WPM Book Club

A lot of talented authors call Wyoming home, and the Cowboy State has been the backdrop to, and sometimes protagonist of, many a storyline. Explore those works with Wyoming Public Media. During our new quarterly book club, we’ll dive into new works by Wyoming authors or books set in or about the Equality State. With three months for each book, you can read at your own pace.

A stack of books next to the information for WPM's Quarterly Book Club.

Every three months, we’ll meet up in person in Laramie and online over Zoom to chat about a book by a Wyoming author, or set in or about the Cowboy State.

You can find our October pick below; we'll meet in December to discuss it.

October - December book

How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder

Summer, 1986. The Creel sisters, Georgie Ayyar and Agatha Krishna, welcome their aunt, uncle and young cousin—newly arrived from India—into their house in rural Wyoming where they’ll all live together. Because this is what families do. That is, until the sisters decide that it’s time for their uncle to die.

According to Georgie, the British are to blame. And to understand why, you need to hear her story. She details the violence hiding in their house and history, her once-unshakeable bond with Agatha Krishna, and her understanding of herself as an Indian-American in the heart of the West. Her account is, at every turn, cheeky, unflinching, and infectiously inflected with the trappings of teendom, including the magazine quizzes that help her make sense of her life. At its heart, the tale she weaves is:

a) a vivid portrait of an extended family

b) a moving story of sisterhood

c) a playful ode to the 80s

d) a murder mystery (of sorts)

e) an unexpected and unwaveringly powerful meditation on history and language, trauma and healing, and the meaning of independence

Or maybe it’s really:

f) all of the above.

Check it out on Goodreads

About the author

Nina McConigley is the author of the story collection Cowboys and East Indians, which was the winner of the PEN/Open Book Award and the High Plains Book Award. She has received grants and fellowships from the NEA, the Radcliffe Institute, Bread Loaf, Vermont Studio Center, and the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. She was a recipient of the Wyoming Arts Council’s Frank Nelson Doubleday Memorial Writing Award and a finalist for a National Magazine Award for her columns in High Country News. Her work has also appeared in The New York Times, Orion, O: The Oprah Magazine, The Virginia Quarterly Review, Salon, among other outlets. Born in Singapore and raised in Wyoming, she now lives in Colorado and teaches at Colorado State University.

Read more about Nina McConigley on her website