Deborah Jackson Taffa Books In Order

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Deborah Jackson Taffa is a published author. She made her debut in the literary world with Whiskey Tender, which ended up being not only a 2024 National Book Award finalist but also a longlisted title for the 2025 Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction.

Her book came out to great reviews and many publications featured it in lists and selections. It was picked to be one of the Top 10 books of 2024 by Audible, The Atlantic, and Time Magazine. It also made its way to the best and notable lists of publications and outlets such as NPR, Esquire, Elle, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, Oprah Daily, and Publisher’s Weekly. The debut was a Best Choice Book for the year for Amazon Editor as well.

Deborah has been fortunate enough to secure some grants and awards to assist her in her pursuit of literary excellence. She has received them from PEN America, the National Endowment for the Arts, MacDowell, Hedgebrook, Tin House, the Ellen Meloy Foundation, A Public Space, the NY Summer Writers Institute, and the Kranzberg Arts. She uses this support to help her write more creative work for readers to enjoy.

Taffa belongs to the Quechan (Yuma) Nation and Laguna Pueblo. She attended the University of Iowa in Iowa City, where she was able to earn an MFA in creative writing. Before her job at IAIA, she taught creative nonfiction to students at Webster University and Washington University in Saint Louis. The author has also been an Executive Board Member with the Missouri Humanities Council where she helped create a Native American Heritage Program.

She has been an editor emeritus at River Styx, the literary magazine. You can find her reading at Boston Review, The Rumpus, Los Angeles Review of Books, Salon, A Public Space, Huff Post, Prairie Schooner, The Best of Brevity: Twenty Groundbreaking Years of Flash Nonfiction, The Best Travel Writing, the Best American Nonrequired Reading, and more. Deborah also wrote a play titled “Parents Weekend”, which was put on at the Autry Theater’s 8th Annual Short Play Festival in Los Angeles.

Recently, the author has had the honor of reading poetic interludes for the Chaco Symphony and performed with them March 2024 in Colorado.

Whiskey Tender: A Memoir of Family and Survival on and off the Reservation is a 2024 memoir by Deborah Jackson Taffa. This is an incredible book that you have to get your hands on to appreciate! This book has come close to winning many awards and has won its fair share as well, such as the Southwest Book Award.

It was named a best book of the year by many different media outlets and was a New York Times ‘New Book to Read’, and was also picked as an anticipated book by Zibby Mag and The Millions. It was also a Best Book of the Month from Amazon Editors and named a Book We Love by NPR. If you are interested in Native stories, this is a great place to keep adding to your library of books to read. Parade agrees, naming it a Best New Work by Indigenous Writer.

Bestselling author Tommy Orange praised the work, saying that it was ‘unexpected and propulsive’ and called it ‘tender’ but also ‘bold’ and ‘beautifully told’. If you have been searching for more unique books to add to your reading list and you want something that is going to add enrichment to your life and is actually a true story, Deborah Jackson Taffa has something for you.

This is a memoir that goes over family and survival. It is a coming of age story that takes place on the reservation and off of it, and tells of the friction that exists between Native inheritance and mainstream American culture, as well as how assimilation took place while also revering tradition and fighting to keep it alive.

Deborah grew up being raised to believe that sacrifices often might be required if a better life was wanted. Her grandparents belonged to the Quechan Nation and the Laguna Pueblo tribe. They were sent off to Indian boarding schools that were overseen by the white missionaries, and her parents were urged to participate in governmental job training off the reservation. Assimilation means relocation. As Taffa grew up, she started to question what her elders and society had promised her– that if she gave up her traditions, culture, and land, she would be accepted and then have a chance at securing the American dream.

This book follows along with how a mixed tribe native girl who was born on the California Yuma reservation and grew up in New Mexico’s Navajo Territory is able to come into her own identity interpretation, even though her parents want her to overcome the class and the Indian birth status through education, even though the Quechan tribe has their own traditions and beliefs about oral/recorded histories.

The memories from this author’s childhood expand into different meditations all about tribal identity, criminalization of Native men, government assimilation policies, the Red Power movement, and negotiation between resisting systemic oppression and belonging. Tribal histories and myths come together with stories from her own childhood growing up in the seventies and the eighties and her memories, both from being on the reservation and off it.

The author gives the reader an overview of her own personal history that is interesting, at times sad, other times full of heart or humor. It can be thought provoking as Taffa reflects on the present day and the past. She reflects on the promise that assimilation offers as well as the things that her family has gone through and their various betrayals.

Trauma has made its way through the generations as the author reminds us of how cultural narratives of the ancestors have been shut out from central mythologies and structures of America’s melting pot, showing all that’s sacrificed in order to be accepted. An engaging memoir from Deborah Jackson Taffa and a unique voice that readers will not want to miss!