Author Reading & Visit: Dorothy Denetclaw and Matt Fitzsimons

Friday, February 27, 2026 • 5:30 pm - 7 pm • Main Library, Window Rock, AZ

In 1919, the brother of the Indian trader J.L. Hubbell was shot to death at a trading post near Tolani Lake. Part history, part true crime, The Sons of Gunshooter reexamines the killing and subsequent murder trial, while simultaneously embedding the story in a much larger saga of colonization and resistance. The result is a book that’s sweeping in its scope and surgical in its approach. Rewinding the clock to 1868, the authors follow the intertwining paths of the Hubbells and a prominent Diné family to offer a riveting, deeply personal account that has been hailed as “a new way of doing historiography.”

 

One of the authors is a descendant of participants in the case; the other is an investigative journalist. By merging Diné oral traditions with archival evidence, they succeed in upending one false narrative after another.

 

Dorothy Denetclaw is Tótsohnii born for Tł’ááschí’í. She has lived in Indian Wells, Arizona, her whole life. Dorothy is a survivor of the U.S. government’s boarding school system. After studying business in college, she worked on community development projects across the Navajo Nation as an organizer, activist, and interpreter. Dorothy especially enjoys researching her family history, a legacy for her children and grandchildren.

 

Matt Fitzsimons is a former newspaper reporter and the author of The Counterfeiters of Bosque Redondo: Slavery, Silver, and the U.S. War Against the Navajo Nation. He lives in San Diego, California, serves on the board of the Gaslamp Quarter Historic Foundation, and is a member of the Diné Studies Conference, based in Window Rock, Arizona.