• April 1, 2024
          Finalists reading: Creative Nonfiction, Fiction and Poetry
          April 3, 2024
          One Page Wednesday: APRIL
          April 4, 2024
          Everybody Reads 2024: Gabrielle Zevin
          April 8, 2024
          2024 Oregon Book Awards Ceremony
  • Box Office

1,700 WRITERS SUPPORTED

From Literary Arts’ 2021/22 Annual Report

We celebrated and recognized the remarkable work being created by local writers and publishers through awards and fellowships. We also hired local and national authors to teach classes, and partnered with artists and organizations to host free events in our space and in the community. 

Oregon Book Awards

The 2022 Oregon Book Awards (OBA) finalists included 35 titles in seven genres, selected from 202 submissions. For the first time since 2019, the annual Oregon Book Awards ceremony was held in person, on April 25, at Portland Center Stage at The Armory. Hosted by Kesha Ajose-Fisher, the evening included music by The Fionnghal Trio from Corvallis, a poetry performance by Oregon’s Poet Laureate Anis Mojgani, the announcement of the Oregon Book Award winners in seven categories, and a special award presented to writer and teacher Cynthia Whitcomb.  

Click here to learn about the Oregon Book Awards winners.

Oregon Book Awards Author Events

In March and April, we hosted online readings featuring the 2022 Oregon Book Awards finalists, and posted the recordings afterwards on our YouTube channel. We also hosted an in-person reading at Literary Arts with the fiction and poetry finalists. In April, we partnered with the Springfield Public Library for an in-person hybrid event in Springfield with two of the finalists in creative nonfiction. 

Click here to view the finalists

Oregon Literary Fellowships

We received 479 applications from writers and 23 applications from publishers for the 2022 fellowships. Out-of-state judges spent several months evaluating these applications, using literary excellence as the primary criterion. 

Click here to read about the 2022 Oregon Literary Fellowship recipients

“In a lonely year, the award was a welcome ray of ‘fellowship,’ in the communal sense of the word. “

— Jamie McPartland, Laurell Swails and Donald Monroe Memorial Fellowship recipient 

@LiteraryArts Events

We continued to offer online events through much of the year, but were delighted to also return to some in-person events at our downtown center. These events included our ongoing resident series: INCITE, One Page Wednesday, Slamlandia, and the BIPOC reading series. We also partnered with Tin House, The Bagley Wright Lecture series, and local and national authors for events. In May, in partnership with Ooligan Press, we offered a BIPOC publishing event that included virtual and in-person components, with opportunities for writers to have face-to-face meetings and ask questions with representatives from Microcosm Publishing, Ooligan Press, Pomegranate, and Tin House. 

Writing Classes

Students took classes that ranged in length from one afternoon to nine months, in genres that included memoir, novel, fiction, publishing, and the lyric essay. In addition to Portland participants, students attended online from Bend, Corvallis, Eugene, Hood River, McMinnville, Salem, and other Oregon towns, as well as towns in California, Idaho, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Canada. Many of our classes were online, but we offered two in-person classes as part of Portland Book Festival in November 2021 and another in-person class in May 2022. 

View a list of upcoming writing classes here.

Committed to Equity

  • 41% of 2022 OBA judges are BIPOC 
  • 30% of writing teachers are BIPOC 
  • 50% of 2022 OLF judges are BIPOC 
  • 81 writing class and Delve students received an access tuition scholarship, which covers 60% of the class tuition

Read the full report below.

Click here for a PDF version of the report.