NEW BOARD MEMBERS

On October 9 the new board members met and voted for new officer positions. We are deeply grateful for the service of our departing members, including former president, Jared Gann, Vice President Sandi Wright, and Secretary Hal Malchow.

NMBA welcomes three new faces to the board! We are excited about their ideas to better serve the NMBA Membership. First, we welcome Jordan Jones as the new NMBA President, Miguel De La Cruz as Vice President, and Connie Nelson as Secretary/Historian. Long-time member Paula Lozar retains her role as Treasurer, and Richard Polese and David Freobel remain as members at large.

---

Meet our new board:

President: Jordan Jones - Albuquerque, NM
Jordan Jones is a writer, publisher, and genealogist. He has published poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and translations in dozens of journals, as well as in two books of poems, Sand & Coal and The Wheel. He has worked as a technical writer, software business architect, and software development manager, and has served on the boards of directors of the Association for Intelligent Information Management and of three genealogical societies, including the National Genealogical Society, where he served as president. He lives in Albuquerque, where he is the editor of Coyote Arts LLC, the technology chair and a board member of the New Mexico Genealogical Society, and president of the New Mexico Book Association.

---

Vice President: Miguel De La Cruz - Las Cruces, NM
He currently collaborates with lieberoamerica.com, and is an active member of the literary workgroup <<Pisca a las 6:30 (Harvesting at 6:30)>> in Las Cruces. In 2019 he published his second flash fiction book, The Kitsch Queen’s Dress (Brown Buffalo Press NM). He has taken workshops with renowned writers like Lemon Andersen, Denise Chávez, and Alberto Chimal. 

His texts have been published in different literary magazines in Mexico and in the US. In 2013 he published Chameleon’s Memoirs, a collection of short and flash fiction. Miguel labels himself as a Border-Chicano and has lived on both sides of the US-Mexico border: Ciudad Juárez, El Paso and Las Cruces, where he currently resides. He studied Computer Science with a minor in Mathematics, and also obtained a Bachelors of Arts in Spanish with a supplemental major of Chicano Studies from New Mexico State University. In 2013 he graduated from NMSU with a Master of Arts in Spanish (Hispanic-American Literature).

---

Secretary/Historian: Connie Nelson - Santa Fe, NM
Connie moved to Santa Fe in 2018 when she retired. She joined the New Mexico Book Association with a goal of participating in workshops and training events, meeting people who are writers and authors in New Mexico, and learning about independent publishing. Her educational background includes a B.S. in Business Administration, graduate work toward a master’s degree in Vocational Education, and an M.S. in Organizational Communication.

Her work experiences include advertising manager for a chain of men’s clothing stores, marketing/communications manager in several health care organizations, and grant writer for a large school district. She has been an avid community volunteer and also taught marketing in two different post-secondary schools.

---

Treasurer: Paula Lozar - Santa Fe, NM
A native of San Jose, California, Paula has lived in Santa Fe for 29 years. She intended to become an English professor, but when the academic job market tanked, she made a lateral move into technical training. This morphed into a 32-year career of technical writing and editing for software companies, engineering firms, and national laboratories. In retirement, she is writing a series of mystery novels, and is also a published poet. She joined the NMBA Board as an at-large member in 2012 and has held every officer position over the years (currently Treasurer).