Nina McConigley was born in Singapore and raised in Casper, Wyoming. Her short-story collection Cowboys and East Indians was the winner of the PEN Open Book Award and a High Plains Book Award. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Orion, Ploughshares, Alaska Quarterly Review, High Country News, O, Oprah Magazine, Parents, Virginia Quarterly Review, American Short Fiction, and The Asian American Literary Review among others. In 2019-2020, was the Walter Jackson Bate fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University and was a 2022 recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Creative Writing Fellowship. Her play based on Cowboys and East Indians was commissioned by the Denver Center for Performing Arts and will have its world premiere in 2026. She has two books forthcoming: her essay collection will be published by the University of Georgia Press. And her novel, How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder, is forthcoming with Pantheon in January 2026. She teaches at Colorado State University.
We are beyond thrilled to be hosting Nina in her hometown for her novel “How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder” at The Nicolaysen Art Museum Friday, February 20th beginning at 6pm. This will be such a fun event and we’re very grateful for the opportunity to host her here in Casper.
Wind City Books will have a limited number of her newest novel available for purchase at The Nic during the event. Preorder and reserve your copy now through our website, stopping in store, or by calling us at 307-315-6003. Prepayment is required. Visit our website for details:
https://windcitybooks.com/event/2026-02-20/author-event-nina-mcconigley-nicolaysen-museum
Stay tuned for more details to come!! Until then, you can read more about the book and the early praise it’s received below. You can learn more about Nina through her website:
https://ninamcconigley.com
About the Book:
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.
Early Praise:
“I have been waiting for Nina McConigley’s debut novel for years and it’s even better than I could have imagined. How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder takes all the expected stories about growing up Indian American, slices them open with razor-sharp wit, and turns them inside out. A moving portrayal of sisterhood and a much-needed examination of how power is abused—over girls, over countries, over cultures—and the possibilities, and costs, of reclaiming that power.” — Celeste Ng, New York Times bestselling author of Our Missing Hearts
“A fierce and marvelous book with an utterly unique, brightly burning lifeforce.” — Maggie Shipstead, author of Great Circle
“Nina McConigley is a true original. With a wit so sharp that it makes you bleed as soon as it would make you laugh, she slices through the postcolonial dilemma with all of its complexities and absurdities. Heart-mending and heart-breaking—as only the truth can be.” — Tayari Jones, New York Times bestselling author of An American Marriage
“Spirited and witty, stylish and audacious, How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder is gorgeously in possession of itself. Its avid curiosity about the world, its alertness to history, and its enormously fun storytelling—with a twist at the end—held me in their spell.” — Megha Majumdar, New York Times bestselling author of A Burning
“Tender, defiant, and formally daring, Nina McConigley’s stunning debut novel How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder is ‘not the expected brown person story’ but rather a tale of sisterhood and survival, a child’s yearning for safety and protection, and the search for wholeness in a world that wants to split you in half. I fell in love with McConigley’s fierce, wry narrator Georgie Ayyar from the first page and couldn’t stop reading. A powerful, groundbreaking book.” — Jessamine Chan, author of The School for Good Mothers
“Part thriller, part coming-of-age, part magazine quiz, Nina McConigley’s inventive and captivating How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder boldly examines the often hidden and scary parts of childhood. Full of heart and soul, this is a knockout work that deftly tackles the complex bonds of friendship and family—offering up compelling questions for our notions of what it means to truly love.” — Aimee Nezhukumatathil, author of World of Wonders
Also check out other Arts events in Casper, Literary Art events in Casper, Contests in Casper.
