Tucson Festival of Books

Moniquill Blackgoose (she/her)



Angelina Bonin

Moniquill Blackgoose is the bestselling author of "To Shape a Dragon’s Breath," which has won both the Nebula and Lodestar Awards. She is an enrolled member of the Seaconke Wampanoag Tribe and a lineal descendant of Ousamequin Massasoit. She is a costumer and an active member of the steampunk community. She has blogged, essayed, and discussed extensively across many platforms the depictions of Indigenous and Indigenous-coded characters in sci-fi and fantasy.

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Awards: Nebula Award, Andre Norton Award, Lodestar Award

Communities: LGBTQ+, Indigenous or Native American, Neurodivergent


Scheduled events:
Adventures at the Edge of Everything
What does it take to craft unforgettable adventures across vastly different worlds? Authors Jonathan Maberry, Moniquill Blackgoose and Edward Ashton will discuss their craft, their inspirations, and the challenges of writing adventures that resonate long after the last page.

Student Union Kachina (Seats 100)  View this venue on the Festival map
Sat, Mar 14, 10:00 am - 10:55 am
Sci-Fi / Fantasy / Horror
Signing area: UA Campus Store Book Sales (Mall) (following presentation)  View this venue on the Festival map

Panelists: Edward Ashton, Jonathan Maberry, Moniquill Blackgoose
Moderator: Christine Russell
Sponsor: Session made possible courtesy of Bourn Companies
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
Sponsors: Session made possible courtesy of Sara Cohen, The Neymeyer Family
Confessions of a Writer
Join four extraordinary voices across fantasy, horror, and speculative fiction for an honest, hilarious and heartfelt conversation about the realities of the writing life. See how the joy of creating worlds, the struggle of revision hell, and those bizarre rituals somehow make the words flow.

UA Mall Tent (Seats 250)  View this venue on the Festival map
Sun, Mar 15, 4:00 pm - 4:55 pm
Sci-Fi / Fantasy / Horror
Signing area: Sales & Signing Area - Central Mall (following presentation)  View this venue on the Festival map

Panelists: Rachel Harrison, Alix Harrow, Moniquill Blackgoose, Nghi Vo
Moderator: John Muñoz
Sponsors: Session made possible courtesy of Pepper Viner Homes, Stephen Golden and Susan Tarrence

Books:
To Ride a Rising Storm
The Second Book of Nampeshiweisit
Sci-Fi / Fantasy / Horror
Random House
January 2026
ISBN 9780593498309
464 pages
Buy now

A young indigenous woman and her dragon fight for the independence of their homeland in this epic sequel to the bestselling and multi-award-winning To Shape a Dragon’s Breath, “a remarkable novel that is bound to be a staple of fantasy shelves for years to come” (BuzzFeed). More/less

To Shape a Dragon's Breath
The First Book of Nampeshiweisit
Sci-Fi / Fantasy / Horror
Random House Worlds
May 2023
ISBN 9780593498286
528 pages
Buy now

The remote island of Masquapaug has not seen a dragon in many generations—until fifteen-year-old Anequs finds a dragon’s egg and bonds with its hatchling. More/less