March 22

What a wonderful evening we had with New York Times Bestselling author Anne Hillerman (daughter of the late Tony Hillerman) last week at the Timbermine Steakhouse in Ogden.

Anne was the guest speaker of the 2024 TFNU Author Dinner Event. She presented a light-hearted, endearing rendition of what it has been like taking her father’s prolific and well loved series of stories centered around the Navajo detetives: Leaphorn, Chee and Manuelito, and continuing it. Though Anne had already had a career as a writer for news, radio, magazines, etc., she’d never written a novel. She took a chance and published her first book and continuation of her father’s series, Spider Woman’s Daughter. Needless to say, it took off and her 9th novel, Lost Birds, comes out April 23, 2024.

One of the last books that Anne and her father, Tony worked on together before his death in 2008, was Tony Hillerman’s Landscape where they laid out a stunning collection of original documentary photos of the landscapes that were integral to his writing - and still are to Anne. They added brief synopses of his novels, descriptive passages from the novels, and his own comments about the sites as a narrative to the photos.

Anne spoke about how in her 8th book, The Way of The Bear, she referenced and then created the landscape of her book with Utah’s own Bears Ear National Monument.

The first SOLD OUT TFNU Author Dinner in recent years, we want to thank Anne, the staff of the Timbermine Restaurant, The Queen Bee Bookstore, Eliott Hulet, George Elliott Hall Company, The Crosland Family, The Diana S. Ellis Foundation & every person who purchased a ticket for a wonderful evening! This event is our biggest fundraiser of the year!

Is there an author you’d be interested in seeing at an upcoming TFNU Author Dinner Event? Let us know at [email protected].