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Articles by Karen Pate
George Saunders, Isabel Wilkerson among writers to appear at Portland Arts & Lectures
George Saunders will be the first of five writers to appear in the 2026-27 Portland Arts & Lectures series. There’s a little something for everyone in the lineup for Literary Arts’ 2026-27 Portland Arts & Lectures series, announced Monday night at this season’s final lecture. George Saunders, MacArthur Fellow and winner of the Man Booker Prize for his novel Lincoln in the Bardo, will kick off the season on Sept. 24. His most recent novel is Vigil.
Literary Arts announces finalists for 2026 Oregon Book Awards
Kimberly King Parsons accepts the fiction award for her novel, “We Were the Universe,” at the 2025 Oregon Book Awards Ceremony. This year, she will act as host during the April 20 event in Portland. Photo by: Andie Petkus, courtesy Literary Arts The list of finalists for the 2026 Oregon Book Award, announced Monday morning by Literary Arts, includes many names familiar to Oregon readers.
Books 2025: A year of triumphs and tensions
More than 8,500 people spent part of a sunny November day indoors, attending the Portland Book Festival, held in and around the South Park Blocks. Photo by Shawnte Sis, courtesy Portland Book Festival. In a recent podcast reflecting on 2025, book reviewers at The New York Times described the year in books as largely lackluster and lost, with deflated energy and a dearth of satisfying nonfiction. We’re here to tell you that in Oregon, not so much. Yes, we had our travails.
2025 Portland Book Festival lineup: Stacey Abrams, Jess Walter, Susan Orlean, Rebecca Yarros, and many more
Stacey Abrams, Jess Walter, Susan Orlean. If any of those names float your literary boat, you’ll want to set sail for the 2025 Portland Book Festival. Those writers are among the more than 80 authors and presenters scheduled to appear at the Nov. 8 festival, to be held in venues in and around downtown Portland’s South Park Blocks, Literary Arts, the nonprofit that presents the festival, announced Tuesday.
Oregon author Willy Vlautin is a finalist for the $50,000 Joyce Carol Oates Prize from the New Literary Project
Oregon’s Willy Vlautin, whose most recent novel, The Horse, tells the story of an alcoholic songwriter and the blind horse that helps him find a path out of his own darkness, is one of five finalists for the 2025 Joyce Carol Oates Prize, the sponsoring New Literary Project announced this week. The prize carries a $50,000 award and a brief fall residency at the University of California, Berkeley.
Literary Arts announces 2025 Oregon Book Award finalists
Literary Arts announced finalists for the 2025 Oregon Books Awards on Tuesday, with familiar names and first-time authors among the writers of 35 books chosen in seven categories. In addition, two Portlanders will be recognized for their contributions to Oregon’s literary culture: one for making books accessible to people living on the streets; the other for producing children’s books that tackle tough subjects. Laura Moulton of Portland, founder of Street Books, will receive the Stewart H.
Electricity Charges: Here We Go Again!
Beginning January 2025, the Sangre de Cristo Electric Association (SDCEA) is increasing the residential Service Availability Charge by $3.50 per meter per month to $38.51. This is the second of four planned 10% increases to the charge (subject to review), which could end up costing members $46.60 each month beginning in January 2027, for a real compounded increase of over 46% since 2023.
Literary Arts opens a new chapter
On a damp, perfectly Portland curl-up-with-a-book day, hundreds of readers crowded the historic Strowbridge Building – now The Susan Hammer Center – on Saturday to celebrate as Literary Arts added a new volume to its literary portfolio.
Ani DiFranco and Richard Powers to headline 2024 Portland Book Festival
Singer-songwriter – and children’s book author – Ani DiFranco and Pulitzer Prize winning novelist Richard Powers will headline the Portland Book Festival. More than 150 writers and artists will participate in the Nov. 2 festival, presented by Wells Fargo, in venues in and around Portland’s South Park Blocks.
Literary Arts announces 2024 Oregon Book Awards finalists
Literary Arts released the names of finalists for the 2024 Oregon Book Awards on Tuesday, and the bookshelf of nominees contains volumes ranging from nonfiction takes on backyard chickens and the temperate rainforest, to a novel in which a retired librarian finds a community of peers in a senior center, to a young adult story about a wild horse trying to find his way home. The winners will be announced April 8 at the Oregon Book Awards Ceremony, to be held in the Portland Center Stage Armory.
Portland Book Festival: One venue’s reading list
Karen Pate worked 29 years as an editor at , most of that time overseeing community news and features in Washington and Clackamas counties. She’s written about storytellers and banjo players, English-language bookstores in Paris and horses who starred in movies. Her work has appeared in and various equestrian publications. She wandered into journalism after studying creative writing at Reed College.
Portland Book Festival: Casey Parks’ memoir ‘Diary of a Misfit’ is an exercise in empathy
Karen Pate worked 29 years as an editor at , most of that time overseeing community news and features in Washington and Clackamas counties. She’s written about storytellers and banjo players, English-language bookstores in Paris and horses who starred in movies. Her work has appeared in and various equestrian publications. She wandered into journalism after studying creative writing at Reed College.
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