Wyoming-Raised, Award-Winning Author McConigley to Speak at UW April 3

Acclaimed fiction writer and award-winning author Nina McConigley will speak Friday, April 3, at the University of Wyoming.

Her presentation, which is free and open to the public, will be at 4 p.m. in Room 506 of Coe Library. Light refreshments will be served.

A book signing will follow the talk. The University Store will have copies of her books available for purchase before and after the event.

McConigley is the author of the short-story collection “Cowboys and East Indians,” which won the PEN Open Book Award and a High Plains Book Award, and was longlisted for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award. A stage adaptation of “Cowboys and East Indians,” commissioned by the Denver Center for Performing Arts, had its world premiere in 2026.

Her latest novel, “How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder,” published in January, is a complex coming-of-age story set in 1986 rural Wyoming that blends dark humor and mystery with an exploration of family, identity and the lingering effects of colonial history.

“Nina McConigley is a dazzling Wyoming writer who has received significant acclaim throughout her career,” says Peter Parolin, dean of UW’s Honors College. “With her new novel, ‘How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder,’ she has taken her artistry to an even higher level, as the rave reviews for the book attest. We are thrilled to bring Nina back to UW to speak to our community here in Laramie.”

McConigley was born in Singapore and grew up in Wyoming. She holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of Houston, where she was an Inprint Brown Foundation Fellow; an M.A. in English from UW; and a B.A. in literature from Saint Olaf College. She is a former UW faculty member and currently teaches at Colorado State University and the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers.

Her honors include a Barthelme Memorial Fellowship in Nonfiction, a work-study scholarship to the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, a full fellowship to the Vermont Studio Center and a Creative Writing Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. She also was the Walter Jackson Bate Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University.

Her play, “Owen Wister Considered,” was one of five plays produced for the Edward Albee New Playwrights Festival, with Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Lanford Wilson serving as producer. She has an essay collection on the American West that will be published in 2027 by the University of Georgia Press.

For more information about McConigley, visit her website at https://ninamcconigley.com/.

McConigley’s presentation is sponsored by UW Libraries and the Honors College.

Those who are not able to attend in person will have the option to attend online via WyoCast at https://uwyo.video.yuja.com/LiveStream/I/826/1029773352.

For more information about McConigley’s presentation, call the UW Honors College at (307) 766-4110 or email Parolin at parolin@uwyo.edu.