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Quick Facts
Biography
Kirstin Valdez Quade is an American writer. Her debut short story collection, Night at the Fiestas, received critical praise and won awards. A review in the New York Times labeled her stories "legitimate masterpieces" and called the book a "haunting and beautiful debut story collection."
Career
Quade's work has appeared in The New Yorker, Narrative Magazine, The Best American Short Stories, The O. Henry Prize Stories, and elsewhere. Her writing weaves together themes of family, race, class, and coming-of-age, and unfold in New Mexico landscapes inspired by the author's own upbringing.
She attended Phillips Exeter Academy and earned her BA from Stanford University and her MFA from the University of Oregon. From 2009 to 2011 she was a Wallace Stegner Fellow in the Creative Writing Program at Stanford University, where she also taught as a Jones Lecturer. In 2014-15, she was the Delbanco Visiting Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Michigan. She is currently an assistant professor of creative writing at Princeton University.
Awards and honors
- 2013 Narrative Prize for "Nemecia."
- 2013 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award
- 2014 National Book Foundation "5 Under 35 Award" for Night at the Fiestas
- 2014 PEN/O. Henry Stories selection for "Nemecia."
- 2016 John Leonard Prize, winner for Night at the Fiestas
External Links
- Kirstin Valdez Quade's faculty profile at the Lewis Center for the Arts
- Best Advice on writing at Narrative Magazine
- Night at the Fiestas, a book review at The New York Times
- Interview with Kirstin Valdez Quade at NPR