Deanne Stillman is a widely published, critically acclaimed writer. Her books of narrative nonfiction are place-based stories of war and peace in the modern and historical West. They include Desert Reckoning, which is based on her Rolling Stone piece, "The Great Mojave Manhunt," a finalist for a PEN Center USA journalism award and published in Best American Crime Writing. Her book, Twentynine Palms, was an LA Times bestseller and named one of the best books of 2001 by the Los Angeles Times Book Review. Hunter Thompson called it "A strange and brilliant story by an important American writer." The conclusion of a ten-year journey, the book explores the brutal murders of two young girls in a scenic Southern California military town by a marine shortly after the Gulf War. Author photo by Cat Gwynn.