The Washington Center for the Book and The Seattle Public Library have selected 39 finalists in eight categories for the 2022 Washington State Book Awards.

Now in its 56th year, the Washington State Book Awards (WSBA) — formerly called the Governor’s Writers Awards — recognize outstanding books published by Washington authors in 2021.

A winner in each category will be announced Sept. 13, 2022.

2022 WSBA FINALISTS: BOOKS FOR ADULTS CATEGORIES

Biography/Memoir

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• Being Seen: One Deafblind Woman’s Fight to End Ableism by Elsa Sjunneson, of Seattle (S&S/Simon Element)
• Crossing the River: Seven Stories That Saved My Life by Carol Smith, of Seattle (Harry N. Abrams)
• Heart Radical: A Search for Language, Love, and Belonging by Anne Liu Kellor, of Seattle (She Writes Press)
• The Other Mothers: Two Women’s Journey to Find the Family That Was Always Theirs by Jennifer Berney, of Olympia (Sourcebooks)

Creative Nonfiction

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• The Book of Difficult Fruit: Arguments for the Tart, Tender, and Unruly (with recipes) by Kate Lebo, of Spokane (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• Readying to Rise: Essays by Marcus Harrison Green, of Skyway / south Seattle (Vertvolta Press)
• Rooted: Life at the Crossroads of Science, Nature, and Spirit by Lyanda Lynn Haupt, of west Seattle (Little, Brown Spark)
• We Hereby Refuse: Japanese American Resistance to Wartime Incarceration written by Frank Abe of Seattle and Tamiko Nimura of Tacoma; artwork by Ross Ishikawa of Seattle and Matt Sasaki of Edmonds (Chin Music Press)
• White Magic: Essays by Elissa Washuta, enrolled member of the Cowlitz Indian Tribe (Tin House Books)

Fiction

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• The Ex Talk by Rachel Lynn Solomon, of Seattle (Berkley)
• Legends of the North Cascades by Jonathan Evison, of Bainbridge Island (Algonquin Books)
• On Fragile Waves by E. Lily Yu, of western Washington (Erewhon)
• One Two Three by Laurie Frankel, of Seattle (Henry Holt and Company)
• What Comes After by JoAnne Tompkins, of Port Townsend (Riverhead Books)

General Nonfiction

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• Coming Home to Nez Perce Country: The Niim̕ipuu Campaign to Repatriate Their Exploited Heritage by Trevor James Bond, of Pullman (Washington State University Press)
• Facing the Mountain: A True Story of Japanese American Heroes in World War II by Daniel James Brown, of Redmond (Viking)
• Fear No Man: Don James, the ’91 Huskies, and the Seven-year Quest for A National Football Championship by Mike Gastineau, of Whidbey Island (University of Washington Press)
• Murder at the Mission: A Frontier Killing, Its Legacy of Lies, and the Taking of the American West by Blaine Harden, of Seattle (Penguin Books)
• Orca: Shared Waters, Shared Home by Lynda Mapes, of Seattle (Braided River and The Seattle Times)
• Skid Road: on the Frontier of Health and Homelessness in an American City by Josephine Ensign, of Seattle (Johns Hopkins University Press)

Poetry

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• Broken by Water: Salish Sea Years by Gary Thompson, of Friday Harbor (Turning Point)
• Dialogues with Rising Tides by Kelli Russell Agodon, of Port Ludlow (Copper Canyon Press)
• More American by Sharon Hashimoto, of Tukwila (Grid Books / Off the Grid Press)
• Self-Portrait with Cephalopod by Kathryn Smith, of Spokane (Milkweed Editions)
• Stray Birds by Andrew Robin, of Lopez Island  (Kelson Books)

2022 WSBA FINALISTS: BOOKS FOR YOUTH CATEGORIES

Picture Books

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• 1, 2, 3 Salish Sea: A Pacific Northwest Counting Book written and illustrated by Nikki McClure, of Olympia (Little Bigfoot)
• The Barking Ballad: A Bark-along, Meow-along Book written and illustrated by Julie Paschkis, of Seattle (Atheneum Books for Young Readers)
• Rock by Rock: The Fantastical Garden of Nek Chand written by Jennifer Bradbury, of Burlington; illustrated by Sam Boughton (Atheneum Books for Young Readers)
• Something Good illustrated by Corinne Luyken, of Olympia; written by Marcy Campbell (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)

Books for Young Readers

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• Almost Flying by Jake Maia Arlow, of Seattle (Dial Books)
• Happily For Now written by Kelly Jones, of Seattle (Knopf Books for Young Readers)
• The Last Cuentista by Donna Barba Higuera, of Issaquah (Levine Querido)
• Mighty Inside by Sundee Frazier, of Renton (Levine Querido)
• Orca Rescue! The True Story of an Orphaned Orca Named Springer written by Donna Sandstrom, of Seattle; illustrated by Sarah Burwash (Kids Can Press)

Books for Young Adult Readers

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• Calculated by Nova McBee, of Edmonds (Wise Wolf Books)
• A Complicated Love Story Set in Space by Shaun David Hutchinson, of Seattle (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers)
• Little Thieves by Margaret Owen, of Seattle (Henry Holt and Company)
• Remedy by Eireann Corrigan, of Tacoma (Scholastic Press)
• We Are the Ashes, We Are the Fire by Joy McCullough, of Shoreline (Dutton Books for Young Readers)

ABOUT THE AWARDS

The Washington State Book Awards are presented by the Washington Center for the Book (an affiliate of the Library of Congress Center for the Book administered by Washington State Library, a division of the Office of the Secretary of State) in partnership with The Seattle Public Library. The 2022 awards are administered by Sara Peté of the Washington State Library and Linda Johns and Sarah Wang of The Seattle Public Library. This year’s awards program is supported by a grant from the Amazon Literary Partnership.

These awards honor outstanding books published by Washington authors in 2021. An award is given based on the strength of the publication’s literary merit, lasting importance, and overall quality to an author who is a current Washington resident. For the 2022 book awards, judges read and evaluated 243 books.

JUDGES

For adult titles:

• Andrea Y. Griffith, Owner, Browsers Bookshop
• Valerie McBeth, Librarian, Northwest Indian College Library
• Tiffany Midge, Author and 2020 WSBA Finalist
• Corinne Wilson, Librarian, Spokane County Library District
• Jenna Zarzycki, Librarian, Covington Library / King County Librarian System

For youth titles:

• Tamar Clarke, Teen Services Coordinator, Whatcom County Library System
• Avery Mead, Teacher-Librarian, East Valley High School Library
• Christopher Robert, Librarian, Seattle Public Schools

Submissions for the 2023 awards cycle are currently being accepted (for books published in 2022). For more information, see the Washington Center for the Book’s website.

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