Craig Holden

Craig Holden is a professional writer, novelist, teacher, editor and fundraiser. He is currently the Director of Corporate and Foundation Relations for the New Mexico State University Foundation.

In 2015, he collaborated with Buddy Ritter on an award-winning non-fiction work about the history of Mesilla, New Mexico, called Mesilla Comes Alive.

His sixth novel, Matala, was published by Simon & Schuster in 2008.

He received his MFA in Fiction from the University of Montana in 1986, and then worked for two literary agencies in New York City, eventually becoming a film rights agent himself.

His first novel, The River Sorrow, sold in 1993 to Delacorte Press, and was subsequently translated into a dozen languages. His third novel, Four Corners of Night, received the Great Lakes Book Award for fiction in 1999, and hit the USA Today bestseller list. His other novels include The Last Sanctuary (Delacorte, 1996), The Jazz Bird (Simon & Schuster, 2002) and The Narcissist’s Daughter (Simon & Schuster, 2005). In 2004, he was a featured guest at the Festival International du Roman Noir in Frontignan, France.

He has taught at the University of Toledo, the University of Michigan, and New Mexico State University.

In addition to his work at the NMSU Foundation, he is the Executive Producer of a short film called Yochi (written and directed by Ilana Lapid)

and is nearing completion of his 7th novel. He has four children and one grandbaby.