Tom Zoellner

Tom Zoellner, a fifth-generation Arizonan, is the author of eight nonfiction books, including The Heartless Stone, Uranium, The National Road, and Island on Fire, which won the 2020 National Book Critics Circle Award and was a finalist for the Bancroft Prize. In 2019, he walked the entire length of Arizona to get a better understanding of his home state, and the result was the essay collection Rim to River: Looking into the Heart of Arizona published by the University of Arizona Press in 2023.

Lunchtime Author Speaker: Thursday, October 19, 2023

Program Title: The Arizona Literary Tradition

Description: Can our state be said to have a canon of essential works -- fiction, nonfiction and poetry -- that provides a coherent understanding of Arizona's contested history and uncertain future? Is there such a thing as a "great Arizona novel"? What are the thematic elements consistent in those books that attempt to make sense of the 48th state?

Note: The Arizona Center for the Book selected Tom Zoellner's book Rim to River: Looking into the Heart of Arizona as one of the Great Reads from Great Places for 2023.