The University of Arizona Press
Date: Saturday, July 25, 2026
Time: 10 a.m. to 12 p.m., MDT
Place: Navajo Nation Library, 36 Window Rock Loop RD, Window Rock, AZ
Laura Tohe, author of Tséyi’ / Deep in the Rock, and Amber McCrary, author of Blue Corn Tongue: Poems in the Mouth of the Desert, will lead a poetry reading and zine-making workshop at the Navajo Nation Library. The event is sponsored by Arizona Humanities and Arizona Commission on the Arts. Lunch will be served afterwards from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m.
Amber McCrary is of the Kin Łichíí’nii clan, born for the Naakaii Dine’é clan. She is a poet, zinester, dog (and cat) mom, and tea lover. Laura Tohe, award-winning poet and writer, was born in Fort Defiance, Arizona, and grew up speaking both Diné bizaad/Navajo language and English. She is a professor emerita of English at Arizona State University, and Poet Laureate for the State of Arizona.
About the books:
Journeying from the Colorado Plateau to the Sonoran Desert and back again, Blue Corn Tongue invokes the places, plants, and people of Diné Bikéyah and O’odham jeweḍ in a deeply honest exploration of love, memory, and intimacy confronting the legacy of land violence in these desert homelands.
Tséyi’ / Deep in the Rock is a unique evocation of Canyon de Chelly and the people whose lives and spirits are connected to it. It is a collaboration that conjures the power of stories and images, inviting us to enter a world of harmony and be touched by its singularly haunting beauty.
