Pride on the Page

The Heat Is On:
Mystery and Mayhem in the Desert

Moderator: Michael Nava

Panelists: Michael Craft, St. Sukie de la Croix and Katherine V. Forrest

Michael Nava is the author of an acclaimed series of eight novels featuring gay, Latino criminal defense lawyer Henry Rios who The New Yorker, called “a detective unlike any previous protagonist in American noir.” He is the recipient of seven Lambda Literary Awards in the gay mystery category and the Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement in LGBT Literature.

His most recent Rios novel, Lies With Man, was published in April 2021 by Amble Press, an LGBTQ press of which he is also managing editor. The Washington Post review of the novel called Nava “a master of the genre.”

Michael Craft is the author of eighteen novels, four of which have been honored as finalists for Lambda Literary Awards. His 2019 mystery, ChoirMaster, was a Gold Winner of the IBPA Benjamin Franklin Award. He is the author of two produced plays, and his prize-winning short fiction has appeared in British as well as American literary journals. Michael grew up in Illinois and spent his middle years in Wisconsin, the setting for many of his books. He now lives in Rancho Mirage, California, near Palm Springs, which provided the setting for his latest novel, Desert Getaway.

St. Sukie de la Croix has been a social commentator and researcher on Chicago’s LGBT history. He has published oral-history interviews; lectured; conducted historical tours; documented LGBT life through columns, photographs, humor features, and fiction; and written the book Chicago Whispers (University of Wisconsin Press, 2012) on local LGBT history. His crowning achievement came in 2012 when the University of Wisconsin published his in-depth, vibrant record of LGBT Chicagoans, Chicago Whispers: A History of LGBT Chicago Before Stonewall. The book received glowing reviews and cemented de la Croix’s deserved position as a top-ranking historian and leader. In 2012 de la Croix was inducted into the Chicago LGBT Hall of Fame. He now lives in Palm Springs, CA with his husband. 

Katherine V. Forrest’s seventeen works of fiction, in translation worldwide, include her ten-volume Kate Delafield mystery series, the lesbianclassics Curious Wine and Daughters of a Coral Dawn, the first novel in her award-winning lesbian-feminist utopian trilogy. Her awards and honors include five Lambda Literary Awards, a Lifetime Achievement from the Publishing Triangle, the Trailblazer Award from the Golden Crown Literary Society, the Pioneer Award from the Lambda Literary Foundation. Senior editor at the storied Naiad Press for ten years, she is currently editor at large at Bella Books.