wHAT IS TUCSON ESSAY CLUB

We are a club devoted to the intersection of The Essay and Tucson, Arizona, an international literary, ecological, and gastronomical treasure. All roads to the essay lead through Tucson, or at least the good ones do, the ones we care about. Kind of screw everybody else. It’s hot here. We live here. We write here. We read here. Sometimes some of us run here. The rest of us wisely stay inside.

Tucson Essay Club presents a series of nonboring events for readers, writers, and the curious with a bent towards literary nonfiction, and then towards prose more generally. A bunch of weirdos (because we live or have lived or aspire to live again in Tucson, an astonishingly odd city), we aren’t always good at talking to people or being out in the world but we’re going to try harder to do so because we are more powerful together.

Sign up for free at our Substack (free subscribers receive notices of all public events), and follow us @tucsonessayclub at Bluesky and Instagram. We hate and will not abide Twitter/X.

Or become a Club Member and get access to all Tucson Essay Club benefits for annual dues of $60 a year.

Dues underwrite events, club activities, and to paying writers when possible. Details here or click on MEMBERSHIP above.

Club Members also get the rad Club Member t-shirt designed by Tucson artist Jos Par. Check it:

You don’t need to be a member to come to our PUBLIC EVENTS though! These are open to anyone (and you’ll receive information on these via the Substack, which is free for the public). But we hope you’ll become a member someday.

Right now we are focusing on building membership and putting on in-person events in Tucson (and also planning Tucson Essay Club Summer Camp in summer 2026), though we may also do events online as we grow.

Are you reading something Tucsonny? Let us know! We’re putting together a collaborative doc with our favorite Tucson essays (or essays in which Tucson features) and Tucson essayists. Here’s a link if you’d like to suggest something.