About the Author

Growing up in Albuquerque, New Mexico I was the kid who wanted to take a book up to my treehouse on summer afternoons and read the time away. Much later I discovered the works of William Maxwell who said, “A writer is a reader who is moved to emulation.” And I decided that I too wanted to become a writer. My stories are always anchored in place and in Blind Eye I returned to my New Mexico roots. This story felt as if it was important. In the end I wrote a cautionary tale of a boy isolated on a 40,000-acre ranch. It was simply something I had to try to tell. In my first writing class I was encouraged to be grateful for my readers and I am grateful for those of you who take time to read this story.

Martha Burns, a native of New Mexico, was always a storyteller, who embraced Albert Camus’ theory that “fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth.” She earned a Doctor of Letters with distinction from Drew University and won the Faulkner-Wisdom Gold Metal Award for Short Story. She and her husband have returned to live in New Mexico where she is at work on her next novel, the story of a woman in the 1930s sued for adultery who loses custody of her six children. Across the Narrows is both a mystery and a story of redemption.