The Writer’s Center presents a FREE virtual chat about the craft of fiction! We’re joined by author Jennifer Givhan for a discussion of her new novel, Salt Bones. Jennifer is in conversation with Amy Freeman, author and Development Director at The Writer’s Center.
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Jennifer Givhan is a Mexican-American and Indigenous poet and novelist from the Southwestern desert and the recipient of poetry fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and PEN/Rosenthal Emerging Voices.
She holds a Master’s degree from California State University Fullerton and a Master’s in Fine Arts from Warren Wilson College. She is the author of eleven books of poetry and fiction, including Girl With Death Mask (chosen by Ross Gay as the winner of the Blue Light Book Prize/Indiana Review Press), and the novel Trinity Sight, which was a finalist for the Arizona-New Mexico Book Awards and won The Southwest Book Award. Her latest novel River Woman, River Demon was chosen for Amazon’s Book Club and as a National Together We Read Library Pick and was featured on CBS Mornings. It also won an International Latino Book Award in the Rudolfo Anaya Latino-Focused Fiction category.
Her poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction have appeared in American Poetry Review, The New Republic, The Nation, POETRY, TriQuarterly, The Boston Review, The Rumpus, Salon, Ploughshares, and many others. She’s received the Southwest Book Award, New Ohio Review’s Poetry Prize chosen by Tyehimba Jess, Phoebe Journal’s Greg Grummer Poetry Prize, the Pinch Journal Poetry Prize chosen by Ada Limón, and Cutthroat’s Joy Harjo Poetry Prize.
Givhan has taught at the University of Washington Bothell’s MFA program as well as Western New Mexico University and has guest lectured at universities across the country. She was most recently the Visiting Professor of Creative Writing at The University of New Mexico.
Her newest novel Salt Bones was published this year from Mulholland/Little, Brown.
About the Book
In Jennifer Givhan’s Salt Bones (July 22nd, Mulholland/Little, Brown), three women in one twisted family race for answers in this “stunning” mystery set in the Mexicali borderlands that “breathes new life into the myth of Persephone and Demeter” (Ana Reyes, author of The House in the Pines).
- “Beautifully explores the dark complexities of mother-daughter relationships.” —Erin E. Adams, author of Jackal
- “An irresistible world of secrets, grief, and horror.” —Tananarive Due, author of The Reformatory
- “Will absolutely mesmerize you.” —Cosmopolitan Magazine
At the edge of the Salton Sea, in the blistering borderlands, something is out hunting. . .
Malamar Veracruz has never left the dust-choked town of El Valle. Here, Mal has done her best to build a good life: She’s raised two children, worked hard, and tried to forget the painful, unexplained disappearance of her sister, Elena. When another local girl goes missing, Mal plunges into a fresh yet familiar nightmare. As a desperate Mal hunts for answers, her search becomes increasingly tangled with inscrutable visions of a horse-headed woman, a local legend who Mal feels compelled to follow. Mal’s perspective is joined by the voices of her two daughters, all three of whom must work to uncover the truth about the missing girls in their community before it’s too late.
Combining elements of Latina and Indigenous culture, family drama, mystery, horror, and magical realism in a spellbinding mix, Salt Bones lays bare the realities of environmental catastrophe, family secrets, and the unrelenting bond between mothers and daughters.
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