Sandi Ault, who taught writing at the University of New Mexico Taos branch before moving to Colorado, is the winner of this year's prestigious Simon & Schuster/Mary Higgins Clark Award for her first mystery novel, "Wild Indigo," which is set in northern New Mexico.

The Mary Higgins Clark Award is part of the annual mystery awards known as the Edgars®, named for Edgar Allan Poe, and is chosen by the award committee from among the Best Novel, Best First Novel and Best Paperback Novel nominees, according to a publicist's news release.

This year's Edgars, awarded by the Mystery Writers of America, will be presented at a banquet today in New York City. 

"Wild Indigo," which is set in Chimney Rock near the New Mexico-Colorado border and tells of a raging wildfire that threatens a Native American ceremony, is the first debut novel to win the Clark award.

Ault, who teaches at the Santa Fe WordHarvest and the Tony Hillerman Writers Conference in Albuquerque each year, is a former journalist who works as a Type 2 Fire Information Officer at wildfires nationwide, according to the release.

Her second novel, "Wild Inferno," tells of protagonist/firefighter Jamaica Wild's efforts to save a Ute man who has wandered too close to a wildfire  that also threatens the fictitious Tanoah Pueblo, according to a review in February by the Albuquerque Journal's David Steinberg.

Ault lives in Lyons, Colo., with their wolf (!) Tiwa and cat Buckskin.