Last night, Literary Arts announced the finalists for the 2011 Oregon Book Awards.
Willy Vlautin's Lean on Pete seems likely to win the fiction category, though I've not yet read Emily Chenoweth's Hello Goodbye, and I hear good things. (The fiction award is judged by Lydia Millet! Badass. Robert Pinsky judging poetry is pretty cool too.) I have not read nearly enough of the rest of the finalists to make any educated guesses, save to say that Tom Bissell is one of the savviest pop-culture commentators around, so I bet his Extra Lives will be tough to beat in the creative non-fiction category.
Finalists after the jump! Winners will be announced at a ceremony at the Gerding Theater on Monday, April 25.
In other book news, the Morning News just announced the contenders for their 2011 Tournament of Books. It's a solid enough list—Aimee Bender, Jonathan Franzen, Jennifer Egan, Paul Murray—and all nominated books are currently 30% off at Powell's, so you can follow along at home. I vote Aimee Bender. Because I have a totally unobjective author crush on Aimee Bender—one of the nicest, most generous writers I've ever had the privilege of interviewing. (Along with Sam Liypsyte, whose The Ask I am disappointed to not see in the tournament—I suppose it's time to accept that most people just did not love that book as much as I did, even though it is hilarious and great].)