The Washington Center for the Book announced finalists for the 58th annual Washington State Book Award (WSBA) on Tuesday, Sept. 3. Thirty-nine finalists were selected across seven categories, and two chosen authors — Rena Priest and Robert Lashley— hail from Bellingham.
Priest is a poet and enrolled member of Lummi Nation. She was nominated in the poetry category for editing “I Sing the Salmon Home: Poems from Washington State,” an anthology celebrating salmon. The collection includes work from more than 150 regional poets, ranging in age and experience from tribal elders to first graders.
Priest served as Washington State Poet Laureate from 2021–2023. She is the author of three additional published works: poetry collections “Sublime Subliminal” (2018) and “Patriarchy Blues” (2017), as well as the guidebook “Northwest Know-How: Beaches” (2022).
Lashley is an author, poet, essayist and critic. He was nominated in the fiction category for “I Never Dreamed You’d Leave in Summer,” whose title references a Stevie Wonder lyric. The epistolary novel centers around a Black student navigating “campus politics, community tensions and his own guilt over his past life as a drug runner.”
Lashley is a 2016 Jack Straw fellow whose other books include “Green River Valley” (2021), “Up South” (2017) and “The Homeboy Songs” (2014). His poems have also appeared in publications including The Seattle Review of Books, Poetry Northwest and McSweeney’s.
WSBA is an affiliate of the Library of Congress Center for the Book and is administered by Washington State Library. Winners in each category will be announced on Sept. 24. Info: washingtoncenterforthebook.org.
