OGDEN — The Trails Foundation of Northern Utah, or TFNU, will be holding an event to help fund the building and maintenance of nonmotorized trails in Weber County. On March 14, the organization will host its annual author dinner at Timbermine Steakhouse, located at 1701 Park Blvd., from 5:30-9 p.m.

New York Times bestselling author Anne Hillerman will be featured at the event, during which she’ll discuss how places like the Valley of the Gods in the Bears Ears National Monument helped shape her stories and characters. She’ll also discuss how she transitioned from a career in journalism and nonfiction authorship into that of a novelist later in life.

Hillerman just penned “Lost Birds,” the ninth installment of the popular mystery series created by her late father, Tony Hillerman, which chronicles the exploits of Navajo Police detectives Joe Leaphorn, Jim Chee and Bernadette Manuelito. The books and characters inspired AMC’s ongoing psychological thriller TV series “Dark Winds.”

“Anytime we can bring an author in that has a unique background but also connects with the outdoor world, open space and monuments, we’re excited about it,” Aric Manning, TFNU’s executive director, told the Standard-Examiner.

Tickets for tables of 10 are available for $1,000, while individual tickets can be purchased for $100, via the TFNU website. Tickets for a 45-minute VIP wine and cheese reception with Hillerman before the dinner are available for $250. Additionally, table sponsors can add $150 per person for admission to the VIP reception.

“All these proceeds go right back to help with the trails,” Manning said. “It is our biggest single fundraiser we do every year.”

Per Manning, TFNU’s larger-scale projects include the Bonneville Shoreline Trail, Pineview Loop Pathway and Weber River Parkway. In particular, the latter trail has been impacted recently by excess stormwater and flooding.

“We actually learned a lot (last year) because of the runoff from the river,” Manning revealed. “So, we’re going to have to move the trail and install a couple of different bridges that we hadn’t anticipated early on. This is just for the future preservation of it, so we don’t have problems down the road. … There are actually sections that got washed away last year, that we just didn’t have the time and funding to fix. Hopefully, this year, we’ll have that opportunity.”

Manning added that new projects could be announced at the dinner.

Hillerman will be the 18th author to be featured as part of TFNU’s author dinner series, which was launched in 2005. Utahn Stephen Trimble — author of “Bargaining for Eden: The Fight for the Last Open Spaces in America” — headlined last year’s event.

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