Deborah Jackson Taffa’s Whiskey Tender, a 2024 National Book Award Finalist, was also a 2025 Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction longlisted title. Named one of 2024’s Top 10 books by The Atlantic, Audible, and Time Magazine, her debut was also included on best and notable lists at The New Yorker, Elle, Esquire, NPR, The Washington Post, Oprah Daily, and Publisher’s Weekly. The debut was an Amazon Editor’s Best Choice Book for the year as well. With awards and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, PEN America, MacDowell, Hedgebrook, the Ellen Meloy Foundation, Tin House, A Public Space, the Kranzberg Arts, and the NY Summer Writers Institute, Deborah is currently working on her second story collection.

A citizen of the Quechan (Yuma) Nation and Laguna Pueblo, Deborah earned her MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. Prior to her job at IAIA, she taught Creative Nonfiction at Webster University and Washington University in Saint Louis. She also served as an Executive Board Member with the Missouri Humanities Council where she was instrumental in creating a Native American Heritage Program in the state. 

Editor Emeritus at the literary magazine, River Styx, her writing can be found at The Rumpus, Boston Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, A Public Space, Salon, Huff Post, Prairie Schooner, The Best Travel Writing, The Best of Brevity: Twenty Groundbreaking Years of Flash Nonfiction, The Best American Nonrequired Reading, and elsewhere. Her play, “Parents Weekend,” was performed at the Autry Theater’s 8th Annual Short Play Festival in LA.

In recent years, Deborah has had the incredible honor of reading a series of poetic interludes for composer Gary Gackstatter’s Chaco Symphony featuring the Grammy nominated flautist, R. Carlos Nakai. She will be performing with the symphony in Durango, Colorado, on March 15, 2024.

She can be found on various social media sites as @deborahtaffa.