Debra Hughes

Debra Hughes is the author of the debut novel The Geology of Secrets, a 2025 finalist for the Donald L. Jordan Prize for Literary Excellence, to be published January 15, 2027 (University of Georgia Press and Columbus State University Press). She also is the author of the nonfiction book Albuquerque in Our Time: 30 Voices, 300 Years (Museum of New Mexico Press). Her short fiction has been anthologized in Tierra: Short Fiction of New Mexico and Walking the Twilight: Women Writers of the Southwest and has appeared in Image Journal, New Letters, Blue Mesa Review, and others. A native of New Mexico, her writing touches on the region’s land and its people, for which she received the International Regional Magazine Silver Award. Her essays and articles have been published in Narrative Magazine, Huffington Post, The Writer’s Harbrace Handbook, New Mexico Magazine, USA Today, and elsewhere. Hughes holds an M.A. in American Literature and Creative Writing from Ohio State University. A member of the Author’s Guild and New Mexico Writers, she lives in Santa Fe, NM.