
Literary Arts announced finalists for the 2025 Oregon Book Awards on Tuesday, with familiar names and first-time authors among the writers of 35 books chosen in seven categories.
In addition, two Portlanders will be recognized for their contributions to Oregon’s literary culture: one for making books accessible to people living on the streets; the other for producing children’s books that tackle tough subjects.
Laura Moulton of Portland, founder of Street Books, will receive the Stewart H. Holbrook Literary Legacy Award. Street Books is a mobile library that provides low-income and houseless Portlanders with books via customized tricycles.
The Walt Morey Young Readers Literary Legacy Award will be given to Jelani Memory of Portland, founder of A Kids Co., a publishing company built “around the idea that kids were ready to talk about the important stuff of life.” The company has published more than 100 books for kids on topics such as divorce, cancer, racism, empathy, and being non-binary.
A total of 212 titles were submitted for the Oregon Book Awards, which will be given April 28 at Portland Center Stage at The Armory. Portland writer Omar El Akkad will host the awards. Tickets can be purchased here.


And the book award finalists are:
Ken Kesey Award for Fiction:
- Willy Vlautin of Scappoose for The Horse; his novel Lean on Pete (also a horse story) won two Oregon Book Awards in 2015
- Kimberly King Parsons of Portland for her first novel, We Were the Universe (Parson’s short-story collection, Black Light, was longlisted for the 2019 Natonal Book Award)
- Miriam Gershow of Eugene for Survival Tips
- Victor Lodato of Ashland for Honey
- Charlie J. Stephens of Port Orford for their debut novel, A Wounded Deer Leaps Highest
Stafford/Hall Award for poetry:
- Alisha Dietzman of Newberg for Sweet Movie
- Brian S. Ellis of Portland for Against Common Sense
- Darla Mottram of Portland for her first book, RECURRENT
- Valerie Witte of Portland for A Rupture in the Interiors
- Charity E. Yoro of Portland for ten-cent flower & other territories
Frances Fuller Victor Award for General Nonfiction:
- Rebecca Clarren of Portland for The Cost of Free Land: Jews, Lakota, and an American Inheritance
- Kimberly Jensen of Monmouth for Oregon’s Others: Gender, Civil Liberties, and the Surveillance State in the Early Twentieth Century
- Catherine McNeur of Portland for Mischievous Creatures: The Forgotten Sisters Who Transformed Early American Science
- Courtney Thorsson of Eugene for The Sisterhood: How a Network of Black Women Writers Changed American Culture
- Reiko Hillyer of Portland for A Wall Is Just a Wall: The Permeability of the Prison in the Twentieth-Century United States
Sarah Winnemucca Award for Creative Nonfiction:
- Becky Ellis of Lake Oswego, Little Avalanches: A Memoir
- Ferris Jabr of Portland, Becoming Earth: How Our Planet Came to Life
- Jaclyn Moyer of Corvallis, On Gold Hill: A Personal History of Wheat, Farming, and Family, from Punjab to California
- Tim Palmer of Port Orford, Seek Higher Ground: The Natural Solution to Our Urgent Flooding Crisis
- Marlena Williams of Portland, Night Mother: A Personal and Cultural History of The Exorcist
Eloise Jarvis McGraw Award for Children’s Literature:
- Leslie Barnard Booth of Portland has two books as finalists, A Stone Is a Story and One Day This Tree Will Fall
- Anne Broyles of Portland for I’m Gonna Paint: Ralph Fasanella, Artist of the People
- Dane Liu of Portland for Laolao’s Dumplings
- Deborah Hopkinson of West Linn for Evidence!: How Dr. John Snow Solved the Mystery of Cholera
Leslie Bradshaw Award for Middle Grade and Young Adult Literature:
- April Henry of Portland (who won this award in 2015 for The Body in the Woods) for Stay Dead
- Deborah Hopkinson of West Linn for The Plot to Kill a Queen
- Megan Lally of Salem for That’s Not My Name
- Makiia Lucier of Portland for Dragonfruit
- Elizabeth Rusch of Portland for The Twenty-One: The True Story of the Youth Who Sued the U.S. Government Over Climate Change
Angus L. Bowmer Award for Drama:
- E.M. Lewis of Portland for Strange Birds
- Rich Rubin of Portland for Kafka’s Joke
- Andrea Stolowitz of Portland for Elegy Play
- Ken Yoshikawa of Portland for From a Hole in the Ground
- Brianna Barrett of Portland for Still Harvey Still
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