Heather Lende and her husband Chip have five adult children and nine grandchildren. Heather is a hospice, library and radio station volunteer and served on the Haines Borough Assembly. She is the 2021-2023 Alaska State Writer Laureate, a former contributing editor at Woman's Day and a former columnist for the Anchorage Daily News. Her essays and commentary have been widely distributed. She has written over 400 obituaries for the Chilkat Valley News in Haines, AK and is the author of Of Ballots and Bears (2020) Find the Good (2015), Take Good Care of the Garden and the Dogs (2010), and NY Times bestseller, If You Lived Here, I'd Know Your Name (2005), all from Algonquin Books. She is happy to Zoom with book clubs. Heather is also the recipient of a Middlebury College alumni award and the Alaska Governor's Award for the Arts & Humanities. She has an MFA from the University of Alaska Anchorage. Everything else you'd ever want to know about her is in her books or on her website.