Local author Joy McCullough named as a finalist in three categories for 2023 awards from the Washington Center for the Book

Author Joy McCullough
Photo by Joe Iano

The Washington Center for the Book, (an affiliate of the Library of Congress Center for the Book administered by Washington State Library, a division of the Office of the Secretary of State) has announced the finalists for its 2023 awards.

A Shoreline author, Joy McCullough, has been named in three different categories. 

2023 WSBA Finalists: Books for Youth Categories

• Picture Books
• The Story of a Book by Joy McCullough of Shoreline, illustrated by Devon Holzwarth (Atheneum Books for Young Readers / Simon & Schuster)

• Books for Young Readers
• Code Red by Joy McCullough of Shoreline, (Atheneum Books for Young Readers / Simon & Schuster)

• Books for Young Adult Readers 
• Enter the Body by Joy McCullough of Shoreline (Dutton Young Readers / Penguin Random House)

Joy McCullough’s debut young adult novel Blood Water Paint won the Washington State and Pacific Northwest books awards, as well as honors such as the National Book Award longlist, finalist for the ALA Morris Award, a Publishers Weekly Flying Start and four starred reviews. 

She has since written picture books, middle grade and young adult novels that have been Junior Library Guild Selections, Indie Next Selections, finalists for the Washington State Book Award, and a New York Time bestseller. 

She writes books and plays from her home in Shoreline, where she lives with her husband and two children. She studied theater at Northwestern University, fell in love with her husband atop a Guatemalan volcano, and now spends her days surrounded by books and kids and chocolate.

Visit her at JoyMcCullough.com 

ABOUT THE AWARDS

These awards honor outstanding books published by Washington authors in 2023. An award is given based on the strength of the publication's literary merit, lasting importance and overall quality to an author who is a current resident of Washington state.

For the 2024 book awards, judges read and evaluated 292 books. 

About the nominations, Joy says,

Our area has so many fantastic authors, so it is incredible to be honored for my work across categories. They sent me a separate email for each book that was a finalist, so I was delighted, and then shocked, and then utterly astonished!

You can read more about my books at joymccullough.com and you can find my books at Shoreline's own independent bookstore, Ridgecrest Books.

Submissions for the 2025 awards cycle are being accepted at this time. For more information, see the Washington Center for the Book's website.