Michael Nava

Michael Nava is an American lawyer turned thriller, mystery, and gay fiction author. He is best known for the “Henry Rios Mystery” series of novels featuring the lead character Henry Rios, an openly gay criminal defense attorney. His novels have earned him critical acclaim in the Latino and LGBT Communities and been the recipients of the Lambda Literary Awards six times. Michael was raised in Sacramento California, in a predominantly working class Mexican suburb that looked more like a Mexican village than an American neighborhood. He first got interested in writing aged only 12, which was also the time, that he realized that he was gay. He made history in his family as the first ever Nava to attend college when he was admitted to Colorado College, where he engaged in creative writing and literature despite being a history major. It was at Colorado that he honed his writing skills as he mingled with the likes of humorist and writer David Owen and David Mason the poet. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in History in 1976, and got a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship that required him to spend time in Madrid and Buenos Aires translating the works of Ruben Dario. After returning to the United States, he went to Stanford Law School where he graduated with a law degree in 1981. He went on to work in the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office and by 1999, he was part of the staff of the Supreme Court working as a judicial attorney for Justice Carlos R. Moreno. He currently lives in Daly City, California with his partner George Herzog, an oncology nurse.