ANNIE LAMPMAN is the author of the award-winning novel Sins of the Bees and the poetry chapbook Burning Time. Her short stories, poetry, and narrative essays have been published in seventy-some literary journals and anthologies, including Orion Magazine and The Massachusetts Review. Lampman holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Idaho and has been awarded the 2020 American Fiction Award for Crime Thriller, the Dogwood Literary Award in Fiction, a Best American Essays "Notable," and a Pushcart Prize special mention. She lives in Pullman, Washington, where she bird watches, grows a pollinator garden, and restores a National Historic Registry home.

"A well-plotted drama linking three unlikely characters as they make the transition into their lives' next phases."
--KIRKUS REVIEWS

"[The Origin of Ava] is about renewal, redemption, and nature . . . reflecting the environmental crisis our planet is facing."
--BOOKLIST

"Tough, gritty, and rich. All the more powerful when notes of compassion, camaraderie, grace and beauty break through. A remarkable piece of writing."
--PHIL KLAY, Redeployment

"With a forest fire at our backs, Lampman's masterful storytelling compels us across Pacific Northwest wilderness and beyond--with human longing and the beating of birds' wings for company."
--CHARLIE J. STEPHENS, A Wounded Deer Leaps Highest

"The Origin of Ava pins absolution and reinvention to faith in a hurt but resilient natural world. Children, like birds, are gorgeous creatures of Ava's planet, mirroring the past but gesturing toward the future--never fixed, not foregone."
--KARIN ANDERSON, Things I Didn't Do

"Lampman's prose crackles with wildfire and renewal. The Origin of Ava celebrates the people, places, and myths that form us, hold us, and always welcome us home."
--MARTHA WILLIAMS, The Community Library in Ketchum

"An urgent and passionate portrait of the northern Idaho wilderness, its birdlife, and three of its human inhabitants, whose damaged lives intersect, revealing the redemptive power of nature, time, and chosen family."
--CAROL PRICE, BookPeople of Moscow

"A captivating exploration of loss and renewal. Lampman weaves unforgettable characters into a narrative that celebrates the resilience of the human spirit."
--CHELSIA RICE, Montana Book Company

"Lampman has crafted a conversation between mythologies, landscapes, and continents, a novel that shows us the attainable grace beyond our deepest scars and the scars we inflict on each other and the natural world."
--ROCHELLE SMITH, University of Idaho Library

"Poignant. The Origin of Ava is an exploration of how deeply we are connected to the earth and to each other."
--ERICA NICOLE, Washington State University Library

Publisher: Torrey House Press

Pub date: 2026-03-10

Length: 320 pages