Tucson Festival of Books

Southwest Families, Past and Present


Four novelists---all inspired by the desert---discuss how they use the region to tell powerful stories rooted in history and informed by current events


Panelists
Evanthia Bromiley

Evanthia Bromiley is a graduate of the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers and the recipient of scholarships from the Aspen Institute, a Lighthouse Fellowship, a Lisel Mueller scholarship, and Elizabeth George and Carol Houck-Smith awards....

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Nathan Harris

Nathan Harris is the author of the New York Times bestseller "The Sweetness of Water," an Oprah’s Book Club pick. It was the winner of the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence and longlisted for the Booker Prize, the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, and the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize....

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Anne Hillerman

After a long career as a non-fiction writer, Anne Hillerman published her first mystery, "Spider Woman's Daughter" in 2013. The story and the series that followed, continued the adventures of Navajo law enforcement characters created by her father, Tony Hillerman, and added many new twists....

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A. Muia

A. Muia was the winner of last year's Flannery O'Connor Award for "A Desert Between Two Seas," a novel that was among the Pima County Public Library's Southwest Books of the Year and a finalist for the Iowa Short Fiction Award....

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Books:
Amity
A Novel
Nathan Harris
Fiction / Literature
Little Brown
September 2025
ISBN 9780316456241
320 pages

Shadow of the Solstice
A Leaphorn, Chee and Manuelito Novel
Anne Hillerman
Mystery / Thrillers
HarperCollins Publishers
January 2026
ISBN 9780063344860
336 pages

A Desert Between Two Seas
A Novel in Stories
A. Muia
Southwest Books of the Year
University of Georgia Press
September 2025
ISBN 9780820374383
248 pages