For our new Up and Coming Award, the Willamette Writers board chose Kelly Williams Brown. We wanted an author who represented the best of emerging talent, and who had already demonstrated amazing skills and mastery of the writing craft. We found the perfect balance in Kelly.

She’s also a Willamette Writers Conference success story and is personable, funny, and charming. As last year’s keynote speaker for the Willamette Writers Gala Awards Banquet, she won over the entire room with her wit and insight. She will be accepting her award at the 2014 Gala Awards Banquet in August.

From her bio:

Kelly Williams Brown is a writer, blogger, reporter and agency creative living in Portland, Oregon. She is the author of the bestselling “Adulting: How to Become A Grown-Up in 468 Easy(ish) Steps” which has been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and on the Today Show, among others. After a seven-year career in daily newspaper reporting, Brown now splits her time between working as a humor columnist for The Daily Beast, writing for magazines like Brides, Cosmopolitan, and Glamour with work as a copywriter and creative for Leopold Ketel, a boutique Portland advertising agency. In her free time, she likes to craft, read, dance, spraypaint Goodwill furniture, cook shrimp and placate her angry tabby cat, Marigny Treme Brown-Gervais.

The Up and Coming Award is a new Annual Award from Willamette Writers. In an effort to acknowledge a writer at every stage in his or her career, it completes the triad that also includes the Distinguished Northwest Writer Award and the Lifetime Achievement Award. We hope to see Kelly back again in at the conference for the next stage of her writing career!