Karen Nelson with Pam Houston

Join us to celebrate Karen Nelson’s thrilling new novel, The Last Summer at Feather River which has been described as “a genuine page turner, driven by a galloping sense of suspense and delivered in deft and assured prose.”

About the Book
Ten years after an accident that forced her family to close Camp Feather River, Brooke must return to the ranch to care for her grandfather and face the repercussions of their decision. Brook once loved spending every summer at Feather River, riding horses, swimming in the lake, and helping her grandfather, Charlie, run the youth camp. But she has not set foot on the property since she and her mother abruptly left that night. Once back at the ranch, Brooke discovers that her family has been hiding more than she knew. While struggling to come to terms with what happened—and her part in it—Brooke realizes the accident might not have been an accident at all.

Part coming-of-age, part suspense, and part a story of redemption, The Last Summer at Feather River is a novel about damage done, secrets kept, sacrifices made, and whether it can be put back together after it all unravels.

Karen Nelson will be in conversation with author Pam Houston.

About the Speakers
Karen Nelson is the author of the novels The Last Summer at Feather River and The Sunken Town, and the co-founder of the nonprofit Writing By Writers. During her long career in nonprofits she has protected open space, funded cancer research, trained people to complete endurance events, and helped writers bring their work into the world. When not organizing writing workshops, she can be found hiking with her dog, reading, traveling, experimenting in the kitchen, and hosting dinner parties.

Pam Houston is the author of the memoir, Deep Creek: Finding Hope In The High Country, which won the 2019 Colorado Book Award, the High Plains Book Award and the Reading The West Advocacy Award and more recently, Air Mail: Letters of Politics Pandemics and Place coauthored with Amy Irvine. She is also the author of Cowboys Are My Weakness, Contents May Have Shifted, Sight Hound, A Little More About Me and Waltzing the Cat, all published by W.W. Norton. She lives at 9,000 feet above sea level on a 120-acre homestead near the headwaters of the Rio Grande and teaches creative writing at UC Davis and at the Institute of American Indian Arts. She is cofounder and creative director of the literary nonprofit Writing by Writers and fiction editor at the Environmental Arts Journal Terrain.org. She raises Icelandic Sheep and Irish Wolfhounds and is a fierce advocate for the Earth.

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