With the announcement of the Deschutes Public Library Foundation’s fifth season of Author! Author!, there can be no question that the popular literary series has hit its stride. The stellar line-up includes three Pulitzer Prize winners and one Pulitzer finalist and all four authors have made significant contributions to their communities and areas of interest:
KATHERINE BOO | Thursday, October 20, 2016 | 7pm | Bend High School Auditorium
Boo is a staff writer at The New Yorker and a former reporter and editor for The Washington Post. Over the years, her reporting from disadvantaged communities has been awarded a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, a MacArthur “genius” grant, and a National Magazine Award for Feature Writing. In 2012 she won the National Book Award for Nonfiction for her book Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity.
ANTHONY DOERR | Thursday, February 9, 2017 | 7pm | Bend High School Auditorium
Doerr is a novelist and author of short stories. In 2015 he won the Pulitzer Prize for his novel All the Light We Cannot See. Doerr’s short stories and essays have won four O. Henry Prizes and have been anthologized in The Best American Short Stories, New American Stories, and more. He also writes a column on science books for the Boston Globe and is a contributor to the online magazine The Morning News. He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2010.
SIDDHARTHA MUKHERJEE | Wednesday, April 12, 2017 | 7pm | Bend High School Auditorium
Mukherjee is a physician, scientist and author. His best-selling 2010 book, The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, was awarded the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction and was named one of the 100 most influential books written in English since 1923 by the Time magazine. His latest book is The Gene: An Intimate History, which chronicles the history of the gene and the quest to understand human heredity and its influence on our lives, personalities, identities, fates and choices.
DAVE EGGERS | Date to Be Announced | Bend High School Auditorium
Eggers is an author, screenwriter, editor and publisher. His best-selling memoir A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction. He has written more than a dozen works of fiction and non-fiction, including What Is the What, Zeitoun and The Circle. Eggers is the founder of McSweeney’s, an independent publishing house and co-founder of the literacy project 826 Valencia and a human rights nonprofit, Voice of Witness.
“Author! Author! promotes and strengthens community dialogue,” says the program’s Project Director Chantal Strobel. “We’ve seen great discussions happen in the past around authors like Sherman Alexie, Ann Patchett, Elizabeth Gilbert, and others and this season continues that tradition with what may be our best line-up yet.”
General admission tickets are just $25 per event, but the entire four-author series can be purchased for $80. “The cost of the full series is comparable to one concert ticket,” says Strobel. She says that the Library Foundation’s goal is to make the presentations as affordable as possible while also raising money for Deschutes Public Library programs and services that are not funded by tax dollars.
In an effort to increase exposure to literature and engage teens in civic dialogue, the Library Foundation provides free tickets for up to 200 regional high school students to attend the four author presentations and to receive copies of the authors’ books. “The outreach is part of an effort to connect with young adults in the region and to expose them to quality literature while engaging them in discussions regarding the books’ themes,” says Strobel.
541-312-1027
www.dplfoundation.org