An Evening with Alison Stine

The Visiting Writers Series and English Department  is delighted to present an evening with award winning novelist and poet Alison Stine. 

Stine will read from Dust, a YA speculative fiction novel about a partially deaf teenager living in an unforgiving climate in hot, barren Colorado, and within a restrictive family. Following the reading, there will be a Q&A and book signing. Books will be for sale at the event. Light snacks will be provided. The event is free and open to the public. All are welcome!

Co-sponsored by Gender & Women's Studies.

About Alison Stine:
Alison Stine's first nove, l Road Out of Winter, won the 2021 Philip K. Dick Award. Her second novel, Trashlands, was longlisted for the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award, and her third novel, Dust, received the Gold Standard from the Junior Library Guild.

Also the author of three books of poetry and a novella, her work has been published in The New York Times, The Paris Review, The Atlantic, The Kenyon Review, Vogue, ELLE, and many others. A former Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, and recipient of an Individual Artist Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, she has been the Staff Culture Writer at Salon and received the Ruth Lilly Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation.

Her next novel, The Raven Engagement, will be published by Wednesday Books/St. Martin’s Press in 2027. Alison currently lives in Ohio, where she works as a journalist.

About Dust:
"An immediate classic that holds its own alongside the greats of American Literature, Dust brings the haunting echoes of our past to a weather-beaten future. Every word of Dust is as familiar as a childhood friend. You understand—instantly—that you will carry it with you for the rest of your life." – K. Ancrum, award-winning author of The Wicker King

In this haunting, speculative coming-of-age novel about finding your place in an unforgiving environment, a partially deaf teen questions everything she knows about family, love, and her future.

After her father has a premonition, Thea and her family move to the Bloodless Valley of southern Colorado, hoping to make a fresh start. But the rivers are dry, the crops are dying, and the black blizzards of Colorado have returned. Much like the barren land, Thea feels her life has stopped growing. She is barely homeschooled, forbidden from going to the library, and has no way to contact her old friends—all due to her parents’ fear of the outside world’s dangerous influence.

But to make ends meet, Thea is allowed to work at the café in town. There, she meets Ray, who is deaf. Thea, who was born hard of hearing, has always been pushed by her parents to pass as someone who can hear. Now, with Ray secretly teaching Thea how to sign, she begins to learn what she’s been missing—not just a new language but a whole community and maybe even a chance at love.