For the second time in three years, visiting English professor Andrea Stolowitz has won an Oregon Book Award.
The award program honors the state’s finest accomplishments by Oregon writers, who work in genres of poetry, fiction, drama, literary nonfiction and literature for young readers.
Stolowitz received the drama award for “Ithaka,” which tells the story of a veteran who confronts her demons after returning home from a tour in Afghanistan.
She earned the same honor in 2013 for her play, “Antarktikos,” which is about reaching closure when loved ones die.
Stolowitz says good writing is often overlooked because theatres are concerned about the financial bottom line. But awards such as these offer artists much-needed validation about their plays’ true worth.
This year, Stolowitz is employed as a playwright-in-residence at English Theatre Berlin in Germany. She’s working on a new project with Hand2Mouth Theatre in Portland, and she recently wrote a TV pilot about women’s college basketball.
She’s returning to Willamette next fall to teach playwriting and screenwriting classes.
