Kirstin Valdez Quade

Kirstin Valdez Quade is the author of Night at the Fiestas, a New York Times Notable Book, which won the John Leonard Prize from the National Book Critics Circle, the Sue Kaufman Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and a “5 Under 35” award from the National Book Foundation. Kirstin is also the recipient of a Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome and a Stegner Fellowship. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker and The Best American Short Stories. She is an Assistant Professor at Princeton. Her debut novel, The Five Wounds, was published by W.W. Norton and received the 2021 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and the Rosenthal Family Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2024 she received a Guggenheim Fellowship.

The Value of Support

"The time and support was absolutely invaluable, giving me the freedom to work, but what meant even more to me was the faith in my project that the award represented. I have continued to be so grateful for the community offered by the Rona Jaffe Foundation."