Washington State Book Award


The Washington State Book Awards is a literary awards program presented annually in recognition of notable books written by Washington authors in the previous year. The program was established in 1967 as the Governor's Writers Awards. Each year, up to ten outstanding books of any genre, which have been written by Washington authors in the previous year are recognized with awards based on literary merit, lasting importance, and overall quality of the publication.

History

When the Governor's Writers Awards was established in 1967, it was based at the Washington State Library in Olympia. In 2001, the Washington Center for the Book based at the Seattle Public Library took over the administration of the program, renaming it as the Washington State Book Awards.
In 2005, an additional category was added to represent children's books. Since established, two children's books are honored each year with the Scandiuzzi Children's Book Awards. One book is honored for picture books, while the other for middle grades and young adults.
In 2006, the Center for the Book divided the entire awards program into categories, significantly reducing the number of awards presented. From 2006 through 2010, the genres of History and Biography formed one category. In 2011, Biography was regrouped with Memoir, while History was regrouped with General Nonfiction., the categories encompass General Nonfiction, Biography and Memoir, Fiction, Poetry, and two to four Scandiuzzi Children's Books Awards.
In 2017, the Washington Center for the Book became a joint partnership of the Washington State Library and The Seattle Public Library. The Washington State Book Awards continue as a project for the Center for the Book.
The 2017 Washington State Book Award winners will be announced on Saturday, October 14, 2017. The deadline for the 2018 awards is February 1, 2018.

Washington State Book Award winners and finalists

2018Fiction
  • Winner:
  • Finalists: Laurie Frankel, This Is How It Always Is; Laura Anne Gilman, The Cold Eye; Elise Hooper, The Other Alcott; Matthew D. Hunt, Solar Reboot; Nancy Pearl, George and Lizzie; Ingrid Thoft, Duplicity
Poetry
  • Winner:
  • Finalists: Glenna Cook, Thresholds; Claudia Castro Luna, Killing Marias: A Poem for Multiple Voices; Frances McCue, Timber Curtain; Melinda Mueller, Mary’s Dust; Eugenia Toledo, Trazas de mapa, trazas de sangre / Map Traces, Blood Traces, translated by Carolyne Wright; Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, Water & Salt
Biography/Memoir
  • Winner:
  • Finalists: Kristin Jarvis Adams, The Chicken Who Saved Us; Geraldine DeRuiter, All Over the Place: Adventures in Travel, True Love, and Petty Theft; Claudia Rowe, The Spider and the Fly
History/General Nonfiction
  • Winner:
  • Finalists: Langdon Cook, Upstream: Searching for Wild Salmon, from River to Table; Lyanda Lynn Haupt, Mozart’s Starling; David R. Montgomery, Growing a Revolution: Bringing Our Soil to Life; Jonathan White, Tides: The Science and Spirit of the Ocean; David B. Williams and Jennifer Ott, Waterway: The Story of Seattle’s Locks and Ship Canal; Various authors, curated and edited by Jaimee Garbacik, Ghosts of Seattle Past
2017Fiction
  • Winner: Shawn Vestal, Daredevils
  • Finalists: Laurie Blauner, The Solace of Monsters; Ted Chiang, Stories of Your Life and Others; Annie Proulx, Barkskins, Matt Ruff, Lovecraft Country
    • Poetry
    • Winner: Tara Hardy, My, My, My, My, My
    • Finalists: Don Mee Choi, Hardly War; Paisley Rekdal, Imaginary Vessels; Michael Schmeltzer, Blood Song; Megan Snyder-Camp, Wintering
    Biography/Memoir
    • Winner: Brenda Miller, An Earlier Life
    • Finalists: Susan Marie Conrad, Inside: One Woman’s Journey through the Inside Passage; Lindy West, Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman; Leif Whittaker, My Old Man and the Mountain
    History/General Nonfiction
    • Winner: Steve Olson, Eruption: The Untold Story of Mount St. Helens
    • Finalists: Timothy Egan, The Immortal Irishman; Eli Sanders, While the City Slept: A Love Lost to Violence and a Young Man’s Descent into Madness; Adrienne Ross Scanlan, Turning Homeward: Restoring Hope and Nature in the Urban Wild; Margaret Willson, Seawomen of Iceland: Survival on the Edge
    2016Fiction
    • Winner: Sharma Shields, The Sasquatch Hunter's Almanac
    • Finalists: S.M. Hulse, Black River; Stephanie Kallos, Language Arts, Ann Pancake, Me and My Daddy Listen to Bob Marley; Shann Ray, American Copper
    Poetry
    • Winner: Carl Phillips, Reconnaissance
    • Finalists: Rob Carney, 88 Maps; Laura Da', Tributaries; Emily Johnston, Her Animals; Christina Stoddard, Hive
    Biography/Memoir
    • Winner: Mark Rozema, Road Trip
    • Finalists: Sonya Lea, Wondering Who You Are; Michael N. McGregor, Pure Act: The Uncommon Life of Robert Lax; Ana Maria Spagna, Reclaimers; Tara Austen Weaver, Orchard House: How a Neglected Garden Taught One Family to Grow
    History/General Nonfiction
    • Winner: Erik Larson, Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania
    • Finalists: Thor Hanson, The Triumph of Seeds; Ruth Kirk, Ozette: Excavating a Makah Whaling Village; David Neiwert, Of Orcas and Men: What Killer Whales Can Teach Us; Jack Nisbet, Ancient Places: People and Landscape in the Emerging Northwest
    Scandiuzzi Children's Book Awards
    Picture Book:
    • Winner: Jessixa Bagley, Boats for Papa
    • Finalists: Lisa Mantchev, Strictly No Elephants; Laurie Thompson, Emmanuel's Dream: The True Story of Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah
    Books for Early Readers: :
    • Winner, Deborah Underwood, Here Comes the Tooth Fairy Cat
    • Finalist: Kelly Jones, Unusual Chickens for the Exceptional Poultry Farmer
    Books for Middle Readers
    • Winner: A.L. Sonnichsen, Red Butterfly
    • Finalist: Beth Hautala, Waiting for Unicorns
    Books for Young Adults:
    2015Fiction
    • Winner: Bruce Holbert, The Hour of Lead
    • Finalists: Heather Brittain Bergstrom, Steal the North; Adrianne Harun, A Man Came Out of a Door in the Mountain; Martin Limón, The Iron Sickle ; Peter Mountford, The Dismal Science
    Poetry
    Biography/Memoir
    • Winner: Charles D’Ambrosio, Loitering: New and Collected Essays
    • Finalists: Bryce Andrews, Badluck Way: A Year on the Ragged Edge of the West; Kathleen Flinn, Burnt Toast Makes You Sing Good: A Memoir of Food and Love from an American Midwest Family; Tom Robbins, Tibetan Peach Pie: A True Account of an Imaginative Life; Elissa Washuta, My Body Is a Book of Rules
    History/General Nonfiction
    • Winner: Justin Wadland, Trying Home: The Rise and Fall of an Anarchist Utopia on Puget Sound
    • Finalists: Greg Atkinson, In Season: Culinary Adventures of a Pacific Northwest Chef; William Dietrich, The North Cascades: Finding Beauty and Renewal in the Wild Nearby; Greg Gordon, When Money Grew on Trees: A.B. Hammond and the Age of the Timber Baron; Frances McCue, Mary Randlett Portraits
    Scandiuzzi Children's Book Award
    • Winner, Picture Book: Jennifer K. Mann, Two Speckled Eggs
    • Finalists: Keith Baker, Little Green Peas: A Big Book of Color; George Shannon and Taeeun Yoo, Hands Say Love; Hannah Viano, S Is for Salmon: A Pacific Northwest Alphabet
    • Winner, Middle Readers : Dana Simpson, Phoebe and Her Unicorn
    • Finalists: Ken Jennings, Ken Jennings’ Junior Genius Guides: Maps and Geography; Maureen McQuerry, Time Out of Time: Book One: Beyond the Door
    • Winner, Young Adults: Leslye Walton, The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender
    • Finalists: Mary Cronk Farrell, Pure Grit: How American World War II Nurses Survived Battle and Prison Camp in the Pacific; Katherine Kirkpatrick, Between Two Worlds; Jennifer Longo, Six Feet Over It
    2014Fiction
    Poetry
    • Winner: Ed Skoog, Rough Day
    • Finalists: Sherman Alexie, What I've Stolen, What I've Earned; Rebecca Hoogs, Self-Storage; Derek Sheffield, Through the Second Skin; Nance van Ninckel, Pacific Walkers
    Biography/Memoir
    • Winner: David Laskin, The Family: Three Journeys Into the Heart of the Twentieth Century
    • Finalists: Peter Bagge, Woman Rebel: The Margaret Sanger Story; Nicole Hardy, Confessions of a Latter-Day Virgin; Jonathan Raban, Driving Home: An American Journey
    History/General Nonfiction
    • Winner: Daniel James Brown, The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics
    • Finalists: Nancy Bartley, The Boy Who Shot the Sheriff: The Redemption of Herbert Niccolls, Jr.; Langdon Cook, The Mushroom Hunters: On the Trail of an Underground America; David Moskowitz, Wolves in the Land of Salmon
    Scandiuzzi Children's Book Award
    • Winner, Picture Book: Kobi Yamada and Mae Besom, What Do You Do With an Idea?
    • Finalists: Brenda Guiberson and Gennady Spirin, Frog Song; Jack Prelutsky and Carin Berger, Stardines Swim High Across the Sky and Other Poems; Nina Laden and Renata Liwska, Once Upon a Memory; George Shannon and Julie Paschkis, Who Put the Cookies in the Cookie Jar?
    • Winner, Early Readers : M.H. Clark, And Then, Story Starters
    • Winner, Middle Readers : Suzanne Selfors, The Sasquatch Escape
    • Winner, Young Adults : Patrick Flores-Scott, Jumped In
    • Finalists: Steven Arntson, The Wrap-Up List; Sean Beaudoin, Wise Young Fool; Thatcher Heldring, The League; Kirby Larson, Duke
    Note: The in the Seattle Public Library's archive lists the finalists for the Early Readers, Middle Readers and Young Adults as a group without an age designation.
    2013
    Fiction
    • Winner: Amanda Coplin, The Orchardist
    • Finalists: Ryan Boudinot, Blueprints of the Afterlife; Jonathan Evison, The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving; Lucia Perillo, Happiness Is a Chemical in the Brain; Jess Walter, Beautiful Ruins
    Poetry
    • Winner: Kathleen Flenniken, Plume
    • Finalists: Bruce Beasley, Theophobia; Andrew Feld, Raptor; Colleen McElroy, Here I Throw Down My Heart; Claire McQuerry, Lacemakers
    Biography/Memoir
    • Winner: Timothy Egan, Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher: The Epic Life and Immortal Photographs of Edward Curtis
    • Finalists: Ellen Forney, Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo & Me; Karl Marlantes, What It Is Like to Go to War; Domingo Martinez, The Boy Kings of Texas
    History/General Nonfiction
    • Winner: David R. Montgomery, The Rocks Don't Lie: A Geologist Investigates Noah's Flood
    • Finalists: Kirsten Grind, The Lost Bank: The Story of the Biggest Bank Failure in American History; Blaine Harden, Escape from Camp 14: One Man's Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West; Jack Nisbet, David Douglas, A Naturalist at Work: An Illustrated Exploration Across Two Centuries in the Pacific Northwest; Douglas Smith, Former People: The Final Days of the Russian Aristocracy
    Scandiuzzi Children's Book Award
    • Winner, Picture Book: Barbara Kerley, Those Rebels, John & Tom
    • Winner, Young Adults: J. Anderson Coats, The Wicked and the Just
    2012Fiction
    • Winner: Peter Mountford, A Young Man's Guide to Late Capitalism
    • 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
    Biography/Memoir
    • Winner: Paul Lindholdt, In Earshot of Water: Notes from the Columbia Plateau
    • 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
    • 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, '
    Scandiuzzi Children's Book Award
    2011Fiction
    Poetry
    • Winner: Frances McCue, The Bled: Poems
    • 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
    • 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
    • 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, Polar Opposites
    • Winner, Early Readers: Patrick Jennings, Guinea Dog
    • Winner, Middle Grades and Young Adults: Lish McBride, Hold Me Closer, Necromancer
    2010Fiction
    Poetry
    • Winner: Lucia Perillo, Inseminating the Elephant
    • 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
    • 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
    • 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
    2009Fiction
    Poetry
    General Nonfiction
    • Winner: Barbara Brotherton, editor, S'abadeb: The Gifts: Pacific Coast Salish Arts and Artists
    • 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
    • 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!
    • Honorable Mention, Picture Book: Bonny Becker, A Visitor for Bear
    • Winner, Middle Grades and Young Adults: Richard Farr, Emperors of the Ice: A True Story of Disaster in the Antarctic, 1910-13
    2008Fiction
    • Winner: Matt Ruff, Bad Monkeys
    • 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
    General Nonfiction
    • Winner: David R. Montgomery, '
    • 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
    • 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
    2007Fiction
    • Winner: Charles D'Ambrosio, The Dead Fish Museum
    • Finalists: Ryan Boudinot, The Littlest Hitler: Stories; David Long, The Inhabited World; Jess Walter, The Zero
    Poetry
    General Nonfiction
    • William D. Layman, River of Memory: The Everlasting Columbia
    History/Biography
    • Winner: Jlie Phillips, James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon
    • 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
    • Finalist, Picture Book: Finalist: Karma Wilson, Moose Tracks
    • Winner, Middle Grades and Young Adults: Brent Hartinger, Grand & Humble
    • Finalists: Kirby Larson, Hattie Big Sky; Michele Torrey, Voyage of Plunder
    2006Fiction
    Poetry
    • Winner: Lucia Perillo, Luck Is Luck
    • 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
    • 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
    • Finalists: Jack Hamann, On American Soil; David Neiwert, Strawberry Days; Eric Scigliano, Michelangelo's Mountain
    Scandiuzzi Children's Book Award
    2005General 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
    20042004 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''