Village Books and Paper Dreams, Bellingham and Lynden, Wash., has founded the Village Books Literary Citizenship Award, which will be given annually to coincide with the anniversary of the bookstore's founding on June 20, 1980.
Owners Paul Hanson, Kelly Evert, and Sarah Hutton said the award will honor people who have "demonstrated a commitment to engage with the literary community with the intent of giving as much, if not more so, than they receive. This can take many different forms such as giving back to the literary community in a meaningful way, making yourself available to other writers as time allows to provide your knowledge and expertise, championing other people's successes, and involving yourself in the local literary landscape of independent bookstores, libraries, and writing organizations." Each winner receives $1,000 and will be inducted into the Village Books Literary Citizen Hall of Fame, which will be on permanent display in Village Books, Fairhaven, Bellingham.
The first recipients of the Village Books Literary Citizenship Award are:
Joan Airoldi (1946-2022), who was executive director of the Whatcom County Library System, fought the FBI about a patron's book in 2004, and won a PEN/Newman Award.
Laurel Leigh Erdoiza (1963-2023), a writer, teacher, and editor who taught creative writing and memoir classes through the Chuckanut Writers Program, helped found the Chuckanut Writers Conference in 2004, and hosted Village Books' Open Mic for more than a decade.
Rena Priest, an enrolled member of the Lhaq'temish (Lummi) Nation, who served as the sixth Washington State Poet Laureate (2021-2023), was the 2022 Maxine Cushing Gray Distinguished Writing Fellow, and has received a range of awards. For the book I Sing the Salmon Home, Priest gathered poems from more than 150 Washington poets, ranging from first graders to tribal elders, all inspired by the Northwest's iconic salmon.
For more about the honorees and the award, click here.