The 20th year of Deschutes Public Library Foundation’s A Novel Idea will come to a close Saturday, culminating with an author panel the library is calling The Main Event.

Each year, a committee selects a book (and sometimes a youth title as well) for the Novel Idea treatment, announced in December. The following spring, DPL hosts a month of book clubs and programs related to that year’s title, concluding with a public presentation by that year’s author.

To mark the 20th year, however, the library chose to bring back four authors from A Novel Ideas past. Therefore, instead of a solo presentation, Saturday’s event will feature a discussion by the four writers:

• David James Duncan, whose acclaimed novel “The River Why” kicked off the first-ever event in 2004. This year, participants read Duncan’s 1992 novel, “The Brothers K.”

• Maria Amparo Escandon, who visited in 2006 with “Gonzalez & Daughter Trucking Co.,” is also back. This time around, the library selected her years-in-the-making follow-up novel, “L.A. Weather.”

• Peter Heller, whose post-apocalyptic novel “The Dog Stars” was selected in 2014 returns. This time, area readers tackled his 2021 thriller, “The Guide.”

• Irish author Anne Griffin, whose novel “When All is Said” was the book of choice in 2020, will finally get to appear in person to discuss the book DPL chose this year, 2022’s “Listening Still,” about a family of undertakers, two of whom can communicate with the recently deceased, and what happens when the parents and owners of the business decide they want to retire.

Authors return to Bend

When she spoke to GO! earlier this month, Griffin recalled the spring of 2020 The onset of the pandemic in 2020 forced her live event to pivot online.

“I remember talking to my sister and saying, ‘I’m due to go to Oregon,’ she said. “I was saying, ‘I’m sure this will all be figured out by then.’ You know, I had no worry. I thought, ‘This is going to be fine.’ And then of course it had to be canceled.”

You might think the shutdown would have afforded her a lot of time and space to write the book that became “Listening Still,” and you’d be half right.

“Oh, God, I had a nightmare through it, I tell you, because my workspace was gone,” she said. Her husband, a loud-voiced teacher who continued to work via Zoom, and her son, a student stuck at home as well, “I literally went to write in the car. I wrote in my car,” she said. “Me and the cat were in the backseat of the car.”

Griffin said she’ll believe Saturday’s live event is a GO! only once she’s sitting on the plane.

“It’s looking good,” she said, laughing. “It’s an incredible honor to be chosen to come over. It’s such an honor to come from a small town here in Ireland to be brought over to meet so many people and see such a brilliant community event. I’m so excited about it.”

Fifteen years elapsed between Escandon’s 2006 visit for “Gonzalez & Daughter Trucking Co.” and the follow-up, “L.A. Weather,” about a year during which a Mexican-American family faces relationship fallouts and other calamities that threaten to tear them apart.

“I had a big gap (between books) where I was trying to put together a film adaptation of ‘Gonzalez & Daughter’ that hasn’t gone anywhere until now,” she said. “I was dealing with cancer, I was dealing with my kids going to college, and going through all their tribulations and crises, all kinds of stuff. A lot of family issues.” Teaching writing also took up time.

In 2017, she moved to New York for four years. It was there that she got the idea for “L.A. Weather,” partly due to her own family drama, but also because of New Yorkers, she said.

“I heard quite a few New Yorkers tell me that there was no weather in L.A. — kind of dismissive, you know, like, ‘You don’t have weather in L.A.,’ like, ‘Look at us, we have all the seasons and everything.’ I took it upon myself to prove them wrong, so I got to writing.”

Escandon was pleasantly surprised when the DPL Foundation invited her back this year.

“I was, and I tell you, very pleasantly surprised because, of all the events I’ve done all over, this is pretty much my favorite,” Escandon said.

“I have such amazing memories and fun recollections of the kindness and enthusiasm of everyone, so it was just great to hear back from them.”

Liz Goodrich, adult programs supervisor for Deschutes Public Library, has been one of the chief organizers since the inception of A Novel Idea, which debuted in 2004 and has seen the local reading public rally around books by authors such as Khaled Hosseini (“The Kite Runner”) in 2005 and Kathryn Stockett (“The Help”) in 2010.

“It’s still going strong,” Goodrich said of the event. “It’s a testament to the books that we’ve chosen over the years, but also a testament to our reading community. They are committed. … Year after year, book clubs and readers pick the Novel Idea book (to read) regardless of the title, just because they want to participate. And that’s such an honor. We understand that people’s free time is precious, and that they choose to engage with the library through this project is humbling. It’s humbling, but it’s also rewarding.”

The popular community reading project is a true team effort, Goodrich said.

“After 20 years of growing A Novel Idea into what it is today, we find our biggest limitation is our ability to find space to host supporting programs,” she added. “We’ve opened all meeting spaces in our libraries to the public, which has filled a tremendous need — the demand is profound. But at the same time, it means we have less space available to host the programs for all ages that the community has come to love.

“We’re really looking forward to the new spaces being created through the bond projects — from all-new meeting rooms in the new Redmond Library and the planned Stevens Ranch Library to improved or additional meting areas in all other library locations. It’s going to have a huge impact on what we can do in the future.”

As to the next two decades of the event, Goodrich laughed and said, “It’s not going to be under my watch for the next 20 years, that’s for sure.”

What: A Novel Idea — The Main Event, featuring Maria Amparo Escandon, Peter Heller, Anne Griffin and David James Duncan 

When: 6 p.m. Saturday

Where: Bend High School Auditorium, 230 NE Sixth St., Bend

Cost: Free, but a ticket is required for entry; available via dplfoundation.org

Contact: dplfoundation.org