'A Good Map of All Things' Release Party
Please join the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing at Arizona State University, the University of Arizona Press and Changing Hands Bookstore for a reading and conversation with Arizona poet laureate Alberto Ríos as he debuts his first novel, "A Good Map of All Things," on Thursday, Oct. 29 from 6-7 p.m. Phoenix MST on Zoom.
The reading and conversation will be hosted by Anita Huizar-Hernandez, University of Arizona assistant professor of borderlands studies. This event is free and open to the public.
You can also purchase "A Good Map of All Things" to access a special live meet-and-greet with Ríos immediately following the release.
About the book
“The people in this fictional town are weird, funny, beautiful, and they do crazy things. They remind me of my own family, and I can’t help but to love them. Alberto Ríos is a great storyteller.” — Daniel Chacón, author of "Kafka in a Skirt"
“Ríos takes us to a home we’ve never been properly introduced to until now. Community activates through the sum of its parts, and though not always predictable as the stars, each of Ríos’s characters’ contributions is as necessary as the sun.” — Bryan Allen Fierro, author of "Dodger Blue Will Fill Your Soul"
About the authors
Alberto Álvaro Ríos, born in 1952 in Nogales, Arizona, is the author of 11 books and chapbooks of poetry, three collections of short stories and a memoir. His books of poems include "The Dangerous Shirt"; "The Theater of Night," winner of the 2007 PEN/Beyond Margins Award; "The Smallest Muscle in the Human Body," a finalist for the National Book Award; "Teodoro Luna’s Two Kisses"; "The Lime Orchard Woman"; "The Warrington Poems"; "Five Indiscretions"; and "Whispering to Fool the Wind," winner of the Walt Whitman Award. His three collections of short stories are, most recently, "The Curtain of Trees," along with "Pig Cookies" and "The Iguana Killer." His memoir about growing up on the Mexico-Arizona border — called "Capirotada" — won the Latino Literary Hall of Fame Award and was recently chosen as the OneBookArizona selection.
Ríos is host of the Eight, Arizona PBS groundbreaking original production Books & Co., now in its 22nd year on air, where he provides viewers exclusive access to renowned authors and fresh faces on the literary scene, in intimate conversations with writers offering an unparalleled exploration into the heart and creative process of contemporary literature.
Recently honored with the University of Arizona Outstanding Alumnus Award, Ríos is the recipient of the Western Literature Association Distinguished Achievement Award, the Arizona Governor’s Arts Award, fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, the Walt Whitman Award, the Western States Book Award for Fiction, six Pushcart Prizes in both poetry and fiction, and inclusion in "The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry," as well as more than 300 other national and international literary anthologies. His work is regularly taught and translated, and it has been adapted to dance and both classical and popular music.
Ríos is a Regents Professor at Arizona State University, where he has taught for over 35 years and where he holds the further distinctions of the Katharine C. Turner Endowed Chair in English and University Professor of Letters. He is Arizona’s inaugural poet laureate and is currently a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.
Anita Huizar-Hernández is an associate professor of Border Studies in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Arizona. Her research investigates how narratives, both real and imagined, have shaped the political, economic and cultural landscape of the Southwestern borderlands in general, and Arizona in particular. Drawing from a diverse array of 19th- and 20th-century archival materials, her work recovers the underexplored history of race relations in the state and their continued impact on local, regional and national politics. Her first book is "Forging Arizona: A History of the Peralta Land Grant and Racial Identity in the West," New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2019.