Here Are the Winners of This Year’s Oregon Book Awards

Along with readings from the wining titles, the broadcast paid tribute to acclaimed Oregon writer Barry Lopez, who died last December.

By Shannon Gormley
Author Vanessa Veselka. Ken Kesey Award Award for Fiction Winner Vanessa Veselka. IMAGE: Marne Lucas. (Photo: Marne Lucas)

Yesterday, the 2021 Oregon Book Awards were announced via a ceremony broadcast on Oregon Public Broadcasting.

Finalists were announced in March, and winners were chosen by a panel of out-of-state judges. Yesterday’s broadcast is available to stream on Literary Art’s website.

This year’s Ken Kesey Award for Fiction was hotly contested, with the likes of three-time OBA winner Lidia Yuknavitch and celebrated debut novelists Genevieve Hudson and Chelsea Bieker in the running. The award was won by Portlander Vanessa Veselka, whose novel The Great Offshore Grounds follows two sisters on a cross-country road trip to find their birth mother, and has been praised for its tender approach to a dark family tale.

Along with readings from the winning titles, the show paid tribute to acclaimed Oregon writer Barry Lopez, who died last December. Lopez hosted the OBAs in 2006 and won the program’s C.E.S. Wood Distinguished Writer Award, in addition to the National Book Award and nominations he received during his lifetime.

Check out the full list of winners here:

Ken Kesey Award for Fiction

Vanessa Veselka of Portland, The Great Offshore Grounds

Stafford/Hall Award for Poetry

Anna Elkins of Rogue River, Hope of Stones

Frances Fuller Victor Award for General Nonfiction

Nicholas Buccola of Portland, The Fire Is upon Us: James Baldwin, William F. Buckley Jr., and the Debate over Race in America

Sarah Winnemucca Award for Creative Nonfiction

Sierra Crane Murdoch of Hood River, Yellow Bird: Oil, Murder, and a Woman’s Search for Justice in Indian Country

Eloise Jarvis McGraw Award for Children’s Literature

Jenn Reese of Portland, A Game of Fox and Squirrels

Leslie Bradshaw Award for Young Adult Literature

Kathryn Ormsbee of Eugene, The Sullivan Sisters

Angus Bowmer Award for Drama

Conor Eifler of Portland, You Cannot Undo This Action

Walt Morey Young Readers Literary Legacy Award

PlayWrite Inc. of Portland

The Stewart H. Holbrook Literary Legacy Award

Elizabeth Lyon of Eugene

C.E.S. Wood Award

Molly Gloss of Portland

Explore more on:

Oregon Book AwardsLiterary ArtsBarry LopezVanessa Veselka

Shannon Gormley

Shannon Gormley

Shannon Gormley is originally from Baltimore, Maryland. She covers local and non-local music in Portland, and writes for Baltimore City Paper whenever she's visiting her hometown.

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