If the latest news out of DC has you hiding and watching videos of gentle, curious skunk families, well, here's a worthy distraction. The 2017 Oregon Literary Fellowships were announced today, and they're full of good news. Highlights include: awards for solid local presses Perfect Day Publishing and Future Tense Books, and a nonfiction fellowship for Mercury contributor Santi Elijah Holley. Here's what Suzette Smith wrote this about Perfect Day's latest release, Martha Grover's The End of My Career, in our review:

I don’t have much in common with Grover, but her easy prose makes me feel as if I do. In my mind, she’s exactly where every Portlander is right now. She is coping with an illness. She has strained but important relationships with her family. She tries out different jobs, willing to be versatile, to try everything, to survive. She works as a private investigator and later as a real estate agent. It’s somewhat humbling that—despite growing up in Corbett and the Montavilla neighborhood—Grover still views herself as an interloper. Martha Grover isn’t an outsider. Or maybe she is—but only in the way that in Portland, we all are.

The fellowships were selected by a panel of judges including playwright Andrea Hairston and Dzanc Books' Steve Gillis. Each fellowship recipient receives a grant of $3,500 to fund a writing project. You can see the full list here.

Literary Arts will announce finalists for the Oregon Book Awards next week.