The national award-winning author Peter Heller will be the keynote speaker for the 27th annual Highland Park Literary Festival at 7 p.m. Thursday, March 2 at Highland Park High School. The evening Keynote Event is free and open to the community and is sponsored by La Fiesta de las Seis Banderas. The author will also address high school students during a schoolwide assembly Friday, March 3.
The festival celebrates literature and authors over several months through writing workshops, writing contests, parent and student book clubs, a movie event and a student-run open mic event. Some 30 accomplished novelists, journalists, poets, songwriters and playwrights will participate in workshops during the high school’s regularly scheduled English classes March 3. A special awards breakfast is also held to recognize outstanding student work.
Peter Heller is the national best-selling author of "The River," a story of two college students on a wilderness canoe trip. Heller has also written the novels "Celine," "The Painter," "The Dog Stars" and "The Guide." An award-winning adventure writer and a longtime contributor to NPR, Heller is a contributing editor at Outside magazine, Men’s Journal, and National Geographic Adventure, and a regular contributor to Bloomberg Businessweek. "The Dog Stars," which was lauded as a breakout bestseller, has been published in 22 languages and is optioned for a movie. "The Painter" was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and won the prestigious Reading the West Book Award.
Heller is also the author of several nonfiction books, including "Kook: What Surfing Taught Me About Love, Life, and Catching the Perfect Wave," which was awarded the National Outdoor Book Award for Literature, "Hell or High Water: Surviving Tibet’s Tsango River," and "The Whale Warriors: The Battle at the Bottom of the World to Save the Planet’s Largest Mammal." He holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in poetry and fiction and lives in Denver, Colorado.
HP LitFest is made possible by generous donations from La Fiesta de las Seis Banderas, GG Luxury Travel, HP Arts, HPHS PTA, PC-TAG and Toasted, along with families from the school district and beyond. It is further supported by a fundraising event, FlickFest. LitFest welcomes your contributions via the HP LitFest website here.