Heather Lende is the New York Times bestselling author of If You Lived Here, I’d Know Your Name (2005); Take Good Care of the Garden and the Dogs (2010); Find the Good (2015); and Of Bears and Ballots: An Adventure in Small-town Alaska Politics (2020), all published by Algonquin Books.
She is the recipient of the Alaska Governor’s Award for Distinguished Service to the Humanities. Find the Good was the Alaska Reads pick for 2020. She is currently serving as Alaska State Writer Laureate (2021-2023).
Heather and her husband Chip Lende have five adult children and eight grandchildren. She has lived in Haines, Alaska, for over thirty-five years. Her books are based on her family and community experiences there, writing obituaries for the Chilkat Valley News, and now politics, as she recently served a three-year term on the Haines Borough Assembly. A former Anchorage Daily News columnist and contributing editor of Woman’s Day magazine, her essays and commentary have been distributed widely from NPR and the Christian Science Monitor to Country Living and Alaska literary journals.
For more on Heather and to read her blog, go to Heatherlende.com.