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New Mexico Writers Dinner
Back on Track
Take your favorite outfit to the cleaners, because the annual New Mexico Writers dinner is on for April 28th at La Fonda Hotel in Santa Fe. We will honor our 2020, 2021, and 2022 grantees at that time. We will also welcome New Mexico Poet Laureate Levi Romero as our keynote speaker. Of course, we will monitor conditions, exercise caution, and observe state public health orders should they preclude in-person meetings. Attendees must provide proof of full vaccination or negative results from a recent COVID test. Watch your email and check our website for details in coming months.
Join Us in Building NM Writers
New Mexico Writers is sustained entirely by volunteers. We have great plans, but they can’t come to fruition without volunteers. Won’t you consider lending a hand? We need help putting on our annual dinner, which generates funding to provide grants for writers statewide. There are also opportunities to assist us in writing up news items, working on special programs, helping with member outreach, and much more. Send a note to Destiny Allison to get involved!
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NMSA Hosts Guest Writer, Announces Miller Scholar
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At an event held in October at the Jean Cocteau Cinema in Santa Fe, the New Mexico School of the Arts (NMSA) featured readings by guest writer Kirsten Johnson and 2021 Miller Scholar Skye Bowdon, along with selections by other students at the school. |
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Johnson, an MFA graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Program, is a novelist and short fiction writer. During her stay in Santa Fe, she visited each of NMSA’s grades for a week at a time, focusing on such topics as close-reading and analysis and writing techniques. |
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Bowdon, a junior at NMSA, has had her work published in Dreams of Montezuma: An Anthology of Poetry and Prose New Mexico School for the Arts, Cathartic Youth Literary Magazine, and Ice lolly Review. She was a finalist for the 2021 Santa Fe Youth Poet Laureate. James Reich, chair of NMSA’s Creative Writing & Literature Department, said Bowdon “was recognized for her outstanding writing and commitment to the craft of writing and the department.” The Miller Scholar is a distinction awarded to an outstanding student in the Creative Writing & Literature Department.
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UNM Plans Tribute
to Rudolfo Anaya
The University of New Mexico is seeking donations to fund the proposed Rudolfo Anaya Sala, a portion of the school’s Zimmerman Library that will honor Anaya’s contribution to New Mexico’s arts and letters. The space will feature Anaya’s life and works via a digital display and also memorabilia from his collection.
Anaya earned three degrees at UNM and later taught there for about 20 years. Best known for his novel Bless Me, Ultima and as a pioneer of Chicano literature, Anaya was awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2016. UNM hopes to raise $40,000 to create the sala. To learn more or to donate, go here. |
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The New Mexico Book Co-op has announced the winners and finalists for the 2021 New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards. The awards are given in more than 50 categories, and this year almost 1,700 books were entered. New Mexico winners include Sherri Burr, Nasario Garcia, Melody Groves, Anne Hillerman, and Kat Sawyer. You can see all of the winners here and the finalists here.
Former Santa Fe poet laureate and National Book Award winner Arthur Sze is one of 26 writers who contributed a poem or lyric prose to WORDS on the Edge. Each piece ties into the theme of nature and its irresponsible destruction. Sze’s contribution is called “Black Center.” Other writers who took part in the project include Joy Harjo, Wendell Berry, and Barry Lopez.
Pasatiempo profiled poet and novelist Ana Castillo after the recent publication of her new poetry collection, My Book of the Dead, published by High Road Books, an imprint of the University of New Mexico Press.
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SOMOS, the Society of the Muse of the Southwest, located in Taos, has posted its schedule of virtual events for November. Featured New Mexico writers include John Biscello, Maria Dolores Gonzales, and Rose Lucero Padilla. SOMOS also offers online workshops; see the upcoming course listings here.
The Santa Fe New Mexican ran an excerpt of Images of America: Skiing in New Mexico by Daniel Gibson and Jay Blackwood, which was published in August 2021. Gibson has written a regional weekly column for almost 30 years called Snow Trax. Blackwood is a committee member of the New Mexico Ski Hall of Fame and curator of the New Mexico Ski Museum.
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New Publisher Seeks Book Proposals
Mimbres Press of Western New Mexico University is soliciting submissions. The press welcomes agented and unagented submissions in the following genres: literary fiction, creative non-fiction, essays, memoir, poetry, biography, and children’s books. It’s also interested in receiving academic work focused on the U.S. Southwest. The press’s mission is to publish works of lasting value that reflect the intellectual, creative, historical, natural, and cultural heritage of the Southwest, as well as selective works of national and global significance. For more information, go here. The press recently published its first book, the poetry collection The Algorithm of I, by Jack Crocker.
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[505-469-5273] [info@nmwriters.org] [NMWriters.org] |
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