MESSAGE FROM WRITING SIN FRONTERAS

Save the date! October 4–6, 2019, is the Southwest Festival of the Written Word in Silver City, New Mexico.

We are looking forward to presenting our fourth biennial festival this coming fall in Silver City. Our lineup is dynamic, including some favorite features held in festivals past, and many new and varied faces.

In the coming month we will send out particulars on certain events but consider this our overture letter for the fest.

During the week leading up to the festival we will sponsor a printmaking workshop for poets at Power & Light Press, amd the WNMU Museum will be open for writers to muse upon, and write about, their world-renowned collection of Mimbres pottery. We will also sponsor master sessions on Writing in a Woman's Voice, and the Latino Boom!

On Friday night we will welcome festival-goers and hear from our two keynote speakers: Dr. Magdaleno Manzanarez and Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Don Bartletti. Dr. Manzanarez is Vice President for External Affairs at WNMU. He has written extensively on North American border conflicts and has a story to tell of his own journey from southern Mexico to the southwestern US. Don Bartletti won a Pulitzer Prize for his photo documentation of Central American caravans traveling through Mexico en route to the US. His exhibit Enrique’s Journey will be on display at the McCray Gallery for Contemporary Art at WNMU.

After the keynote address we will walk a short distance to the McCray Gallery for a reception. The gallery will also feature a celebration of the life of Dr. Felipe de Ortego y Gasca, a preeminent scholar of Latin American literature who recently passed away. The past (Dr. Ortego), the present (Enrique’s Journey), and the future (writings by school children of the borderlands) will be featured together at the McCray.

Anne Hillerman will give a presentation on her new mystery novel as she furthers the honored Hillerman tradition of crossing over and into Navajo culture.

Once again we will highlight song lyrics by several of Silver City's music composers.

Additional speakers include Michael McGarrity, Alfredo Corchado, Benjamin Alire Saenz, Manuel Gonzalez, Michelle Otero, Rios de la Luz, Denise Chavez, and Adrienne Celt. And many more! We look forward to seeing you!