John Nichols

John Nichols (1940-2023) was a writer, photographer, and activist. He was best known for his "New Mexico trilogy:" The Milagro Beanfield War, The Magic Journey, and The Nirvana Blues, a series about the complex relationship between history, race and ethnicity, and land and water rights in the fictional Chamisaville County, New Mexico.

He also published numerous other novels as well as several nonfiction books, including the trilogy If Mountains Die, The Last Beautiful Days of Autumn, and On the Mesa. His last book was the memoir I Got Mine: Confessions of a Midlist Writer, published in 2022. He was the subject of a feature documentary by director Kurt Jacobsen and co-producer Warren Leming entitled The Milagro Man: The Irrepressible Multicultural Life and Literary Times of John Nichols, which premiered at the 2012 Albuquerque Film Festival and screened at a dozen more film festivals.

Nichols lived in Taos, New Mexico, from 1969 until his death.