Kirstin Valdez Quade

Kirstin Valdez Quade is an American writer born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, best known for her debut short story collection Night at the Fiestas (2015), winner of the National Book Critics Circle's John Leonard Prize and the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction, and her novel The Five Wounds (2021), winner of the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. Her work, which explores themes of family, race, class, and coming-of-age in New Mexico landscapes, has appeared in The New Yorker and earned her the National Book Foundation's 5 Under 35 award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and other honors. She teaches creative writing at Princeton University.