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Northern Arizona
Book Festival 2025
Reader, Panelist & Performer Lineup
ANYA BLUE LIOR
is Sedona’s first Youth Poet Laureate and a life-long resident of Sedona. She is currently a junior at Verde Valley School in the Village of Oakcreek. She likes to spend her time making art, being in nature, and of course reading and writing poetry.
DERRICK C. BROWN
is an award-winning poet, storyteller, comic and president of Write Bloody Publishing. His innovative fusion of poetry and comedy earned Paste Magazine's Comedy Album of the Year (2023). The New York Times praises his work as "a rekindling of faith in the weird, hilarious, shocking,
beautiful power of words." A former paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne, Brown has authored ten poetry collections and four children's books, winning the Texas Book of the Year award for Poetry. He serves as the 2025/26 Poet Laureate of Los Feliz, California, and often tours via motorcycle, bringing his explosive performances to venues worldwide.
beautiful power of words." A former paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne, Brown has authored ten poetry collections and four children's books, winning the Texas Book of the Year award for Poetry. He serves as the 2025/26 Poet Laureate of Los Feliz, California, and often tours via motorcycle, bringing his explosive performances to venues worldwide.
MONICA BROWN
she/her/ella) is an award-winning author of more than 40 multicultural books for children, including, including Waiting for the Biblioburro, Frida and her Animalitos, and Marisol McDonald Doesn’t Match,/no combina, which was recently named "One of 65 Essential Children's Books" by The Atlantic. She is the recipient of two Américas Awards and a Christopher Award and her books have been featured in the NYTimes, the Washington Post, and on NPR's All Things Considered. Her new picture book is Singing Justice, Singing Peace: The Story of Joan Baez, and her latest chapter books are Lola Levine and the Dinosaur Scene and Lola Levine Runs Out of Steam. She is a Professor of English at Northern Arizona University and lives in Flagstaff with her family.
JONATHAN DANIELSON
(he/him) is the author of The Lowest Basin: Arizona Stories (Cowboy Jamboree Press, 2025), which was longlisted for the 2026 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Fiction and named to Southwest Books of the Year. He holds a PhD in English Literature from Arizona State University and an MFA from the University of San Francisco. His scholarly work focuses on the intersections between Creative Writing, the Western, and Arizona literary regionalism.
INTERFERENCE SERIES
Founded in 2015, the Interference Series in Flagstaff, Arizona, is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to presenting the work of local, national, and international artists that is experimental, avant-garde, or radical in nature. By providing a consistent home for this innovative and exciting art, we aim to serve as a platform for musicians, poets, performance artists, visual artists, dancers, and other yet-to-be-defined styles of performers. Our mission also includes building and educating an open and curious community that supports and celebrates these diverse artists.
DANA DIEHL
(she/her) is the author of The Earth Room (Black Lawrence Press, 2026), Our Dreams Might Align (Splice UK, 2018), and the collaborative collection, The Classroom (Gold Wake Press, 2019). Her chapbook, TV Girls, won the 2017-2018 New Delta Review Chapbook Contest. Diehl earned her MFA in Fiction at Arizona State University. Her work has appeared in North American Review, Necessary Fiction, Mid-American Review, and elsewhere. She is an educator in Tucson.
GARY EVERY
is the inaugural Poet Laureate for Sedona. An anthology of the best of his award-winning newspaper column was published under the title "Shadow of the OhshaD". He is the author of two published science fiction novellas "Inca Butterflies" and "The Saint and the Robot." He is currently the host of the literary radio program The Poetry and Prose Project on Mellow Mountain Radio 106.5 FM and 780 AM
MATTHEW HENRY HALL
has written two traditionally published children’s picture books set in the Grand Canyon, The Lucky Hat (Grand Canyon Conservancy, 2015) and Phoebe and Chub (Rising Moon, 2005), a finalist for a Western Writers of America Storyteller award. His cartoons have appeared in Reader’s Digest, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Missouri Review, Inside Higher Ed and many other publications, including the recent book, What They Didn't Teach You In Graduate School (Routledge, 2024). He also likes to sing, play guitar, and believes in being kind to everybody, small animals and bugs included.
JULIE HAMMONDS
(she/her) fell in love with "Hamlet" during a high school trip to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland and has nurtured her passion for Shakespeare ever since. She studied the plays in college and later stage-managed "The Winter’s Tale" and "Much Ado About Nothing." As founding board president of the Flagstaff Shakespeare Festival, she helped to create a thriving company that just celebrated its 11th season. She now serves on the festival’s Artistic Committee. She considers herself fortunate to live within driving distance of the Utah Shakespeare Festival, whose Adams Memorial Theatre was a source of inspiration for the Blue Mountain Rose Theatre. Her quest to complete the canon as an audience member has taken her to such far-flung locales as a community hall in Juneau, Alaska; the celebrated stages of the Stratford Festival in Stratford, Ontario; and the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon. She has four plays to go. It’s no wonder that Julie’s first novel is a celebration of the power and relevance of Shakespeare’s work in our lives.
JON HICKEY
(he/him) was born in Mankato, Minnesota. His debut novel BIG CHIEF was published by Simon & Schuster in 2025. He lives in San Francisco, and is a citizen of the Lac du Flambeau Band of Chippewa Indians (Anishinaabe).
GEETHA IYER
writes fiction, nonfiction, and the occasional poem or comic, usually about people or places in a state of ecological or social flux. Her work is featured in Orion, Gulf Coast, Ecotone, Story, Split Lip, The Forge, and National Geographic. Her writing has received the O. Henry Award, the James Wright Poetry Award, the Calvino Prize, and the Gulf Coast Fiction Prize. She is an Assistant Professor of English at Northern Arizona University, in Flagstaff, and the Associate Editor of Creative Nonfiction at ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment.
CLAUDIA KEELAN
is the author of 10 books, most recently We Step into the Sea: New and Collected Poems(Barrow Street) and Ecstatic Émigré: An Ethics of Practice (University of Michigan Poets on Poetry Series) She is a Distinguished Barrick Scholar at UNLV, where she serves as editor of Interim and the Test Site Poetry book series.
STEVEN LAW
(he/him) is an author, poet and Pushcart Prize-nominated essayist. He’s the author of “Gone. Encounters with Awe, Wonder and Reverence While Exploring the American West” (Middle Creek Publishing, 2024), and "Polished", a book of poems about exploring the Colorado Plateau by foot and by raft (Westbow Press, 2015).
Steven Law is an award-winning journalist, and a Contributing Writer for Panorama: the Journal of Travel Place and Nature. His travel essays have won numerous Gold and Silver awards at the Travelers Tales Solas Awards for Best Travel Writing.
Steven Law is an award-winning journalist, and a Contributing Writer for Panorama: the Journal of Travel Place and Nature. His travel essays have won numerous Gold and Silver awards at the Travelers Tales Solas Awards for Best Travel Writing.
KATHERINE LARSON
is the author of Radial Symmetry (Yale University Press, 2011), winner of the Yale Younger Poets Prize; The Speechless Ones (Interlinea Press, 2016), winner of the Vercelli International Civic Poetry Prize; and Wedding of the Foxes (Milkweed Editions, 2025). Her honors include a Ruth Lilly Fellowship, the Larry Levis Reading Prize, a Kate Tufts Discovery Award, an Arizona Commission on the Arts Research and Development Grant, and the Foreword Indies Gold Medal in Poetry. She is active with organizations and artists dedicated to conservation and environmental education in the Sonoran Desert and Upper Gulf of California.
AMBER McCRARY
(she/her/hers) is of the Kin Łichíí’nii clan, born for the Naakaii Dine’é clan. Her maternal grandfather is the Áshįįhí clan and her paternal grandfather is the Ta’neeszahnii clan. McCrary was born in Tuba City, Arizona, and raised in Flagstaff, Arizona. She is a poet, zinester, dog (and cat) mom, and tea lover. She divides her time between northern and southern Arizona. She is the author of Blue Corn Tongue. www.ambermccrary.com
SUSAN NGUYEN
(she/her) is the author of Dear Diaspora (University of Nebraska Press, 2021) which won the Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry, an Outstanding Achievement Award from the Association of Asian American Studies, a New Mexico-Arizona Book Award, and was a finalist for the Julie Suk Award. Her poems have been nominated for Best of the Net and a Pushcart Prize and have appeared in The Academy of American Poets’ Poem-A-Day series, POETRY, The American Poetry Review, and Poetry Northwest, among others. Her poem “Impossible Deer” won the 2022 Stanley Kunitz Memorial Prize from the American Poetry Review, and she is the recipient of fellowships from the Vermont Studio Center, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Arizona Commission on the Arts, the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing, and elsewhere. She is the editor in chief of Hayden’s Ferry Review and a member of the She Who Has No Master(s) collective.
TED McLOOF
teaches creative writing at the University of Arizona. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Minnesota Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Monkeybicycle, Hobart, DIAGRAM, Kenyon Review, The Rumpus, Louisville Review, Ninth Letter, Los Angeles Review, and elsewhere. He's been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and a Best of the Net Award. He is the author of two books: Anhedonia, a collection of short fiction, was published in 2022 by Finishing Line Press. His second collection, Empty Calories and Male Curiosity, was a finalist for the Dzanc Short Story Collection Prize, a semifinalist for the Wolfson Prose competition, and is now available from COSMORAMA.
MEGAN MERCHANT
(she/her) is the owner of www.shiversong.com and holds an M.F.A. degree from UNLV. She is a visual artist and, most recently, the author of “A Slow Indwelling” (Harbor Publications) and “Hortensia, in winter” (Winner of the New American Poetry Prize). She is the Editor of Pirene’s Fountain. https://meganmerchant.wixsite.com/poet
BO HEE MOON
is a South Korean adoptee. Born in South Korea, she was adopted at three-months-old. Her poems have appeared in AGNI, Poetry, swamp pink, The Margins, and others. Omma, Sea of Joy and Other Astrological Signs, published by Tinderbox Editions, is her debut collection of poems. She previously published under a different name. Her second collection of poems, Birthstones in the Province of Mercy, won the 2024-2025 Jake Adam York Prize. She is currently pursuing her PhD in Creative Writing and Literature at the University of Houston and has received the Inprint Brown Foundation Fellowship.
LOGAN PHILLIPS
(he / him / él) works in poetry and culture, currently serving as Tucson Poet Laureate (2026-2029). He is author of the books Reckon (University of Arizona Press, 2026), Sonoran Strange (University of New Mexico / West End Press, 2015), and the ongoing NoVoGRAFíAS series. Phillips is known for compelling, bilingual readings, and multimedia performance art pieces. Holding collaboration as a core creative practice, he has contributed to a wide range of publishing, music, education and community-centered, land-based projects in the US, Mexico, Colombia and beyond. His books, tour dates and newsletter can be found at Dirtyverbs.com.
CARSON REDMON
(she/her/hers) graduated with Honors from Northern Arizona University, earning a BA in English with minors in Political Science and Studio Art. She is the Marketing Director for the Northern Arizona Book Festival and an Assistant Editor for Eggtooth Editions. Carson is the current Youth Poet Laureate of Flagstaff, and has work appearing or forthcoming in Poptab Press' Hydration Lit Mag and the Gathering Points anthology.
CHYANA MARIE SAGE
is a Cree and Métis memoirist, journalist, essayist, poet, model, screenwriter, and public speaker from amiskwaciy-wâskahikan (Edmonton). Her debut essay “Soar” won first place in the Edna Staebler Essay Contest, and earned a Silver Medal at the National Magazine Awards. She holds an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Columbia University—where she was the first Indigenous graduate—and later taught as an adjunct professor. After living in New York City, she returned to Canada and now lives in Toronto, working as Storyteller and Content Writer for Indspire. Her work has appeared in HuffPost, The New Quarterly, Electric Lit, The Toronto Star, and Matriarch Movement. Her debut memoir, Soft as Bones (House of Anansi, May 2025), became an instant national bestseller and was named one of CBC's Best Books of 2025.
DR. JANINE SCHIPPER
(she/her) is professor of sociology at Northern Arizona University. Her research and teaching focus on environmental sociology and contemplative studies. She is the author of "Conservation is Not Enough: Rethinking Relationships with Water in the Arid Southwest," "Disappearing Desert: The Growth of Phoenix and the Culture of Sprawl," and co-author of "Teaching with Compassion: An Educator’s Oath for Teaching from the Heart." When she’s not immersed in her work, you might find Dr. Schipper spending time with her family, teaching at the Flagstaff Insight Meditation Community, or exploring the more-than-human world in the forest behind her home. Learn more about her work and creative projects at followingthealiveness.com.
SAREYA TAYLOR
(she/they) is a White Mountain Apache and Navajo poet, educator and community worker. She earned a BFA in Creative Writing from the Institute of American Indian Arts. Taylor served as the Inaugural Youth Poet Laureate of Phoenix, Arizona and has earned fellowships with Planet Forward, In-Na-Po and the United National Indian Tribal Youth organization.
MATTHEW TORRALBA ANDREWS
(he/him) is a queer writer of mixed Filipino descent and the author of the forthcoming chapbook How to Build a Bridge Across the Ocean, winner of the C&R Press Summer Tide Pool Chapbook Award. His fiction has appeared in Cincinnati Review, Puerto del Sol, Sonora Review, South Carolina Review, and elsewhere. He holds an MFA in creative writing from Eastern Washington University and lives in northern Arizona.
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