Anna Odessa Linzer

Anna Odessa Linzer has always lived along the Salish Sea. Her deep connection with the Pacific Northwest is reflected in both her poems and her fiction. Her novel Ghost Dancing (Picador/ St. Martin’s Press) received an American Book Award in 1999. Her novels Blind Virgil, Dancing on Water, and A River Story were produced as the handbound, limited-edition Home Waters by fine-arts publisher Marquand Books. A River Story was adapted and performed as a two-person play, and her poems have been featured in gallery and museum installations as well as on wine bottles.

As a bookbinder and designer, Linzer received a Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award for Excellence in 1975. One of her sculptural handbound books received an award at the Bellevue Arts Museum Arts Fair in 1976. Her nonfiction work received a Terry McAdams Award in 2000. She has been a copyeditor for PARIS LA; a fiction editor of Raven Chronicles; and a chair of the PEN West Literary Awards. She has often worked on environmental protection and restoration issues, including founding one of the first land trusts in Washington State.