The University of Arizona Press

The University of Arizona: A History in 100 Stories by Gregory McNamee received the top honor in the non-fiction category. The book celebrates the people, ideas, inventions, teaching, and structures that have been part of the school’s evolution from a small land-grant institution to an internationally renowned research institution. Drawing on half a century of connection with the University of Arizona as a student, staff member, and faculty member, Gregory McNamee presents a history through the lens of a hundred subjects.

In a voice that is jubilant, irreverent, sometimes scouring, sometimes heartfelt, and always unmistakably her own, Amber McCrary remaps the deserts of Arizona through the blue corn story of a young Diné woman figuring out love and life with an O’odham man. Reflecting experiences of Indigenous joy, pain, and family, these shapeshifting poems in Blue Corn Tongue celebrate the love between two Native partners, a love that flourishes alongside the traumas they face in the present and the past.

Weaving together history, culture, and Mexican food traditions, Melani Martinez shares the story of her family’s life and work in the heart of their downtown eatery, El Rapido. Opened by Martinez’s great-grandfather, Aurelio Perez, in 1933, El Rapido served tamales and burritos to residents and visitors to Tucson’s historic Barrio Presidio for nearly seventy years. For the family, the factory that bound them together was known for the giant corn grinder churning behind the scenes—the molino. With clear eyes and warm humor, In The Molino: A Memoir, Martinez documents the work required to prepare food for others, and explores the heartbreaking aftermath of gentrification that forces the multigenerational family business to close its doors.

A haunting, an obsession, a calling: Tim Z. Hernandez has been searching for people his whole life. Now, in They Call You Back, he takes us along on an investigative odyssey through personal and collective history to uncover the surprising conjunctions that bind our stories together. Hernandez’s mission to find the families of the twenty-eight Mexicans who were killed in the 1948 plane wreck at Los Gatos Canyon formed the basis for his acclaimed documentary novel All They Will Call You, which the San Francisco Chronicle dubbed “a stunning piece of investigative journalism,” and the New York Times hailed as “painstaking detective work by a writer who is the descendant of farmworkers.”

Forging a Sustainable Southwest, by Stephen E. Strom, introduces readers to four conservation efforts that provide insight into how diverse groups of citizens have worked collaboratively to develop visions for land use that harmonized sometimes conflicting ecological, economic, cultural, and community needs. Through the voices of more than seventy individuals involved in these efforts, we learn how they’ve developed plans for protecting, restoring, and stewarding lands sustainably; the management and funding tools they’ve used; and their perceptions of the challenges that remain and how to meet them.