Spokane authors dominate the Washington State Book Awards' fiction category

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Sharma Shields

The Washington Center for the Book at the Seattle Public Library today announced the finalists for the 2016 Washington State Book Awards, and three of the five in the running for fiction awards are from Spokane. 

Sharma Shields (The Sasquatch Hunter's Almanac), Shann Ray (American Copper) and S.M. Hulse (Black River) are all among the nominees in the Fiction category, along with Ann Pancake and Stephanie Kallos of Seattle. 

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Shann Ray

Spokane's Jack Nisbet is nominated in the History/General Nonfiction category for Ancient Places: People and Landscape in the Emerging Northwest. 

The winners will be announced at an awards ceremony Oct. 8 in Seattle. Winners receive a $500 honorarium, and the judges for the non-children's books are Linda Andrews of Walla Walla Community College, Lisa Bitney of Tacoma Public Library, Pam Cady, of University Book Store, Lisa Gresham of the Whatcom County Library System and Paul Hanson of Village Books.

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S.M. Hulse

While you wait to hear who won, you can reacquaint yourselves with Spokane's nominated writers with Inlander profiles done in the past year or so: 

• Sharma Shields, Monsters & Demons
• Shann Ray, Renaissance Man
• S.M. Hulse, A Good Year
• Jack Nisbet, Kicking Rocks