Ursula Kroeber Le Guin was an American author best known for her works of speculative fiction, including science fiction works set in her Hainish universe, and the Earthsea fantasy series. She was first published in 1959, and her literary career spanned nearly sixty years, producing more than twenty novels and over a hundred short stories, in addition to poetry, literary criticism, translations, and children's books. Frequently described as an author of science fiction, Le Guin has also been called a "major voice in American Letters". Le Guin said she would prefer to be known as an "American novelist".
Katherine Karen Dunn was a novelist, journalist, voice artist, radio personality, book reviewer, and poet from Portland, Oregon. She is best known for her novel Geek Love (1989). She was also a prolific writer on boxing.
Miriam Toews is a Canadian writer and author of nine books, including A Complicated Kindness (2004), All My Puny Sorrows (2014), and Women Talking (2018). She has won a number of literary prizes including the Governor General's Award for Fiction and the Writers' Trust Engel/Findley Award for her body of work. Toews is also a three-time finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and a two-time winner of the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize.
Molly Gloss is an American writer of historical fiction and science fiction.
Karen Russell is an American novelist and short story writer. Her debut novel, Swamplandia!, was a finalist for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. In 2009 the National Book Foundation named Russell a 5 under 35 honoree. She was also the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation "Genius Grant" in 2013.
Virginia Euwer Wolff is an American author of children's literature. Her award-winning series Make Lemonade features a 14-year-old girl named LaVaughn, who babysits for the children of a 17-year-old single mother. There are three books. The second, True Believer, won the 2001 National Book Award for Young People's Literature. The second and third, This Full House (2009), garnered Kirkus Reviews starred reviews. She was the recipient of the 2011 NSK Neustadt Prize for Children's Literature, honoring her entire body of work.
Cheryl Strayed is an American writer and podcast host. She has written four books: the novel Torch (2006) and the nonfiction books Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail (2012), Tiny Beautiful Things (2012) and Brave Enough (2015). Wild, which told the story of a long hike that Strayed took in 1995, was an international bestseller, and was adapted as the 2014 film Wild.
Monica Drake is an American fiction writer known for her novels, Clown Girl and The Stud Book. Clown Girl was a finalist for the 2007 Ken Kesey Award for the Novel through the Oregon Book Awards. It was named Best Book of 2007 by Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk in the December 2007 issue of Playboy Magazine.
The Oregon Book Awards are presented annually by Literary Arts to honor the "state’s finest accomplishments by Oregon writers who work in genres of poetry, fiction, graphic literature, drama, literary nonfiction, and literature for young readers."
Lori L. Lake is an American writer of fiction, mainly about lesbian protagonists. She is also an editor, instructor, publisher, and reviewer.
Kevin Sampsell is an American writer living in Portland, Oregon. He has worked at Powell's Book Store since 1998 as an events coordinator and the head of the small press section. His memoir, A Common Pornography, was published by Harper Perennial in January 2010. Tin House published his novel, This Is Between Us (2013), about a man and woman, both divorced, trying to start a life together. His collection of collage art and poems, I Made an Accident, will be published by Clash Books in summer of 2022. Sampsell also started and co-produced Lit Hop, a one-night, multiple-venue reading event in Portland, Oregon. It happened from 2013 to 2016. He curates and hosts another event promoting small publishers and small press writers, Smallpressapalooza, every March at Powell's Bookstore in Portland, Oregon.
Rachel Cohn is an American young adult fiction writer. Her first book, Gingerbread, was published in 2002. Since then she has gone on to write many other successful YA and younger children's books, and has collaborated on six books with the author David Levithan.
The PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection is awarded by the PEN America "to exceptionally talented fiction writers whose debut work — a first novel or collection of short stories ... represent distinguished literary achievement and suggests great promise." The winner is selected by a panel of PEN Members made up of three writers or editors. The PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize was originally named the PEN/Robert Bingham Fellowship for Writers. The prize awards the debut writer a cash award of US$25,000.
Lidia Yuknavitch is an American writer, teacher and editor based in Oregon. She is the author of the memoir The Chronology of Water, and the novels The Small Backs of Children,Dora: A Headcase, and The Book of Joan. She is also known for her TED talk "The Beauty of Being a Misfit", which has been viewed over 3.2 million times, and her follow-up book The Misfit's Manifesto.
Angela Flournoy is an American writer. Her debut novel The Turner House (2015) won the First Novelist Award and was shortlisted for the National Book Award for Fiction, shortlisted for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction, nominated for an NAACP Image Award, and named a New York Times Notable Book of 2015. She was also listed on the National Book Awards' 5 under 35 list, nominated by her former teacher ZZ Packer.
Mitchell S. Jackson is an American writer. He is the author of the 2013 novel The Residue Years, as well as Oversoul (2012), an ebook collection of essays and short stories. Jackson is a Whiting Award recipient and a former winner of the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence. In 2021, while an assistant professor of creative writing at the University of Chicago, he won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Magazine Award for Feature Writing for his profile of Ahmaud Arbery for Runner's World. As of 2021, Jackson is the John O. Whiteman Dean's Distinguished Professor in the Department of English at Arizona State University.
Justin Hocking is an American essayist and writer of memoir, literary nonfiction, and short stories.
Thea Harrison is the pen name of American author Teddy Harrison, who writes paranormal romance, sci-fi fantasy, and contemporary romance novels, including the New York Times and USA Today bestselling Elder Races series. Harrison has also written contemporary romance novels for Harlequin Mills & Boon under the pen name Amanda Carpenter.
K-Ming Chang is a novelist and poet. She is the author of the novel Bestiary (2020). Bestiary was long-listed for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction in 2021. In 2018 she published a poetry collection, Past Lives, Future Bodies.
The Great Offshore Grounds is an American novel, by Vanessa Veselka. It won the Oregon Book Award and was longlisted for the U.S. National Book Award.
