Tucson Festival of Books

Tochi Onyebuchi (he/him)



Christina Orlando

Award-winner, Tochi Onyebuchi, is the author of "Goliath," a Locus Award and Dragon Award finalist, and the young adult novel, "Beasts Made of Night," which won the Ilube Nommo Award for Best Speculative Fiction Novel by an African. His novella "Riot Baby," a finalist for the Hugo, the Nebula, the Locus, and the NAACP Image Awards, won the Ignyte Award, the New England Book Award for Fiction, and an ALA Alex Award. His most recent release is "Harmattan Season."

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Awards: World Fantasy Award, Alex Award, Connecticut Book Award, New England Book Award for Fiction, Ignyte Award

Communities: African American


Scheduled events:
A Little Attitude and a Lot of Swagger
Three masters of attitude-driven storytelling discuss what it takes to create characters who command the page with charisma and swagger. They'll dive into how they craft unforgettable voices, writing characters who pop off the page, and why a little attitude goes a long way.

Koffler Room 218 (Seats 142, Wheelchair accessible)  View this venue on the Festival map
Sat, Mar 14, 10:00 am - 10:55 am
Sci-Fi / Fantasy / Horror
Signing area: Sales & Signing Koffler/Commons (following presentation)

Panelists: Tochi Onyebuchi, John Scalzi, Martha Wells
Moderator: Betsy Labiner
Our World, Shifted
Join Tochi Onyebuchi, Yiming Ma, and Moniquill Blackgoose as they discuss building speculative fiction worlds by defamiliarizing the present. They'll explore how temporal displacement, cultural reimagining, and environmental transformation, can create both the deeply familiar and the startlingly new.

Integrated Learning Center Room 130 (Seats 143, Wheelchair accessible)  View this venue on the Festival map
Sat, Mar 14, 4:00 pm - 4:55 pm
Sci-Fi / Fantasy / Horror
Signing area: Sales & Signing Area - Integrated Learning Center (following presentation)  View this venue on the Festival map

Panelists: Yiming Ma, Tochi Onyebuchi, Moniquill Blackgoose
Moderator: Betsy Labiner
No Easy Choices
In this session, our authors will introduce us to characters navigating catastrophic aftermath, where staying alive means crossing lines they never imagined. Join Nghi Vo, Tochi Onyebuchi and Edward Ashton as they discuss how they craft morally complex protagonists and explore the cost of survival.

Koffler Room 216 (Seats 89, Wheelchair accessible)  View this venue on the Festival map
Sun, Mar 15, 10:00 am - 10:55 am
Sci-Fi / Fantasy / Horror
Signing area: Sales & Signing Koffler/Commons (following presentation)

Panelists: Edward Ashton, Tochi Onyebuchi, Nghi Vo
Moderator: Jennifer Wong

Books:
Harmattan Season
A Novel
Sci-Fi / Fantasy / Horror
Tor Publishing Group
January 2026
ISBN 9781250814494
240 pages

Racebook
A Personal History of the Internet
Memoir / Essays / Creative Nonfiction
Grove/Atlantic, Incorporated
October 2025
ISBN 9780802166258
256 pages