JOY CASTRO is the author of the 2023 historical novel One Brilliant Flame: A Novel (Lake Union Publishing), set in Key West in 1886; Flight Risk: A Novel (Lake Union Publishing), which was a finalist for a 2022 International Thriller Award; and the post-Katrina New Orleans noir thrillers Hell or High Water: A Novel (Thomas Dunne Books) and Nearer Home: A Novel (Thomas Dunne Books), which have been published in France by Gallimard’s historic Série Noire. Castro also authored the collection How Winter Began: Stories (University of Nebraska Press), The Truth Book: A Memoir (University of Nebraska Press), and Island of Bones: Essays (University of Nebraska Press), which received the International Latino Book Award. She is currently the Willa Cather Professor of English and ethnic studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.