Novelist & Travel Guide Writer

Thomas Kohnstamm

author of

Supersonic, Lake City, and Do Travel Writers Go to Hell?

in conversation with series host

Michael N. McGregor

author of The Last Grand Tour

& An Island to Myself: The Place of Solitude in an Active Life

6 p.m., Thurs., November 12

Cascadia Art Museum, 190 Sunset Ave, Edmonds, WA

(To order tickets through the Cascadia website, click here)

Thomas Kohnstamm is the author of two novels and a controversial memoir about his years as a guidebook writer that created an uproar in the travel community two decades ago. A New York Times reviewer said Do Travel Writers Go to Hell? was the “most depraved travel book of the year” and he “couldn’t get enough of it.” In a starred review, Kirkus Reviews praised it for its “spirited prose and insightful exploration of the less-romantic side of travel writing” while calling Kohnstamm “one to watch.”

Since that auspicious debut, Kohnstamm has published the novels: Lake City, which takes a close look at the normally unseen down-and-outs on the outskirts of Seattle, and Supersonic, a sweeping, historical look at the Emerald City one writer calls “the Great Seattle novel.” Seattle Met magazine hailed Lake City as “an intelligent, darkly comic page turner” and Publishers Weekly, in another starred review, called Supersonic a “splendid, centuries-spanning tale” that “shouldn’t be missed.” According to Seattle Met magazine, Supersonic unearths “the very real ethos of a city constantly reinventing itself through boom and bust cycles across generations.”

When he’s not writing novels, Kohnstamm runs his own studio, Subtext, providing narrative-driven written and visual content for companies. He lives in Seattle with his wife, two children, and a dog named Tuna.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Purchase or pre-order Thomas Kohnstamm’s books online at the Edmonds Bookshop.

~~~~~

About the Cascadia Writers-in-Conversation Series

Every other month, host Michael N. McGregor brings one Northwest writer in front of an enthusiastic audience for a brief reading, a discussion of the author’s work, and a question-and-answer session with engaged literature lovers.

The series showcases the wealth of writing talent in the Pacific Northwest by featuring writers from different genres at different stages of their careers who may have been overlooked rather than those readers already know.

Writers who appear in the series are also featured on WritingtheNorthwest.com.

The series offers a unique chance to hear talented writers speak in-depth about what it means to be an author in the Northwest and why and how they create their works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. The conversations take place in one of Cascadia’s beautiful galleries, with Northwest art lining the walls.

Cascadia Art Museum is the only museum dedicated to artists and their works from the Pacific Northwest. Focused on visual art and design from 1860 to 1970, it is committed to the belief that recognizing previously neglected artists who made significant contributions to the region’s cultural identity gives us a fuller and more comprehensive understanding of Northwest art history. The Writers-in-Conversation series signals the museum’s desire to highlight underappreciated Northwest artists in literature as well. The series is co-sponsored by the Edmonds Bookshop.

Michael N. McGregor is Seattle-based author whose book Pure Act: The Uncommon Life of Robert Lax was a finalist for a Washington State Book Award. After living his early life in Seattle, he spent 17 years as an award-winning professor of creative writing at Portland State University, where he helped found the MFA in Creative Writing program. A former member of the Advisory Committee for the Oregon Book Awards and Fellowships, he holds a BA in Journalism from the University of Oregon and an MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia University in New York. His first novel, The Last Grand Tour, and his first memoir, An Island to Myself: The Place of Solitude in an Active Life, were published in 2025.

~ ~ ~

Note: I’m an affiliate of Bookshop.org, where your purchases support local bookstores. If you buy a book through a click on this website, I’ll earn a small commission that helps defray the costs of maintaining WritingtheNorthwest.com.