Taos resident John Nichols is one of the last living elder statesmen of New Mexico literature. He’s written novels about love, heartbreak, politics, and fishing, among other topics, and has set many of them in fictionalized versions of Northern New Mexico. His most famous book is The Milagro Beanfield War, published in 1974 and made into a movie directed by Robert Redford in 1988. But Nichols is the author of 22 other books, as well as a forthcoming memoir from the University of New Mexico Press. And at 81 years old and in failing health, he still writes every night. “I’ve never trusted genius. I’ve never trusted inspiration. The only thing that’s meaningful is work,” he says. On the cover is John Nichols, self portrait, 1992; courtesy MSS 820 BC, Box 181, Special Collections and Center for Southwest Research, University of New Mexico Libraries.