Kirstin Valdez Quade was a Jones Fellow and a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. Originally from New Mexico, she has lived throughout the Southwest. In addition to The New Yorker, her short stories have been published in Northwest Review, The Best of the West 2010, Narrative, and the Colorado Review.
She’d forever be checking ethnicity boxes, emphasizing her parents’ work: farm laborer, housekeeping. Trying to prove that she was smart enough, committed enough, and pleasant enough to be granted a trial period in their world.