Alaska Literacy and Literature honored in 2025 awards

Years of support for authors, reading, and language mark the five winners of the 2025 Contributions to Literacy in Alaska (CLIA) Awards from the Alaska Center for the Book.

This year’s honorees are the Bright Lights Book Project, based in Palmer; Fairbanks author and literary critic David A. James; KYUK Public Media of Bethel; and Alaska Native language advocates Dr. Walkie Charles of Fairbanks and Yaayuk Alvanna-Stimpfle of Nome.

The Bright Lights Book Project (BLBP) promotes literacy by making books accessible to thankful readers, through literacy endeavors such as Kids Read to Seniors at the Palmer Pioneer Home, book fairs in Alaska villages, Story Time in parks, and school field trips at the BLBP Literacy Center in Palmer. In the five years since its beginning, the non-profit program has blended creativity, volunteer time, and community connections in spreading its vision across Alaska.

BLBP director Alys Culhane and a team of volunteers gather books donated by school districts, libraries, business, and private individuals. The program has over 40 bookcases of free books throughout the Mat-Su Borough. In 2024, more than 70,000 free books were distributed, including nearly 10,000 books shipped to 29 Alaska villages off the road system. From the start of the program in 2021, the program has shipped books to 46 villages across the state.

Books are often distributed in creative ways, through the use of grant-funded bookcases built by Career and Technical High School students, recycled newspaper stands, and little libraries. Eager volunteers logged over 10,000 hours of service in 2024.

The CLIA Award winners will be honored with a dessert reception at 7:00 p.m. Sunday, July 13 at the Carr-Gottstein Building on the Alaska Pacific University (APU) campus in Anchorage. Admission is free and open to the public. The brief ceremony will be followed by a reading from Homer poet Erin Coughlin Hollowell. The evening is also a kick-off to the Summer Community Reading Series.

The CLIA awards are presented annually by Alaska Center for the Book, Alaska’s affiliate with the U.S. Library of Congress Center for the Book. Since 1993, the awards have been presented to more than 100 people and institutions making a significant contribution in literacy, the literary arts, or the preservation of the written or spoken word.

Founded in 1991, ACB is a non-profit, all-volunteer organization. It participates in the National Book Festival, Alaska Reads, Alaska Book Week, Reading Rendezvous, and other events.