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Kali Fajardo-Anstine is a National Book Award Finalist for her debut story collection, Sabrina & Corina. Drawing from her Southern Colorado heritage and life experiences living across the American West, Fajardo-Anstine’s writing and lectures reflect her own heritage as a Colorado Chicana with roots in Indigenous, Latina, and Filipino cultures. In rousing talks that challenge the status quo, Fajardo-Anstine speaks about her racial and familial identity, the systems in our society that hold back marginalized people, and the craft of writing about and researching one’s cultural roots.

In Sabrina & Corina, Fajardo-Anstine puts Latinas of Indigenous descent living in the American West at the center of each story. Her words serve as a powerful meditation on friendships, identity, mothers and daughters, and the deep-rooted truths of our homelands. Against the remarkable backdrop of Denver, Colorado, the women in these stories navigate the land the way they navigate their lives: with caution, grace, and quiet force.  

In addition to being a finalist for the National Book Award, Sabrina & Corina was also a finalist for the Story Prize, a finalist for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection, and the winner of the American Book Award. The collection was named one of the best books of the year by the New York Public Library, Kirkus Reviews, and Library Journal, and the American Library Association named it a 2020 Notable Book.  

Woman of Light, Fajardo-Anstine’s first novel, is a dazzling epic of betrayal, love, and fate that spans five generations of an Indigenous Chicano family in the American West. Hailed as a “cinematic, epic story” by Mira Jacob, it is a national bestseller and was selected as a Good Morning America Book Buzz pick in October 2022.  

Fajardo-Anstine’s deep love of bookstores led her to work as a bookseller for over a decade at West Side Books in North Denver. Her work has been honored with the Denver Mayor’s Award for Global Impact in the Arts and the Mountains and Plains Independent Booksellers Association Reading the West Award. She has been edited and mentored by writers like Mat Johnson, Joy Williams, and Ann Beattie. She also received the 2021 Addison M. Metcalf Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.  

In addition to Sabrina & Corina, Fajardo-Anstine’s stories and essays have appeared in GAY Magazine, The American Scholar, Boston Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Southwestern American Literature, Electric Literature, and more. Fajardo-Anstine has attended residencies at Yaddo, where she was the 2017 recipient of The LeSage-Fullilove Residency, Hedgebrook, and MacDowell Colony.  

Kali Fajardo-Anstine earned her MFA from the University of Wyoming and has lived across the country, from Durango, Colorado, to Key West, Florida. She is the 2022/23 Endowed Chair of Creative Writing at Texas State University and the 2023 Guggenheim Fellowship.  Kali Fajardo-Anstine is a National Book Award Finalist for her debut story collection, Sabrina & Corina. Drawing from her Southern Colorado heritage and life experiences living across the American West, Fajardo-Anstine’s writing and lectures reflect her own heritage as a Colorado Chicana with roots in Indigenous, Latina, and Filipino cultures. In rousing talks that challenge the status quo, Fajardo-Anstine speaks about her racial and familial identity, the systems in our society that hold back marginalized people, and the craft of writing about and researching one’s cultural roots.

In Sabrina & Corina, Fajardo-Anstine puts Latinas of Indigenous descent living in the American West at the center of each story. Her words serve as a powerful meditation on friendships, identity, mothers and daughters, and the deep-rooted truths of our homelands. Against the remarkable backdrop of Denver, Colorado, the women in these stories navigate the land the way they navigate their lives: with caution, grace, and quiet force.  

In addition to being a finalist for the National Book Award, Sabrina & Corina was also a finalist for the Story Prize, a finalist for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection, and the winner of the American Book Award. The collection was named one of the best books of the year by the New York Public Library, Kirkus Reviews, and Library Journal, and the American Library Association named it a 2020 Notable Book.  

Woman of Light, Fajardo-Anstine’s first novel, is a dazzling epic of betrayal, love, and fate that spans five generations of an Indigenous Chicano family in the American West. Hailed as a “cinematic, epic story” by Mira Jacob, it is a national bestseller and was selected as a Good Morning America Book Buzz pick in October 2022.  

Fajardo-Anstine’s deep love of bookstores led her to work as a bookseller for over a decade at West Side Books in North Denver. Her work has been honored with the Denver Mayor’s Award for Global Impact in the Arts and the Mountains and Plains Independent Booksellers Association Reading the West Award. She has been edited and mentored by writers like Mat Johnson, Joy Williams, and Ann Beattie. She also received the 2021 Addison M. Metcalf Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.  

In addition to Sabrina & Corina, Fajardo-Anstine’s stories and essays have appeared in GAY Magazine, The American Scholar, Boston Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Southwestern American Literature, Electric Literature, and more. Fajardo-Anstine has attended residencies at Yaddo, where she was the 2017 recipient of The LeSage-Fullilove Residency, Hedgebrook, and MacDowell Colony.  

Kali Fajardo-Anstine earned her MFA from the University of Wyoming and has lived across the country, from Durango, Colorado, to Key West, Florida. She is the 2022/23 Endowed Chair of Creative Writing at Texas State University and the 2023 Guggenheim Fellowship.  

About the Book:

There is one every generation, a seer who keeps the stories.  
 
Luz “Little Light” Lopez, a tea leaf reader and laundress, is left to fend for herself after her older brother, Diego, a snake charmer and factory worker, is run out of town by a violent white mob. As Luz navigates 1930s Denver, she begins to have visions that transport her to her Indigenous homeland in the nearby Lost Territory. Luz recollects her ancestors’ origins, how her family flourished, and how they were threatened. She bears witness to the sinister forces that have devastated her people and their homelands for generations. In the end, it is up to Luz to save her family stories from disappearing into oblivion.  
 
Written in Kali Fajardo-Anstine’s singular voice, the wildly entertaining and complex lives of the Lopez family fill the pages of this multigenerational western saga. Woman of Light is a transfixing novel about survival, family secrets, and love—filled with an unforgettable cast of characters, all of whom are just as special, memorable, and complicated as our beloved heroine, Luz.  
 
LONGLISTED FOR THE JOYCE CAROL OATES PRIZE • LONGLISTED FOR THE CAROL SHIELDS PRIZE FOR FICTION  

Mariko Turk grew up in Pennsylvania and studied creative writing at the University of Pittsburgh. She went on to get her PhD in English from the University of Florida with a concentration in children’s literature. She now lives in Colorado with her husband and daughter.  

Her debut novel, The Other Side of Perfect, was a YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults 2022 pick. Her next YA novel, I'll Be Waiting for You, won the Colorado Book Award for young adult fiction. Her third book for teens, The Museum of Modern Love, is a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard selection.

About the Book:

Natalie and Imogen are inseparable, and wildly different—Imogen is infuriatingly humble and incredibly intelligent, while Natalie is brave, jumping into danger and new adventures. Still, one thing ties them together: their love of the supernatural. Every summer, they vacation with their parents at the famously haunted Harlow Hotel. Imogen is a true believer, while Natalie sees ghost stories as nothing but pure fun.  

Then, Imogen suddenly passes away from an undiagnosed heart condition that no one saw coming, and Natalie is left to take on the summer before senior year alone.  

Without Imogen, Natalie throws herself into her senior project. Her passion is still horror, so she plans to spend her summer back at The Harlow Hotel recording fun fake footage that will get her on the teen ghost hunting show of her dreams. And her plans would be a lot less complicated if Leander, her irritatingly attractive archrival from school, wasn’t working on his senior project at the very same hotel.  

The longer Natalie stays at the Harlow Hotel, the more she realizes that Leander might be helpful for her project. After all, she could use an extra hand to help record her fake footage.  

But, when strange things start happening at the Harlow, Natalie wonders, could there really be something to these ghosts after all?  

Readers of Emily X.R. Pan, Nina LaCour, and Dustin Thao will fall for this story that explores what it means to believe—in ghosts, in the people you love, and in yourself.  

Dr. Jewell Parker Rhodes is the award-winning author of several books for youth including the New York Times bestsellers Ghost Boys, Black Brother, Black Brother, and Will’s Race for Home.  

The driving force behind all of Jewell’s work is to inspire social justice, equity, and environmental stewardship. She is the Founding Artistic Director of the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing and Narrative Studies Professor at Arizona State University.

About the Book:

Jewell Parker Rhodes goes West in this thrilling adventure story about a son and his father who set out to win land during the Oklahoma Land Rush—if they can survive the journey.  

It’s 1889, barely twenty-five years after the Emancipation Proclamation, and a young Black family is tired of working on land they don’t get to own.  

So when Will and his father hear about an upcoming land rush, they set out on a journey from Texas to Oklahoma, racing thousands of others to the place where land is free—if they can get to it fast enough. But the journey isn’t easy—the terrain is rough, the bandits are brutal, and every interaction carries a heavy undercurrent of danger.  

And then there’s the stranger they encounter and befriend: a mysterious soldier named Caesar, whose Union emblem brings more attention—and more trouble—than any of them need.  

All three are propelled by the promise of something long denied to them: freedom, land ownership, and a place to call home—but is a strong will enough to get them there?  

Stacy S. Jensen is a children’s book author with a passion for history, research, and exploring new topics like she did as a newspaper journalist. Her debut picture book Before I Lived Here was written while she lived in Colorado—inspired by her neighborhood. The book is illustrated by Victo Ngai and published by Neal Porter Books/Holiday House. She lives in Georgia with her family.

When she’s not writing, she enjoys time with family, reading, and paper quilling. She volunteers to support literacy, youth, and children’s programs. Outside Stacy loves experimenting with various s’mores combinations and inside she makes cookies, cupcakes, and chocolate treats.

She has two Vizslas, who walk a human daily.

Stacy is represented by Deborah Warren at East West Literary Agency.

About the book:

Journey backward in time through all the layers of history that led up to your neighborhood’s existence.  
 
The building you live in has probably been around longer than you, so you may think it’s been there forever. But no matter where you live, a whole lot happened before your home was built.  
 
In Before I Lived Here, a boy peels away each layer of the history of the land his house sits on. Follow along from the construction of the neighborhood back to the planning of it; from the ranchers and log cabins that predated it, back to the region’s Indigenous people and their eviction from the land . . . all the way back to the time of the dinosaurs.  
 
Before I Lived Here reminds us that history isn’t something that happens far away, to other people—it’s in our own backyards. Debut author Stacy S. Jensen makes the learning readily digestible. There’s something here for every reader—from the irresistible depiction of construction sites for vehicle fans, to the somber facts of indigenous displacement recounted without flinching, making for a great family conversation starter on many different levels.