Upcoming book awards celebrate states best literature

Oregon authors, Elena Passarello and Omar El Akkad, prior winners of the Oregon Book Award, will be hosting a different kind of awards ceremony this year.

Literary Arts, a Portland nonprofit, originally planned for the awards ceremony to take place on April 27; however, it became apparent that circumstances required it to be rescheduled. The plan now is to have a virtual ceremony.

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One benefit of not having the ceremony live is that tickets were limited to the size of the venue, which was to be in the Pearl District at The Armory. Now instead of having only an audience of 590, the theater capacity, an unlimited number of people can tune in from home.

OregonLive reported that the following email was sent by Literary Arts to its supporters:



“We are thrilled to be able to celebrate the Oregon Book Awards in a way that is accessible to even more people.”




Passarello and Akkad will host the Oregon Book Awards via a broadcast on OPB Radio on Monday, June 22 from 7 to 7:30 pm. They will be announcing which seven of the 35 finalists prevail in the seven literary categories. Three special award winners will be announced as well.