Writers Jia Tolentino and Alicia Inez Guzmán in Conversation

How does one begin to peel back the layers that have papered over those truths? And what about that immensely personal process guides readers toward broader reflections of the world at large?

Author of New York Times bestseller, Trick Mirror Jia Tolentino takes the stage for a special INNOVATIVE THINKER conversation with New Mexico’s Alicia Inez Guzmán, PhD to discuss the role of writers in revealing inconvenient truths, from the hyperlocal to the national.


Jia Tolentino is a staff writer at the New Yorker, the author of the essay collection Trick Mirror, and a screenwriter. Formerly, she was the deputy editor at Jezebel and a contributing editor at the Hairpin. She grew up in Texas, received her undergraduate degree at the University of Virginia, and got her MFA in fiction from the University of Michigan. In 2020, she received a Whiting Award as well as the Jeannette Haien Ballard Prize, and in 2023, she received a National Magazine Award for columns and criticism. Her work has also appeared in the New York Times Magazine and Pitchfork, among other places. She lives in Brooklyn.

Trick Mirror, published in 2019, was an instant New York Times bestseller and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Prize for Best First Book and the PEN America Diamondstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay. It was named one of the best books of the year by the New York Public Library, the New York Times Book Review, the Washington Post, NPR, the Chicago Tribune, GQ, and the Paris Review.

Raised in the village of Truchas on land passed down by many generations of women in her family, Alicia Inez Guzmán, PhD, a staff writer for Searchlight New Mexico, has written about histories of place, identity and land use in New Mexico. She brings this knowledge to her current role covering the nuclear industry, focusing on the impact of nuclear weapons expansion at the Los Alamos National Laboratory on women and communities of color. Alicia holds a Ph.D. in visual and cultural studies from the University of Rochester in New York and has received several awards for her writing, including a 2021 Sigma Delta Chi Award for excellence in journalism. [email protected] aliciainezguzman.com

About INNOVATIVE THINKER SPEAKER SERIES
SITE SANTA FE’s INNOVATIVE THINKER SPEAKER SERIES brings leading cultural figures to Santa Fe, NM, to illuminate cross-disciplinary contemporary issues. Special thanks to the Gale Family Foundation for their leading support of the INNOVATIVE THINKER SPEAKER SERIES. INNOVATIVE THINKER was established as an annual event to honor SITE SANTA FE’s former Director of Education, Juliet Myers.