Land Beyond Maps

Land Beyond Maps won
Finalist, 2010 Lambda Literary Foundation, Lesbian Debut Fiction
Winner, 2009 New Mexico Book Award, Gay/Lesbian
Finalist, 2009 New Mexico Book Award, Historical Fiction
Winner, 2010 Arizona Book Publishing Award, Gay/Lesbian
Finalist, 2010 Arizona Book Publishing Award, Multicultural
Finalist, 2010 Golden Crown Literary Society, Dramatic/General Fiction
Winner, 2000 Arch and Bruce Brown Foundation Full-Length Lesbian/Gay Historical Fiction Competition

Maida Tilchen won Honorable Mention, 2007 Astraea Foundation Lesbian Writers Award, Fiction.

Land Beyond Maps tells of midlife lesbians and their friends in Santa Fe and the Navajolands through the boom and bust of 1929, closely based on the true story of a landscape photographer Laura Gilpin (1891-1979), who is considered America's most distinguished woman landscape photographer.
Ambitious archaeologists, zealous missionaries, quietly forceful Navajo women, and overeager tourists intensify this fast-paced story.
Based on extensive research, Land Beyond Maps is a novel of women's history, travel, biography, and adventure, drawing the reader into the lives of women who find new adventures, new careers, and new passions later in life. It depicts a romantic era not previously portrayed in contemporary fiction, despite the current interest in books about the Southwest and women's history.
As one reader described it, "Instead of frolicking about adobe mansions, we sleep in the straw of a stable loft and work in a modest photographer's studio. We see the tourist trade from behind the wheel of a tourbus, and we labor in the dirt in a low status vis-à-vis archaeologists from the Eastern Ivy schools."
Ann Bannon, author of The Beebo Brinker Chronicles, described Land Beyond Maps: "A time-the early 20th Century; and a place-the American Southwest-cast a net of enchantment around an intriguing cast. Here is fiercely shielded Navajo treasure, the interweaving of distant cultures, religious hellfire, and all the delicate and explosive power of forbidden love. Historical characters move through the rooms of story to mingle with the singular humans whom Maida Tilchen infuses with vivid life. Spellbinding people, enmeshed in the stark beauty of a Land Beyond Maps."