Location
2855 NW Clearwater Drive
Bend, Oregon 97703
United States
Date & Time
4:00pm PDT - 5:30pm PDT
About This Event
*Tickets available starting April 1*
Join us for the final A Novel Idea 2026 event.
About the Author:
Thomas Kohnstamm was born and raised in Seattle. He still lives in the same house he grew up in, now with his wife and two children. A freelance writer for more than 20 years, he's been a Spanish and Portuguese translator, travel writer, a video and travel writer, and an animation producer. He has covered subjects ranging from rainforest conservationto quantum computing to backcountry skiing. Supersonic is his third book. His other books are Lake City and Do Travel Writers Go to Hell?: A Swashbuckling Tale of High Adventures, Questionable Ethics & Professional Hedonism.
About the Book:
Supersonic charts the rise of a boomtown city in the American West where ambition outpaces memory. In the present day, PTA president Sami Hasegawa-Stalworth is determined to rename her daughter's elementary school after her late grandmother—a beloved music teacher and Japanese internment survivor. What begins as a symbolic family gesture spirals into a kaleidoscopic, multi-generational story of struggle—for and against change, and over who gets to define the future.
Through interwoven lives—an opioid-addicted 19th-century conman, a disgraced Navy seaman building a jet that will fly faster than sound, a stay-at-home dad turned weed entrepreneur and a family haunted by the ghosts of progress—Supersonic reveals how each era tries to remake the same ground beneath its feet. At once intimate and panoramic, the story channels the restless energy that propels the West.
About This Event
*Tickets available starting April 1*
Join us for the final A Novel Idea 2026 event.
About the Author:
Thomas Kohnstamm was born and raised in Seattle. He still lives in the same house he grew up in, now with his wife and two children. A freelance writer for more than 20 years, he's been a Spanish and Portuguese translator, travel writer, a video and travel writer, and an animation producer. He has covered subjects ranging from rainforest conservationto quantum computing to backcountry skiing. Supersonic is his third book. His other books are Lake City and Do Travel Writers Go to Hell?: A Swashbuckling Tale of High Adventures, Questionable Ethics & Professional Hedonism.
About the Book:
Supersonic charts the rise of a boomtown city in the American West where ambition outpaces memory. In the present day, PTA president Sami Hasegawa-Stalworth is determined to rename her daughter's elementary school after her late grandmother—a beloved music teacher and Japanese internment survivor. What begins as a symbolic family gesture spirals into a kaleidoscopic, multi-generational story of struggle—for and against change, and over who gets to define the future.
Through interwoven lives—an opioid-addicted 19th-century conman, a disgraced Navy seaman building a jet that will fly faster than sound, a stay-at-home dad turned weed entrepreneur and a family haunted by the ghosts of progress—Supersonic reveals how each era tries to remake the same ground beneath its feet. At once intimate and panoramic, the story channels the restless energy that propels the West.
Getting There
Summit High School
2855 NW Clearwater Drive
Bend, Oregon 97703
United States
Location
2855 NW Clearwater Drive
Bend, Oregon 97703
United States
Date & Time
4:00pm PDT - 5:30pm PDT