The Author! Author! series began in 2012 as a way to expand the literary landscape in Central Oregon while raising funds for the Deschutes Public Library Foundation. With best-selling writers visiting for each annual series, Central Oregon has played host to numerous authors who have won Pulitzer Prizes, National Book Awards, and Edgar Awards, among other literary prizes.

THE 2024 SEASON LINE-UP FEATURES:

Friday, February 2, 2024

Friday, March 1, 2024

Stephanie Land with books meadow web.jpg

Thursday, May 16, 2024

ANNE LAMOTT | 7:00 p.m. | Bend High auditorium

ANNE LAMOTT is the author of seven novels: Hard Laughter, Rosie, Joe Jones, Blue Shoe, All New People, Crooked Little Heart, and Imperfect Birds. She has also written several bestselling books of nonfiction, including Operating Instructions, an account of life as a single mother during her son’s first year; Some Assembly Required: A Journal of My Son's First Son; and the classic book on writing, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. She has also authored several collections of autobiographical essays on faith: Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith, and Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith. Her next book will be Somehow: Thoughts on Love (Riverhead, April 9, 2024).

Lamott has been honored with a Guggenheim Fellowship and has taught at UC Davis, as well as at writing conferences across the country. Academy Award-winning filmmaker Freida Mock made a documentary on Lamott, entitled Bird by Bird with Annie (1999). Lamott has also been inducted into the California Hall of Fame.

STEPHANIE LAND | 7:00 p.m. | Bend High auditorium

STEPHANIE LAND is the author of Class and the New York Times bestseller Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother’s Will to Survive, which inspired the Netflix series Maid and was called “a testimony…worth listening to” by The New York Times. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, The Guardian, The Atlantic, and many other outlets. Her writing focuses on social and economic justice and parenting under the poverty line. She is a frequent speaker at colleges and national advocacy organizations.

ROBIN WALL KIMMERER|7:00 p.m. | Bend High auditorium

ROBIN WALL KIMMERER is a mother, scientist, decorated professor, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. She is the author of Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, which has earned Kimmerer wide acclaim. Her first book, Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses, was awarded the John Burroughs Medal for outstanding nature writing, and her other work has appeared in Orion, Whole Terrain, and numerous scientific journals.

Robin has been featured on NPR’s On Being with Krista Tippett and in 2015 addressed the general assembly of the United Nations on the topic of “Healing Our Relationship with Nature.” Kimmerer is a SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental Biology, and the founder and director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment, whose mission is to create programs which draw on the wisdom of both indigenous and scientific knowledge for our shared goals of sustainability. In 2022 she was named a MacArthur Fellow.

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PAST AUTHOR! AUTHOR! PRESENTERS

Click "Go to link" when hovering over an author to be taken to a photo album of the author's presentation.

Richard Russo

March 14, 2019