The Washington Center for the Book just announced the winners of the 2026 Washington State Book Awards for works published in 2025 by writers from our wonderful state. Across genre, form, and audience, these winners represent outstanding titles by authors who currently live in Washington, as judged by other local authors, librarians, and booksellers.
Creative Nonfiction/Memoir: Alterations by Bellingham poet Cori Winrock uses the metaphor of sewing and clothing alteration to process her grief after losing her unborn child. Winrock weaves together strands of feminized labor, fashion, history, ritual, and literature into an essay on mourning, with the story of a women’s collective who turn wedding dresses into infant burial garments running through.
Adult Fiction: Spokane author Leyna Krow intertwines fabulism and reality in her connected story collection Sinkhole, and Other Inexplicable Voids, which takes on environmental anxiety and familial relationships. The women of this collection ask, “What do we owe our family and friends in times of wild uncertainty?” (Publisher description)
General Nonfiction: Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution by Seattle researcher and author Cat Bohannon continues this focus on women by investigating the evolution of women’s bodies across time. Shifting the dominant narrative of male-centric evolution, Bohannon argues that women were the first to do many major milestones in human behavior, like walk on two legs and use tools, using other species for comparisons as well.
Poetry: Esther Lin is a Seattle poet, whose debut collection Cold Thief Place charts her experience as an undocumented immigrant whose parents fled Communist China and became fundamentalist Christians in Brazil, before ending up in the United States. The cofounder of Undocupoets, Lin uses the confessional form to explore immigration policy, her familial ties, and identity.
Picture Book: A Gift of Dust: How Saharan Plumes Feed the Planet by Martha Brockenbrough of Seattle, illustrated by Juana Martinez-Neal, is a nonfiction picture book tracking the journey of dust from a dried-up lake in the Saharan desert across the Atlantic Ocean all the way to the Amazon. The dust connects species, locations, and natural processes, brought to life by Martinez-Neal’s vibrant art.
Books for Young Readers: Poulsbo author Donna Barba Higuera was a previous WSBA finalist for Alebrijes and The Last Cuentista, and has now won for The Unlikely Aventuras of Ramón and El Cucuy, a chapter book with illustrations by Colombian artist Juliana Perdomo. A young cucuy, or boogeyman, lives in Ramón’s room and has a mission: frighten his first child or give up on belonging. This spinoff of Higuera and Perdomo’s picture book series dives deeper into the desire to be accepted and part of a community.
Young Adult Literature: Olympia author Vanessa L. Torres was another former finalist for The Turning Pointe and won this year for On the Wings of La Noche. This dark fantasy follows Estrella “Noche” Villanueva, who shifts into an owl and shepherds souls to the afterlife by night. This difficult job becomes even harder when her girlfriend dies at just 17, and Noche must decide how to say goodbye–especially as a new boy at school catches her attention.
See the full list of winners and finalists at Washington Center for the Book.
~posted by Jane S.