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Author! Author! Returns—with an Oregon Focus

The Deschutes Public Library Foundation’s Author! Author! literary series brings award-winning authors to Central Oregon to share their books and engage audiences in discussions regarding their work—and this year, the focus is on Oregon authors. All proceeds from Author! Author! ticket sales benefit the library’s youth, teen, and senior programs and services.

 

WILLY VLAUTIN

Born and raised in Reno, Nevada, Willy Vlautin is the author of seven novels and is the founder of the bands Richmond Fontaine and The Delines. Vlautin has been the recipient of three Oregon Book Awards, The Nevada Silver Pen Award, and was inducted into the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame and the Oregon Music Hall of Fame. He was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award and was shortlisted for the Impac Award (International Dublin Literary Award). Three of his novels­—The Motel Life, Lean on Pete, and The Night Always Comes—have been adapted as films. His novels have been translated into 11 languages. Vlautin teaches at Pacific University’s MFA in Writing program and lives near Portland, Oregon, with his wife, dog, cats, and horses.

 

ANIS MOJGANI

Anis Mojgani was the 10th Poet Laureate of Oregon, a two-time individual champion of the National Poetry Slam, and winner of the International World Cup Poetry Slam. A recipient of an Academy of American Poets Poet Laureate Fellowship, Mojgani has done commissions for the Getty Museum and the Peabody Essex Museum. His work has appeared on HBO and National Public Radio, and in the pages of The New York Times, Rattle, Platypus, Winter Tangerine, Forklift Ohio, and Bat City Review. He is the author of six books of poetry and the opera libretto for Sanctuaries. Mojgani’s first children’s book is forthcoming, and his latest poetry collection is The Tigers They Let Me. Originally from New Orleans, he currently lives in Portland, Oregon.

 

ELLEN WATERSTON

Ellen Waterston was named Oregon Poet Laureate in August 2024 for a two-year term. A New Englander who moved to the ranching West, much of Waterston’s prose and poetry is inspired by the remote reaches of southeastern Oregon’s Outback. Waterston has published four collections of poetry and three nonfiction titles. Her latest book is We Could Die Doing This, a collection of essays. She is the recipient of the Stewart H. Holbrook Award and the Soapstone Bread and Roses Award, as well as winner of the Obsidian Prize in Poetry and two-time winner of the WILLA Award in Poetry. In addition to her work as an author, Waterston founded the for-profit Writing Ranch and two literary arts nonprofits. Waterston lives in Bend, Oregon.

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 FEATURED:

Friday, February 2, 2024

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

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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.

Friday, March 1, 2024

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Thursday, May 16, 2024

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

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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 TimesThe GuardianThe 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

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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.

THANK YOU TO OUR GENEROUS SPONSORS

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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.

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