Writers from Tucson

Rodolfo O. de la Garza (August 17, 1942 – August 5, 2019) was an American political scientist.
De la Garza was born in Tucson, Arizona, on August 17, 1942. He attended Tucson High School, graduating in 1960 and earned a doctorate from the University of Arizona in 1972. He then worked for the United States Agency for International Development in South America. De la Garza began his teaching career at the University of Texas at El Paso, and later moved to the University of Texas at Austin, where he was Mike Hogg Professor of Community Affairs. In 2001, de la Garza joined the Columbia University faculty. At Columbia, he was appointed Eaton Professor of Administrative Law and Municipal Science. De la Garza died in New York City on August 5, 2019.

Henry Farmer Dobyns, Jr. (July 3, 1925 – June 21, 2009) was an anthropologist, author and researcher specializing in the ethnohistory and demography of native peoples in the American hemisphere. He is most well known for his groundbreaking demographic research on the size of indigenous American populations before the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1492.

Joanna McClure (born November 10, 1930) is an American poet associated with the writers of the San Francisco Renaissance and the Beat Generation. According to author Brenda Knight, McClure wrote prolifically from the 1950s onward, filling dozens of artist's notebooks with poems and producing "as much writing as [Jack] Kerouac did, though she kept much of hers private."The child of Henry and Ramona Kinnison, McClure grew up on a ranch near Oracle, Arizona, north of Tucson. After the family lost the ranch during the Great Depression, McClure lived for a time in Tucson, then Hermosillo, Mexico, and Guatemala City, Guatemala, before returning to Tucson to study literature and history at the University of Arizona. She married Albert Hall, a chemist, in 1951, but the marriage ended in divorce. Still in Tucson, she met Michael McClure, a university student who later rose to prominence as a Beat poet. In 1954, she moved to San Francisco, involving herself in the Beat scene and befriending Miriam and Kenneth Patchen, Allen Ginsberg, Robert Duncan, Phillip Whalen, and other writers and artists. The McClures married in 1954, and their daughter, Jane, was born in 1956. The family moved briefly to New York City in the 1960s before returning to San Francisco, where Joanna pursued her interests in poetry and in early childhood education. The McClures later divorced but remain connected by poetry.

Halka Chronic (February 26, 1923 – April 16, 2013) was a geologist who traveled and wrote books about the geology of the western United States. She studied the Grand Canyon, Walnut Canyon and then resided in Boulder, Colorado where she continued to study the Rocky Mountains.

Sue Alexander (August 20, 1933 – July 3, 2008) was an American writer of children's literature. She authored 26 books for children as well as "scores of stories" for newspapers and magazines. She was also a children's book reviewer for the Los Angeles Times. She was a charter member and advisory board member of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, which established two awards in her name in recognition of her efforts to educate and mentor aspiring writers.

Mario Suárez (1925–1998) was one of the earliest Chicano writers. He was one of five children born to Mexican immigrants to the U.S. state of Arizona, Francisco Suárez and Carmen Minjárez Suárez. After high school, he joined the U.S. Navy and served during World War II. In the military, he was stationed off the coast of New Jersey, and also served in Brazil. After the war, he returned to Arizona where he enrolled in the University of Arizona. In 1947, while still an undergraduate, he began writing sketches for Arizona Quarterly magazine. Suárez later went on to become a journalist and a college educator, and publishing in Arizona Quarterly. Most of Suárez's literature takes place in "El Hoyo" (The Hole), the name of the Mexican American barrio in Tucson, Arizona, where he was raised. Often overlooked in the "canon" of Chicano Literature for writers such as Rudolfo Anaya and Rolando Hinojosa-Smith, Mario Suárez's writing pre-dates the Chicano literature movement in the 1960s and 1970s. Many of his sketches of Mexican immigrant and working class life were published in the mid- to late-1950s. From an anthropological standpoint, his work should be heralded for telling the Mexican immigrant story and documenting life in El Hoyo before its demise.

William Robert Quimby (September 30, 1936 – June 20, 2018) was an American author, columnist, editor and publisher who specialized in subjects related to big game hunting for more than four decades.