Author Deborah Jackson Taffa
COMMUNITY News:
Mesa Public Library will host national bestselling author Deborah Jackson Taffa, 2-3:30 p.m. Sunday, March 9 in Los Alamos.
Taffa will discuss the importance of the region’s literary voices, educating the next generation of storytellers, and read from her award-winning memoir “Whiskey Tender”.
Taffa is the director of the MFA CW Program at the Institute of American Indian Arts. Her memoir “Whiskey Tender” was a finalist for the 2024 National Book Award, as well as a longlisted title for a 2025 Carnegie Medal of Excellence in Nonfiction. The memoir was named a Top Ten Book of 2024 by The Atlantic and Time Magazine, as well as a top book of 2024 at NPR, Elle, Esquire, Audible, The New Yorker and Publisher’s Weekly.
Taffa is a 2024 NEA Fellow, a 2022 winner of the PEN/Jean Stein Grant for Literary Oral History, and has
received fellowships from the Tin House, University of Iowa, MacDowell, the Rona Jaffe Foundation, the Ellen Meloy Fund, and the New York State Summer Writers Institute. She is Editor Emeritus of River Styx literary magazine and an enrolled citizen of the Kwatsaan (Yuma) Nation and Laguna Pueblo. She earned her nonfiction MFA in Iowa City.
“Whiskey Tender” is a sharply written interpretation of Taffa’s relationship with her mixed tribe heritage. She shares her memories with wit and spirit through her childhood in Navajo territory of New Mexico in the 1970s and 1980s. She takes on the questions of tribal identity, assimilation policies, and resisting systemic oppression throughout generations of her family.
Taffa will be on hand after her presentation to meet the audience and sign copies of her works. Samizdat Bookstore & Teahouse will be at the library for this event with copies of “Whiskey Tender” available for purchase.
This event at the Los Alamos Public Library is free and open to the public. Copies of Taffa’s popular memoir “Whiskey Tender” are available to borrow from the library in print, audio and ebook formats with a library card.
For more information on this presentation or to find other programs at the library, visit LosAlamosLibrary.org.
