Deborah Taffa’s debut, Whiskey Tender, a 2024 National Book Award Finalist, and a 2025 Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction longlisted memoir, has been named to best lists at Esquire, Oprah Daily, ELLE, Publishers Weekly, and The Washington Post. With awards and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, PEN America, MacDowell, the Ellen Meloy Foundation, Tin House, the University of Iowa, and the NY Summer Writers Institute, Deborah received her MFA in Iowa City. A citizen of the Kwatsaan Nation and Laguna Pueblo, she is the director of the MFA CW program at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, NM.