Literature

Unveiled!

Get ready for an unprecedented season of literary magic celebrating two decades of Oregon’s largest community read project. Expect the unexpected as hundreds of readers gather to find out what the next chapter of A Novel Idea will be.

The Deschutes Public Library Foundation will unveil the 2023 A Novel Idea selection at a public celebration on Saturday, December 3, at the Downtown Bend Library. Doors open at 5:30pm, with the main event taking place upstairs at 6pm, featuring trivia, light appetizers and no-host bar for attendees. The highly anticipated book reveal is slated for 6:30pm, with copies available for sale and for check-out immediately following the announcement.

“It’s an exciting time to be back in person with A Novel Idea 2023 on the horizon,” said Deschutes Public Library’s Programs Supervisor Liz Goodrich. “Many readers have enjoyed the selections together year-afteryear. You may not know these people personally, but you’ve read the same books and are connected through them.”

A Novel Idea began with David James Duncan’s The River Why. From 400 participants that first year, the program has grown by leaps and bounds, with nearly 9,000 people taking part in 2022. It is the largest community read program in Oregon, bolstered by nearly a month of free programming that enhances the chosen book’s themes.

“Over the past 19 years we’ve read some amazing novels and nonfiction titles, seen book-to-movie adaptations dominate the big screen and watched up-and-coming authors hit the bestsellers list right before our eyes. We can promise you this year is definitely going to be one for the books,” said Goodrich.

Programming for A Novel Idea kicks off April 1, 2023 with the main author event happening on Saturday, April 28. All programs are free of charge thanks to the support of the Deschutes Public Library Foundation. Readers can reserve a library copy immediately following the reveal on December 3. Local bookstores will have copies available for purchase.

Head to the A Novel Idea website for a look back at the past 19 years. For more information about this or other library programs, please visit the library website at deschuteslibrary.org and the Foundation website at dpl.foundation.org.

deschuteslibrary.org/novelidea • deschuteslibrary.org

Announcing Newest Release by Local Author

Rick Steber

LITERATUREL

At the end of the Civil War, federal troops were sent to the High Desert of the Far West with orders to kill any and all Native People who refused to give up their homeland and be confined to assigned reservations.

The narrator of Out Killing Indians is the son of an Indian father and white mother. He returns home to the reservation after a couple of decades spent roaming America to discover his great-grandfather was a renegade chief who fought to his death against the federal troops and the encroachment of the white race. This revelation inspires him to embrace his Indian heritage and to acknowledge the genocide of his people.

Author Rick Steber, long considered the voice of High Desert country, has over 50 titles under his belt and more than two million books in print. He has won many national and international awards, five of his books have been optioned for movies and he is the only Oregon author to have been presented with the prestigious Western Writers of America Spur Award — Best Western Novel. He is a keen observer of the evolving American West and articulates these changes in prose that is boldly descriptive, invigorating and spectacularly creative.

Out Killing Indians, 205 pages, retail price of $20.

RickSteber.com