Best Local Author '98

Best Local Author

Barbara Kingsolver

READERS' PICK: Little-known fact: When we did our first-ever "Best of Tucson" issue, one of the people working on the project was a technical writer from the UA named Barbara Kingsolver. Wonder what ever happened to her. Oh yeah, that's right! She became a world-famous novelist and essayist. Local readers need not be reminded that The Bean Trees and Pigs In Heaven both won national book awards, and sold like swamp coolers in Hell. We're kinda partial to Holding The Line, a gripping non-fiction work which traces the struggles of several women against the backdrop of the devastating Clifton-Morenci copper miners' strike of 1983. Against terrible odds and facing severe hardships, these women struggled to keep family and community together while their way of life was being ripped from under them. A most powerful book by one of the finest of the local literati.

READERS' POLL RUNNER-UP: He logs enough time on TV talk shows to merit his own channel, hosts a popular interactive Web site, travels the world on speaking engagements, and even practices a little medicine here and there. Long a fringe author of medical self-help books endorsed chiefly by '60s-survivor publications like The Whole Earth Catalog, whiskered guru Andrew Weil now finds himself in the mainstream; and his books on bettering your physical and mental well-being (most recently, Eight Weeks to Optimum Health and Spontaneous Healing) regularly ride the national bestseller lists. We're glad for his well-deserved success.

1997 Winner: Barbara Kingsolver
1996 Winner: Barbara Kingsolver
1995 Winner: Barbara Kingsolver