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N. Scott Momaday![]() Pulitzer Prize-winning author, poet and storyteller N. Scott Momaday (89) died in Santa Fe in January. After earning a BA degree in English at the University of New Mexico, Momaday won a poetry fellowship to the creative writing program at Stanford University, where he received a doctorate in English literature. His ground-breaking novel, House Made of Dawn, the story of a young Native man who returns to Jemez Pueblo to heal after serving in WWII and struggles to reconcile the man he has become with the man he was before leaving, is considered a masterpiece of Native American literature that has been credited with ushering in a period known as the Native American Renaissance. “He was the first,” said Institute of American Arts President Robert Martin. “He paved the way for all the Native writers of today. Before that there had been Native American writers and storytellers, but they had never been acknowledged for their importance or contributions until Scott Momaday came along.” Stanley Crawford ![]() Writer and farmer Stanley Crawford died in Dixon, New Mexico, in January at the age of 86. Educated at the University of Chicago and the Sorbonne, Crawford moved to Dixon in 1970, where he co-founded El Bosque, a garlic farm, with his wife RoseMary. For decades he sold produce at the Santa Fe Farmers’ Market and served as the market’s president. Crawford published several novel and nonfiction books. Among the latter, A Garlic Testament: Seasons on a Small New Mexico Farm won the NMBA’s inaugural Richard Harris Award in 2013. “In order to become a bona fide New Mexican,” Crawford wrote in New Mexico Magazine in 2017, “it is best to submit to a number of initiation activities. A short list would include hunting for piñon nuts in scrubland hillside forests of the north in the fall, digging out an acequia in the spring, making adobe bricks in the summer, and building your own adobe house. Add: learning at least a few words of the unique norteño patois of northern New Mexico.” NMBA Treasurer Paula Lozar traveled to Dixon for Crawford’s garlic on more than one occasion.
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Our thanks to the Board for organizing the event, to photographers Pat Galagan and Sally Thomson, to the staff of Las Campanas for their professional service, and to all our members for their support.
Garcia Street Books is excited to be celebrating the winners of this year’s prestigious Pasatiempo Writing Contest which has published outstanding literary works from a variety of genres. This year, there were categories in Fiction, Nonfiction/Essay/Memoir, and Poetry. New this year, the Pasatiempo team assembled a blue chip panel of judges to select top entries in each category, as well as a Grand Prize winner and a slate of Pasa Youth Writer Prize recipients. The contest was announced in November and winning entries were published in Pasatiempo on December 22. Come hear the Grand Prize winners and the youth categories winners read to your from their work! Sunday, January 28, 4pmRSVP is required, please click above.
For more information, call the store at (505) 986-0151 The New Mexico Library Association (NMLA) is holding its annual conference in Albuquerque on October 25-27, 2023, at the Marriott Pyramid North. NMBA will be displaying and selling our authors’ books in their exhibitor area.
This conference marks the 100th anniversary of NMLA, and is likely to be a well-attended event. Important: This opportunity is for NMBA members only. If you aren’t certain of your membership status, check the Member Directory at https://www.nmbookassociation.org/member-directory.html To participate, do the following:
Photos by Bill Frej & Pat Galagan.
The successful "Meet the Authors" monthly event at Garcia Street Books in Santa Fe continued on July 1, 2023.
Rebecca Skeele, Donna Pedace, and Sandi Wright (L to R) displayed their books to readers and buyers on the portal of the bookstore. Thanks to Garcia Street Books for offering NMBA authors this opportunity! Note, the bookstore has offered to continue the tables through October. We're full up for August 5, but I'll soon be sending out a call for the two following months. If you're interested, watch for the email. The New Mexico Book Association has been invited to display and sell member books at the annual government-sponsored 2023 Feria del Libro de la Frontera in Juarez, Mexico. NMBA Co-President Miguel De La Cruz, who lives in Las Cruces, will be handling our booth at the fair, which attracts thousands of English- and Spanish-speaking and reading people from Mexico and U.S. states bordering Mexico. Here’s How You Can Participate
Because the cost of a booth in Juarez is less than the cost at the Tucson Festival of Books, we’re able to charge less to register. Fees (payable by check or PayPal): $15 for first book title; $5 for each additional (maximum of three) Submit three (3) copies for each title: If we already have your book(s) in our book show stock, we’ll use those. If we don’t, please mail copies to Paula Lozar (address below)). If you’re not sure, email Paula: [email protected]. Books and/or check must be received by Paula by May 12th. IMPORTANT! Participation is limited to registered NMBA members. If you’re not yet a member and would like to participate in the Juarez Book Fair, you can register to be a member here or if you would like to renew your membership, you can do so by clicking here. NMBA showcased 45 of our members’ books at the New Mexico Writers Dinner at La Fonda in Santa Fe,
April 6, 2023. Thanks to James McGrath Morris, Executive Director of New Mexico Writers, for helping to make this happen, and thanks to the committee (Shirley Melis, Anna Sochocky, Jordan Jones, and Paula Lozar) who collected the books and assembled the supporting materials. This was not a sales event, but we handed out lists of the books on display (including purchase information), and also distributed brochures for the Southwest Book Design and Production Awards. The display will make another appearance on May 18 at the opening reception for the Santa Fe International Literary Festival. This will take place at the Santa Fe Convention Center, and authors and publishers whose books are on display will be invited to the reception – watch for an email with specifics. After the May event, New Mexico Writers will donate the books to local libraries. Thanks to everyone who participated, and we hope to see you on May 18! ![]() NMBA’s trip to the Tucson Festival of Books, March 4-5, 2023, was a success: We sold more books for more of our authors this year than last year. As before, authors who volunteered in the booth tended to sell more books, probably because readers like the personal touch. (Also, although we ask participants to submit five copies apiece of each title, volunteers are free to bring extra copies with them to the show, so some volunteers sold more than five copies of their titles.) We had clear, mild weather, although it had actually snowed in Tucson a few days before! The festival included nearly 200 booths spread out along the grassy mall in the center of the University of Arizona campus. Besides booksellers, there were literary nonprofits (such as writers’ organizations), businesses that offer editing and promotional services, small specialty publishers (fantasy, science fiction, and Westerns seemed to be popular), and academic publishers. There was an extensive children’s book area, plus science displays and demonstrations, a National Parks gift shop, and representatives from nonprofit historical and archeological associations, museums, and educational programs. NMBA was unique as a professional authors’ and publishers’ association with state-wide membership. The festival also features a wide variety of speakers, panel discussions, and readings – this year the speakers included Linda Ronstadt (a local hero!) and Bernie Sanders. So the festival is very well attended: I haven’t seen this year’s totals, but estimated attendance averages around 135,000 visitors. It's impossible to predict which books will sell, and this year’s best-sellers at the NMBA booth ranged
from children’s books to memoir and fiction. We had inquiries for Young Adult books, Native American topics, and travel books, but we didn’t have any of those this year – so if you write in those categories, consider participating next year. We gave out business cards directing interested readers to our online catalog; even if your book didn’t sell at the show, it had lots of exposure and, possibly, follow-up orders. (Let us know about those; we’d like to hear about the effectiveness of our catalog.) This year the “Indie Authors” area had a different format: Authors were asked to apply in advance for a time slot in the reading area and go through a selection process. If you are considering participating in this aspect of the festival in the future, instructions will be on their website, tucsonfestivalofbooks.org. (This section of their website may not be functional yet. We’ll let everyone know when the dates for next year’s festival are announced, and you’ll need to check back after that.) Thanks to this year’s volunteers: Dominique Mazeaud, Shirley Melis, Connie Nelson, and Sandi Wright. Frank Hirsch helped with booth set-up and take-down. Jordan Jones was indispensable in assembling our online catalog, setting up our online Square store, and trouble-shooting our card reader from a distance, and Anna Sochocky collected books from show participants and transported them to my house. Special thanks to Jared Gann, who carpooled with me to Tucson through blizzards and epic traffic jams (no exaggeration), and unloaded and reloaded many cartons of books and booth supplies as well as helping in the booth. We’re grateful to all of you for your help in making this year’s festival a success for NMBA, and we hope to see you again next year in Tucson. -- Paula Lozar |
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