| Kirstin Valdez Quade | |
| Birth Place: | Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S. |
| Language: | English |
| Education: | Phillips Exeter Academy[1] Stanford University (BA) University of Oregon (MFA) |
| Occupation: | Writer, Professor |
| Genre: | Fiction, short story |
| Nationality: | American |
| Years Active: | 2009—present |
Kirstin Valdez Quade is an American writer.
Quade was born to a white father and a Hispanic mother in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Her father was a desert geologist and her family lived throughout the Southwestern United States, as well as in Australia.[2] 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[3] and will be returning to Stanford University in the Fall 2023.
Quade's work has appeared in The New Yorker, Narrative Magazine,[4] The Best American Short Stories, The O. Henry Prize Stories, and elsewhere.[5] 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.[6]
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."[7] The Five Wounds, her debut novel, was published in 2021.[8] The novel was shortlisted for the 2022 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction.[9]
| 2013 | Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award | [10] | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| "Nemecia" | Narrative Prize | [11] | ||||
| 2014 | PEN/O. Henry Stories | [12] | ||||
| Night at the Fiestas | National Book Foundation | "5 Under 35 Award" | [13] | |||
| 2016 | John Leonard Prize | [14] | ||||
| 2021 | The Five Wounds | Center for Fiction First Novel Prize | [15] |