Forgotten Place

History/Biography

  • Winner: Coll Thrush, Native Seattle: Histories from the Crossing-Over Place (University of Washington Press)
  • Finalists: Michael Honey, Going Down Jericho Road: The Memphis Strike, Martin Luther King's Last Campaign; Jeffrey Karl Ochsner, Lionel H. Pries, Architect, Artist, Educator: from Arts and Crafts to Modern Architecture

Scandiuzzi Children's Book Award

  • Winner, Picture Book: George Shannon, Rabbit's Gift (illustrated by Laura Dronzek) (Harcourt)
  • Winner, Middle Grades and Young Adults: Sherman Alexie, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (illustrated by Ellen Forney) (Little, Brown)
2007

Fiction

  • Winner: Charles D'Ambrosio, The Dead Fish Museum (Alfred A. Knopf)
  • Finalists: Ryan Boudinot, The Littlest Hitler: Stories; David Long, The Inhabited World; Jess Walter, The Zero

Poetry

  • Winner: Madeline DeFrees, Spectral Waves (Copper Canyon Press)
  • Finalists: Kathleen Flenniken, Famous; Tess Gallagher, Dear Ghosts; Jennifer Maier, Dark Alphabet; Eric McHenry, Potscrubber Lullabies

General Nonfiction

  • William D. Layman, River of Memory: The Everlasting Columbia (University of Washington Press)

History/Biography

  • Winner: Jlie Phillips, James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon (St. Martins Press)
  • Finalists: Daniel James Brown, Under a Flaming Sky: The Great Hinckley Firestorm of 1894; Charles R. Cross, Room Full of Mirrors: A Biography of Jimi Hendrix; Lyanda Lynn Haupt, Pilgrim on the Bird Continent: The Importance of Everything and Other Lessons from Darwin's Lost Notebooks; Joshua Wolf Shenk, Lincoln's Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness

Scandiuzzi Children's Book Award

  • Winner, Picture Book: Jack Prelutsky, Behold the Bold Umbrellaphant and Other Poems (illustrated by Carin Berger) (Greenwillow)
  • Finalist, Picture Book: Finalist: Karma Wilson, Moose Tracks (illustrated by Jack E. Davis)
  • Winner, Middle Grades and Young Adults: Brent Hartinger, Grand & Humble (Harper Tempest)
  • Finalists: Kirby Larson, Hattie Big Sky; Michele Torrey, Voyage of Plunder
2006

Fiction

  • Winner: Karen Fisher, A Sudden Country (Random House)
  • Finalists: MacKenzie Bezos, The Testing of Luther Albright; Matt Briggs, Shoot the Buffalo; Stacey Levine, Frances Johnson; Nancy Rawles, My Jim; Jess Walter, Citizen Vince

Poetry

  • Winner: Lucia Perillo, Luck Is Luck (Random House)
  • Finalists: Lillias Bever, Bellini in Istanbul; Linda Bierds, First Hand; J.W. Marshall, Taken With; Katrina Roberts, The Quick; David Wagoner, Good Morning and Good Night

General Nonfiction

  • Winner: John M. Marzluff and Tony Angell, In the Company of Crows and Ravens (Yale University Press)
  • Finalists: Hugo Kugiya, 58 Degrees North; James McKean, Home Stand; David E. Miller, Toward a New Regionalism; Jonathan Raban, My Holy War

History/Biography

  • Winner: Timothy Egan, The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl (Houghton Mifflin)
  • Finalists: Jack Hamann, On American Soil; David Neiwert, Strawberry Days; Eric Scigliano, Michelangelo's Mountain

Scandiuzzi Children's Book Award

  • Winner, Picture Book: Karla Kuskin, So, What's It Like to Be a Cat? (illustrated by Betsy Lewin)
  • Finalist, Picture Book: Carole Lexa Schaefer, The Bora-Bora Dress (illustrated by Catherine Stock)
  • Winner, Middle Grades and Young Adults: Michael Gruber, The Witch's Boy
  • Finalist, Middle Grades and Young Adults: Deb Caletti, Wild Roses
2005

General Books

  • Charles D'Ambrosio, Orphans
  • Lesley Hazleton, Mary: A Flesh-and-Blood Biography of the Virgin Mother
  • Christopher Howell, Light's Ladder: Poems
  • Paul Hunter, Breaking Ground
  • Stephanie Kallos, Broken for You
  • David Laskin, The Children's Blizzard
  • Nikhil Pal Singh, Black Is a Country: Race and the Unfinished Struggle for Democracy
  • Peter Ward, Gorgon: The Monsters That Ruled the Planet Before Dinosaurs and How They Died in the Greatest Catastrophe in Earth's History

Scandiuzzi Children's Book Award

  • Winner, Middle Grades and Young Adults: Deb Caletti, Honey, Baby, Sweetheart
  • Winner, Picture Book: Carmela D'Amico, Ella the Elegant Elephant (illustrated by Steven D'Amico)
2004

2004 was the last year in which there were no categories.

  • Gary Atkins, Gay Seattle: Stories of Exile and Belonging
  • Fred Beckey, Range of Glaciers: The Exploration and Survey of the Northern Cascade Range
  • Karen Cushman, Rodzina
  • Chris Forhan, The Actual Moon, the Actual Stars
  • Alan Gallay, The Indian Slave Trade: The Rise of the English Empire in the American South, 1670-1717
  • Linda Lawrence Hunt, Bold Spirit: Helga Estby's Forgotten Walk Across Victorian America
  • Erik Larson, The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair
  • David R. Montgomery, King of Fish: The Thousand-Year Run of Salmon
  • Jack Nisbet, Visible Bones: Journey Across Time in the Columbia River Country
  • Matt Ruff, Set This House in Order: A Romance of Souls
2003
  • Deloris Tarzan Ament, Iridescent Light: The Emergence of Northwest Art
  • Charles Bergman, Red Delta: Fighting for Life at the End of the Colorado River
  • Rebecca Brown, Excerpts from a Family Medical Dictionary
  • Debra Magpie Earling, Perma Red
  • Deborah Hopkinson, Under the Quilt of Night
  • Tina Kelley, The Gospel of Galore
  • Pamela McClusky, Art from Africa: Long Steps Never Broke a Back
  • Gregory Spatz, Wonderful Tricks: Stories
  • Indu Sundaresan, The Twentieth Wife
  • Hill Williams, The Restless Northwest
2002
  • Michael Collins, The Keepers of Truth
  • Chris Crutcher, Whale Talk
  • Madeline DeFrees, Blue Dusk: New and Selected Poems: 1951-2001
  • Carole Glickfeld, Swimming Toward the Ocean
  • Lyanda Lynn Haupt, Rare Encounters with Ordinary Birds: Notes from a Northwest Year
  • Mira Kamdar, Motiba's Tattoos: A Granddaughter's Journey from America Into Her Indian Family's Past
  • Carolyn Kizer, Cool, Calm and Collected: Poems, 1960-2000
  • Sharon Bertsch McGrayne, Prometheans in the Lab: Chemistry and the Making of the Modern World
  • Duff Wilson, Fateful Harvest: The True Story of a Small Town, a Global Industry, and a Toxic Secret
  • Robin K. Wright, Northern Haida Master Carvers

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