Michael Nava

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title: "Michael Nava" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1954-births", "living-people", "american-mystery-writers", "american-gay-writers", "lambda-literary-award-winners", "american-lgbtq-lawyers", "writers-from-stockton,-california", "gay-novelists", "lgbtq-crime-writers", "hispanic-and-latino-american-lgbtq-people", "american-lgbtq-novelists", "lgbtq-people-from-california", "american-male-novelists", "american-writers-of-mexican-descent", "writers-from-sacramento,-california", "stanford-law-school-alumni", "colorado-college-alumni", "20th-century-american-novelists", "21st-century-american-novelists", "20th-century-american-lawyers", "21st-century-american-lgbtq-people", "21st-century-american-lawyers"] description: "American attorney and writer (born 1954)" topic_path: "law" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Nava" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary American attorney and writer (born 1954) ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox person"]

Field	Value
name	Michael Nava
birth_name	Michael Angel Nava
birth_date
birth_place	Stockton, California, U.S.
spouse	George Herzog
alma_mater	Stanford Law School (JD)
Colorado College (BA)
occupation	Lawyer, writer
website
::

| honorific-prefix = | name = Michael Nava | honorific-suffix = | image = | imagesize = | caption = | birth_name = Michael Angel Nava | birth_date = | birth_place = Stockton, California, U.S. | death_date = | death_place = | restingplace = | restingplacecoordinates = | nationality = | party = | spouse = George Herzog | partner = | relations = | children = | alma_mater = Stanford Law School (JD) Colorado College (BA) | occupation = Lawyer, writer | signature = | website = | footnotes =

Michael Angel Nava (born September 16, 1954) is an American attorney and writer. He has worked on the staff for the California Supreme Court, and ran for a Superior Court position in 2010. He authored a ten-volume mystery series featuring Henry Rios, an openly gay protagonist who is a criminal defense lawyer. His novels have received seven Lambda Literary Awards and critical acclaim in the GLBT and Latino communities.

Early life and family

Nava grew up in Gardenland, a predominantly working-class Mexican neighborhood in Sacramento, California that he described as "not as an American suburb at all, but rather as a Mexican village, transported perhaps from Guanajuato, where my grandmother's family originated, and set down lock, stock and chicken coop in the middle of California."{{cite journal | url = http://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/tma/vol2/iss1/7 | format = PDF | last=Ortiz | first = Maria Lucero | title=Spotlight On Michael Nava: Writing The Wrongs For All | journal = The Modern American | date = Spring 2006 | volume = 2 | issue = 1 | pages = 21–22

At 12 years old, he started writing and it was also around that time he recognized that he was gay. He was the first person in his family to go to college; he attended Colorado College and "acquired a special affinity for literature and writing." He joined a group of young poets that included writer and humorist David Owen and the poet David Mason. He graduated in 1976 cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in History.

Nava received a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship, and spent the following year in Buenos Aires and Madrid where he worked on translations of works by Spanish-American poet Rubén Darío. After returning, he considered graduate education in English or History. He enrolled in Stanford Law School, and received his J.D. in 1981.

Legal career

Nava worked in the Los Angeles City Attorney's office, where he was a deputy attorney and prosecutor on about 50 jury trials. In 1985, he became an associate at the appellate boutique firm Horvitz & Levy, located in Encino, California. He then served as a judicial staff attorney for Arleigh Woods, the first female African-American appellate court justice in California, from 1986-1995. One of the cases he worked on was Jasperson v. Jessica's Nail Clinic in 1989, which resulted in the first published decision to uphold an HIV/AIDS anti-discrimination statute.

After Woods retired, Nava moved back to Northern California and settled in San Francisco. In 1999, he joined the staff of the California Supreme Court. In 2004, he became a judicial attorney for Carlos R. Moreno, who was the third Latino to ever sit on the California Supreme Court. Nava said "Judicial attorneys and law clerks can have a huge influence in shaping the direction of the law, but there are very few attorneys of color in those positions because they are mostly filled through the Old Boys Network. We need to establish our own network."

In 2002, Nava was given a Doctor of Humane Letters honorary degree from the Colorado College in recognition of his literary achievements.

From 2007 to 2009, he was a member of the State Bar of California's Council on Access and Fairness, which advises the State Bar's board of governors on diversity issues. In 2008, he wrote The Servant of All: Humility, Humanity, and Judicial Diversity, a law review article where he put forth the case for judicial diversity.{{cite journal | url =http://digitalcommons.law.ggu.edu/ggulrev/vol38/iss2/1 | title = The Servant of All: Humility, Humanity, and Judicial Diversity | journal = Golden Gate University Law Review | last = Nava | first = Michael | volume = 38 | issue = 2 | date = 2010-10-06 | format = PDF

In 2010, Nava ran for Seat 15 of the San Francisco Superior Court. In the June election, he received a plurality of the votes,{{cite web | url = http://sfelections.org/results/20100608/summary.php | title = Results Summary - June 8, 2010 - June 8, 2010 Consolidated Statewide Direct Primary Election | date = November 24, 2010 | work = City of County of San Francisco Department of Elections}} but the position required a majority. In the November run-off election with incumbent Richard Ulmer, he received 87,511 votes (46.83%) compared to Ulmer's 99,342 (53.17%).{{cite web | url = http://www.sfelections.org/results/20101102 | title = Results Summary - November 2, 2010 - Consolidated General Election | date = November 24, 2010 | work = City of County of San Francisco Department of Elections}}

Writing career

After graduating from Stanford Law School, Nava began writing his first novel. The Little Death features Henry Rios, an openly gay Latino criminal defense lawyer who worked in Los Angeles. He was inspired to create Rios because of a comment by author Toni Morrison about writing books that she wished she could have read when she was growing up. After the novel was rejected by thirteen publishers, it was picked up by Alyson Books, and published in 1986. His follow-up novel, Goldenboy, published in 1988, received critical acclaim by the New York Times which called him a "brilliant storyteller." From 1990-2000, Nava wrote five more Henry Rios books: How Town, The Hidden Law, The Death of Friends, The Burning Plain, and Rag and Bone. He received six Lambda Literary Awards. In 2001, he was awarded the Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement from Publishing Triangle, a GLBT professional group within the publishing industry.{{cite web | url = http://www.publishingtriangle.org/awards.asp#Bill | title = Awards - The Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement | work = Publishing Triangle | accessdate = May 24, 2013}}

In 1994, he co-authored the book Created Equal: Why Gay Rights Matter to America.

After not having written any new novels since 2000, Nava announced in 2008 that he had drafted a new work, The Children of Eve, which was set in the Mexican Revolution. He based one of the main characters on his grandfather. The Children of Eve would later be redone as a quartet of historical fiction novels; the first book would be titled The City of Palaces. In 2016, he published a revised version of the first Henry Rios novel, “The Little Death,” which he retitled “Lay Your Sleeping Head.” In 2018, he adapted the revised novel into season one of an audiodrama podcast called “The Henry Rios Mysteries Podcast.” In 2019, he started his own small press, Persigo Press, with the goal of publishing a new edition of the existing Rios novels and to add new novels to the series. The first new novel, “Carved in Bone”, was published in October 2019. Nava also announced he hoped to publish other LGBTQ writers and writers of color through Persigo Press.

Personal life

In October 2008, Nava married his partner George Herzog, an oncology nurse at the Veteran's Administration hospital in San Francisco. California Supreme Court justice Carlos R. Moreno presided over the ceremony. They live in Daly City, California.

Awards

::data[format=table]

Year	Title	Award	Result	Ref.
1989	Goldenboy	Lambda Literary Award for Gay Mystery/Science Fiction	Winner	date=2010-01-13
Lambda Literary Award for Gay Small Press Book Award	Winner
1990	Finale: Stories of Mystery	Lambda Literary Award for Anthology	Finalist	date=1990-07-13
Finale Edited	Lambda Literary Award for Gay Mystery	Finalist
1991	Howtown	Lambda Literary Award for Gay Mystery	Winner	date=1991-07-13
1993	The Hidden Law	Lambda Literary Award for Gay Mystery	Winner	date=1992-07-14
1997	Death of Friends	Lambda Literary Award for Gay Mystery	Winner	last=Antonio
1998	The Burning Plain	Lambda Literary Award for Gay Mystery	Finalist	last=Antonio
2002	Rag and Bone	Lambda Literary Award for Gay Mystery	Winner	last=Gonzalez Cerna
2015	The City of Palaces	Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction	Finalist	date=2015-03-04
2017	Lay Your Sleeping Head	Lambda Literary Award for Gay Mystery	Finalist	date=2017-03-14
2018	Street People	Lambda Literary Award for Gay Mystery	Finalist	last=Boureau
2020	Carved in Bone	Lambda Literary Award for Gay Mystery	Winner	title=2020 Winners
2022	Lies With Man	Lambda Literary Award for Gay Mystery	Finalist
::

Publications

• Hometowns: Gay Men Write About Where They Belong (1991) - "Gardenland"
• Created Equal: Why Gay Rights Matter to America, with Robert Dawidoff (1994)
• A Member of the Family: Gay Men Write About Their Families (1994) - "Abuelo"
• Finale: Short Stories of Mystery and Suspense (1997) - editor
• Street People (2017)

Henry Rios series

• The Little Death (1986)
• Goldenboy (1988)
• Howtown (1990)
• The Hidden Law (1992)
• The Death of Friends (1996)
• The Burning Plain (1997)
• Rag and Bone (2001)
• Lay Your Sleeping Head (2016) (This is a reworked version of The Little Death)
• Carved in Bone (2019) (This is a reworked version of Goldenboy)
• Lies With Man (2021)

The Children of Eve series

• The City of Palaces (2014)

Anthologies edited

• Finale: Stories of Mystery (1989)

Anthology contributions

• Certain Voices, edited by Darryl Pilcher (1991)
• Equality: What Do You Think About When You Think of Equality?, edited by Paul Alan Fahey (2017)

References

References

1. [https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf5f59p0p0/ Michael Nava Papers]
2. (1992). "Hometowns: Gay Men Write About Where They Belong". Dutton.
3. "Michael Nava Biography". Michael Nava Writer.
4. (2006-04-24). "La Bloga: Spotlight On Michael Nava". Labloga.blogspot.com.
5. Bajko, Matthew S.. (2009-10-15). "The Bay Area Reporter Online | Political Notebook: Judicial aide runs for judge". Ebar.com.
6. (1989) 216 Cal.App.3d 1099
7. "Recipients • Academic Events Committee • Colorado College". Coloradocollege.edu.
8. link. (October 1, 2009)
9. (2010-04-22). "Bay Area Reporter Weblogs » SF Dems, gay group back Michael Nava in SF judge race". Ebar.com.
10. "CREATED EQUAL by Michael Nava". Kirkusreviews.com.
11. (2008-08-25). "La Bloga: Novelist Michael Nava roars back into the literary world!". Labloga.blogspot.com.
12. "Michael Nava's Blog". Goodreads.com.
13. Kalfus, Ari. (October 11, 2012). "Author Michael Nava presents 'The City of Palaces'". The Brandeis Hoot.
14. (2010-01-13). "1st Annual Lambda Literary Awards".
15. (1990-07-13). "2nd Annual Lambda Literary Awards".
16. (1991-07-13). "3rd Annual Lambda Literary Awards".
17. (1992-07-14). "4th Annual Lambda Literary Awards".
18. Antonio, Gonzalez Cerna. (1997-07-15). "9th Annual Lambda Literary Awards".
19. Antonio, Gonzalez Cerna. (1998-07-15). "10th Annual Lambda Literary Awards".
20. Gonzalez Cerna, Antonio. (2002-07-10). "14th Annual Lambda Literary Awards".
21. (2015-03-04). "The 27th Annual Lambda Literary Award Finalists".
22. (2017-03-14). "29th Annual Lambda Literary Award Finalists Announced".
23. Boureau, Ella. (2018-03-06). "30th Annual Lambda Literary Award Finalists Announced".
24. "2020 Winners".
25. Aviles, Gwen. (2020-06-01). "Lambda Literary announces 25 winning books for annual Lammy Awards".
26. Vanderhoof, Erin. (2020-06-01). "EXCLUSIVE: The Winners of the 32nd Annual Lambda Literary Awards".

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