Brendan Shay Basham: Author Event
Indigenous author Brendan Shay Basham will discuss his book Swim Home to the Vanished, offering insights into the challenges, rewards, and unique perspective of writing from his cultural heritage.
Leading up to this event, we encourage you to share and discuss your experience reading Swim Home to the Vanished. Pick up a copy at library service desks beginning February 1. Then join in book discussions at all four library branches in March.
Please note: Copies of the book are limited, so be sure to get your copies early!
Additional copies of the book also will be available for purchase and signing at the author event.
Brendan Shay Basham (Diné) is Tó tsohnii and Bit’ahnii, born for bilagáana (Irish, English, Scottish, German). A writer, artist, educator, and former chef, Brendan was born in Alaska and raised in northern Arizona. He received his MFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts. His debut novel, Swim Home to the Vanished, was released by HarperCollins in 2023. He is currently on fiction faculty with the MFA in Creative Writing Program at UNR-Lake Tahoe.
Brendan’s prose and poetry has appeared in Prairie Schooner, Puerto del Sol, Poetry Northwest, Santa Fe Literary Review, Red Ink, Yellow Medicine Review, Juked, and Sheepshead Review. He is a recipient of Poetry Northwest’s inaugural James Welch Prize for Indigenous Writers, the Ucross Foundation’s first Native American Literary Award, a Rupert Costo Chair in American Indian Affairs Medal, and fellowships from Vermont Studio Center, Virginia Center for Creative Arts, Writing by Writers, Tin House, and the Truman Capote Trust.
He lives in the Zuni Mountains in western New Mexico.
