Keynote Address
in Partnership with Deschutes Public Library
3:30pm - 4:30pm
FREE & Open to the public!
"Discussing A Hole in the Sky and The El: A Conversation on Survival, Identity, and Storytelling"
Daniel H. Wilson & Theodore C. Van Alst Jr.
The Sisters Festival of Books is proud to present its keynote address in partnership with Deschutes County Library Services: “Discussing A Hole in the Sky and The El: A Conversation on Survival, Identity, and Storytelling.” This featured conversation brings together two acclaimed authors—Daniel H. Wilson and Theodore C. Van Alst Jr.—for an exploration of survival, identity, and the power of storytelling to connect us across cultures and experiences.
Together, Wilson and Van Alst will share an hour of thought-provoking conversation that spans speculative futures and contemporary realities, exploring how fiction can illuminate what it means to endure, to resist, and to find meaning through story.
About Hole in the Sky
A Native American first contact story and gripping thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of Robopocalypse.
On the Great Plains of Oklahoma, in the heart of the Cherokee Nation, a strange atmospheric disturbance is noticed by Jim Hardgray, a down-on-his-luck single father trying to reconnect with his teenage daughter, Tawny. At NASA’s headquarters in Houston, Texas, astrophysicist Dr. Mikayla Johnson observes an interaction with the Voyager 1 spacecraft on the far side of the solar system, and she concludes that something enormous and unidentified is heading directly for Earth. And in an undisclosed bunker somewhere in the United States, an American threat forecaster known only as the Man Downstairs intercepts a cryptic communication and sends a message directly to the president and highest-ranking military brass: “First contact imminent.”
Daniel H. Wilson’s Hole in the Sky is a riveting thriller in the most creative tradition of extraterrestrial fiction. Drawing on Wilson’s unique background as both a threat forecaster for the United States Air Force and a Cherokee Nation citizen, this propulsive novel asks probing questions about nonhuman intelligence, the Western mindset, and humans’ understanding of reality.
Theodore C. Van Alst Jr (enrolled member, Mackinac Bands of Chippewa and Ottawa Indians) is the co-editor of best-selling Never Whistle at Night. He is author of Tillie Olsen Award Winning Sacred Smokes (2018, now in its third printing), Electa Quinney Award Winning Sacred City (2021), and Sacred Folks (2024) as well as the editor of The Faster Redder Road: The Best UnAmerican Stories of Stephen Graham Jones (2015), all from the University of New Mexico Press. He is the author of Pour One for the Devil (2024) from Lanternfish Press. His debut novel, The El, will be published by Vintage/Penguin Random House in 2025. His work has appeared in Southwest Review, The Rumpus, Red Earth Review, The Journal of Working-Class Studies, Chicago Review, Electric Literature, and Indian Country Today, among others.
About The El
From the co-editor of the bestselling anthology Never Whistle at Night, a semi-autobiographical novel that follows a group of teenage gang members as they trek across Chicago to a momentous meeting, inspired by the cult classic The Warriors.
An ordinary day in August 1979 dawns hot and humid in Chicago. Teenager Teddy is living with his dad after being kicked out of his mom’s house due to his gang activity. But Teddy has thrived in the Simon City Royals, and today, he'll be helping to lead a posse of the group's younger members south across the city to Roosevelt High School to attend a gathering of gangs forming “the Nation”—a bold new attempt at joining forces across racial lines. This holds particular importance for Teddy, as his branch’s only Indigenous member.
But when the meeting breaks up in gunshots and police sirens, Teddy must guide the Royals back across hostile territory, along secret routes and back alleys, and stop by stop on the thundering tracks of the El. In the face of violence from rival gangs and a secret Judas in the Royals’ ranks, Teddy is armed only with a potent combination of book smarts and street smarts, and by the guiding spirit of Coyote, who has granted him the power to glimpse a future only he may survive to see.
Immersed in the sights, sounds, and smells of the author’s beloved city, The El will transport you to that singular sun- and blood-soaked day in Chicago. It is a love letter to another time, to a city, and to a group of friends trying to find their place and make their way in a world that doesn’t want them.An ordinary day in August 1979 dawns hot and humid in Chicago. Teenager Teddy is living with his dad after being kicked out of his mom’s house due to his gang activity. But Teddy has thrived in the Simon City Royals, and today, he'll be helping to lead a posse of the group's younger members south across the city to Roosevelt High School to attend a gathering of gangs forming “the Nation”—a bold new attempt at joining forces across racial lines. This holds particular importance for Teddy, as his branch’s only Indigenous member.
Daniel H. Wilson is a Cherokee citizen and the multiple New York Times bestselling author of techno-thrillers such as Robopocalypse, The Clockwork Dynasty, and The Andromeda Evolution (an authorized sequel to the Crichton classic). He earned a PhD in Robotics from Carnegie Mellon University, as well as Masters degrees in Machine Learning and Robotics. His next novel, Hole in the Sky, is a story of Native First Contact, releasing October 7th, 2025. Wilson lives in Portland, Oregon.