2026 Books Around the Bend Lunch
Tuesday, September 29 - 12:45 pm - 2:00 pm
Washington/Clark
Tuesday, September 29 - 12:45 pm - 2:00 pm
Washington/Clark
Tickets required
To celebrate ten authors with books to look forward to, due to publish in the later winter and spring. Ticketed attendees will have a chance to win a $750 scholarship to next year's show in Portland. (Must be present to Win.)
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Shea Ashdown spent years working in bookstores, first at Olsson’s Books & Records and Politics & Prose in Washington, DC, and then at Powell’s Books. In Five Mornings at the Bookshop, Paul Burns returns to his hometown on the Oregon Coast and build a quiet life after a twenty-five year prison stint. Working at a bookstore Paul happens upon his estranged daughter's hit memoir. Ashdown lives in Portland.
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Julie Buxbaum is the author of two novels for adults, The Opposite of Love and After You. All Together Now, her latest, is brimming with joy, honesty, humor, and heart. It charts the extraordinary life of the relatively ordinary Hazel Stein—as told by every version of herself she ever has been and ever will be. Buxbaum lives in Los Angeles with her husband and children.
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Veronica Casson is an illustrator, graphic designer, and queer mom. She is the creator of Ignatz Award nominated webcomic Claviger. Grind Like a Girl is her first book, which was first published as a webtoon. In this semi-autobiographical YA graphic novel, a trans teen navigates Catholic school, confusing crushes, and coming out in 90s New Jersey.
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P.C. Cast was born in the Midwest and after her tour in the USAF, taught high school for 15 years before retiring to write full time. She has over 30 million books in print worldwide. In her thrilling new YA romance, Maeve rescues a mysterious horse from the cold waters of her Scottish loch, only to discover he’s a royal kelpie, bound to ancient magic. Aided by a witch, a powerful kelpie, and two enemy Sith princes who each want to claim her heart, Maeve begins to realize there is magic that runs through her own veins. Cast lives in Oregon.
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Feast of Hearts is a lavish, achingly romantic fantasy set against the dark glamour of a school for dangerous magic. Welcome to Oculus Dei, the most prestigious school in the empire. Here, the brightest Imperial mages learn to master their burgeoning magic. But for Epona, the school is no dream -- it's a ruthless battlefield. Teri Dederer has an MFA in creative writing from Bowling Green University and lives in California with her husband and their huskies.
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Author photo: Jodi Stilp
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Melanie Dobson is the author of nearly thirty books, including The Wings of Poppy Pendleton, Catching the Wind, and The Lost Story of Via Belle. A haunting blend of hidden history, cult intrigue, and female resilience, The Sister Society uncovers the shocking origins of the Oneida silverware empire through a covert sisterhood of women bound by forbidden books, dangerous devotion, and the fight to reclaim their voices. Dobson is an adjunct professor of creative writing at Corban University and lives with her family in Oregon.
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Rachel Griffin writes novels inspired by the magic of the world around her. Born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, she has a deep love of nature, from the mountains to the ocean and all the towering evergreens in between. When the Woods Called Us Home is her atmospheric and haunting adult debut. When a disappearance rattles a small town, one woman confronts her fate and unravels the dark secrets of the past. Griffin lives with her husband in western Washington.
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Stephanie Kallos spent twenty years in the theatre as an actor and teacher. Her first novel, Broken for You, received the Pacific Northwest Book Award, the Washington State Book Award. She is also the author of the novels Sing Them Home and Language Arts. Her fourth, Monarch's Row, takes us from colonial India to a north London estate, from the trenches of World War I to a military hospital in the English countryside, from a seat on the Flying Scotsman to the corridors of a storied London publishing house. Monarch’s Row is a gloriously inventive work of historical fiction and a powerful testament to the resilience of the human heart. Kallos lives in Seattle.
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Marie Ryan McMillan's writing examines what it means for women to age in and near the wilderness. In Violet Temple Pulls the Oh Crap Strap, the jaded, solitary, menopausal owner of a kayaking business in Alaska recruits the help of a squad of oddballs to prevent the misogynistic heir of a 1950s romance novelist from killing people he believes are blocking his birthright—all while keeping her business afloat. Literally. She lives and works in Juneau with her husband.
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Kelsea Yu is the Taiwanese Chinese American author of the novellas Bound Feet and Demon Song, and the 2025 Children’s Book Council Award–winning novel, It’s Only a Game. Her latest, Stormraven, is a Rebecca-inspired gothic horror rooted in Chinese American history. A gifted artist uncovers a haunted mansion’s chilling secrets that threaten to make her dream life a living nightmare. Yu lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and children.
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