Creative Writing Past Faculty
Kirstin Valdez Quade
About
Kirstin Valdez Quade is the author of The Five Wounds, which is currently shortlisted for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize and the Carnegie Medal for Excellence and is longlisted for the Aspen Words Literary Prize. Her story collection, Night at the Fiestas, which won the John Leonard Prize from the National Book Critics Circle, the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a “5 Under 35” award from the National Book Foundation, and was a finalist for the New York Public Library Young Lions Award. It was named a New York Times Notable Book and a best book of 2015 by the San Francisco Chronicle and the American Library Association. Kirstin is the recipient of the John Guare Writer’s Fund Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome, a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer’s Award, and a Stegner Fellowship at Stanford University. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Best American Short Stories, The O. Henry Prize Stories, The New York Times, and elsewhere. Before joining the faculty at Princeton, she taught at Stanford University and the University of Michigan.
NEWS & LINKS
“Three at Princeton awarded Rome Prize in arts and humanities” | Princeton University News, April 13, 2018
“Announcing the 2018–19 Rome Prize Winners and Italian Fellows” | American Academy in Rome
“Run: California Is on Fire” | The Chronicles of Now, June 2020
“A Latino family’s love — and dysfunction in Kirstin Valdez Quade’s The Five Wounds” | NBC News, April 27, 2021
Awards and Acclaim for The Five Wounds by Kirstin Valdez Quade:
- Winner of the Center for Fiction 2021 First Novel Prize
- Winner of the 2022 Rosenthal Family Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters
- Shortlisted for the 2022 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction
- Shortlisted for the Lambda Literary Award in Lesbian Fiction
- Named a finalist for the 2022 PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel
- Named a finalist for the 2022 Aspen Words Literary Prize
- Named among top 10 Book-Group Books for 2021 (Booklist)
- Listed among NPR’s Best Books of 2021
- A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2021 in Fiction
- Named Best Fictional Family of the Year by Kirkus Reviews
- Nominated for Best Debut Novel at Goodreads Choice Awards
- Novel represents New Mexico at the Library of Congress’ National Book Festival in summer 2022