Waterston Desert Writing Prize
Heather Quinn – 2025 Winner
Heather Quinn is a nonfiction writer and photographer based in St. Paul, Minnesota. Their current project, This is How You Disappear, is a book-length essay blending personal narrative, reportage and historical research to explore trauma, ecological collapse and memory in the California desert, particularly around the Salton Sea. For over two decades, Quinn has documented the region through writing, photography and film, bearing witness to its shifting landscapes and layered histories.
They earned their Master of Fine Arts at Portland State University, and they were a 2021 McKnight Artist Fellow, a 2023 Writing Resident at Art Omi, and a 2022 Tin House Winter Workshop Scholar. Their work has appeared in Fourth Genre, Vela, Longreads, and elsewhere.