Books & Author Events

Item Description

And this is not just any bag of books. This is a special bag spilling over with books from some of the most beloved and gifted New Mexico women writers.

Feast your eyes on the contents of The Big Bag - they have been hand-picked to feed your mind, soul and spirit - and for the deliciously pure pleasure of reading, of course:

Red as a Lotus: Letters to a Dead Trappist - Poet LISA GILL wrote during the two years she lived alone in a trailer next to an alfalfa field and while reading Thomas Merton’s book, Seeds of Contemplation. A reviewer wrote that Lisa is a pilgrim of the inner life. Her poems meticulously transcribe her own spiritual reckoning. They are spare and lush at the same time and work together like a tapestry of ever deepening revelations. Lisa Gill is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Literature and a New Mexico Literary Arts Gratitude Award. This tenth anniversary limited edition of Red as a Lotus has just been published.

Blood Desert : Witnesses 1820-1880 - RENNY GOLDEN’S book won the WILLA Literary Award from Women Writing the West and was selected a Southwest Book of the year. It has been called a sacred blend of poetry and untapped history; a beautiful portrait of turbulent 19th century New Mexico. www.rennygolden.com

The Singing Bowl - This poetry collection of Santa Fe Poet Laureate (2010-2012) JOAN LOGGHE showcases all the features of her work that have attracted so many readers: her attention to detail, her warmth, humor, and passionate and inclusive social conscience. It’s deeply rooted in her adopted northern New Mexico home.

Mother Tongue - DEMETRIA MARTINEZ donated a hard copy edition of her widely translated novel, winner of a Western States Book Award for Fiction. It’s based in part on her 1988 trial for conspiracy against the U.S. government in connection with allegedly transporting Salvadoran refugees into the country. Alice Walker called it “a great beauty of a book.” It is indeed an unforgettable story filled with beautiful prose. http://www.demetriamartinez.com/

Always Messing with Them Boys - In her debut book-length volume, poet JESSICA HELEN LOPEZ ruminates on love and romance, motherhood, teaching, and the trials and tribulations of adulthood. It was voted a Southwest Book of the Year. Jessica is also a nationally recognized poetry slam champion.

Weekends with O’Keeffe - In 1973 Georgia O’Keeffe employed C.S. MERRILL to catalog her library. Over seven years Merrill was called upon for secretarial assistance, cooking, and personal care. She provided descriptions of nature when she and the nearly blind artist went for walks; she read to O’Keeffe from her favorite books and helped keep her space in meticulous order. Merrill’s journals reveal details of the daily life of a genius. Reading her book is like spending a weekend with O’Keeffe in the incomparable light and clear air of Northern New Mexico mountains and desert.

The Suppressed Memoirs of Mabel Dodge Luhan: Sex, Syphilis, and Psychoanalysis in the Making of Modern American Culture - Internationally known as a writer, hostess, and patron of the arts of the 20th century, Mabel Dodge Luhan is not known for her experiences with venereal disease which go unmentioned in her four-volume memoir that was published in the 1930's. Biographer and cultural critic LOIS RUDNICK, author of multiple books on Mabel Dodge Luhan, brilliantly brings us back to the early 20th century and shows us a mover and shaker whose struggles with identity, sexuality, and manic depression speak to the lives of many women of her era.

Edge of Taos Desert: An Escape to Reality- In 1917 MABEL DODGE LUHAN, patron of the arts and spokeswoman for the New York avant-garde, came to the Southwest seeking a new life. This autobiographical account of her first few months in New Mexico is a remarkable description of an Easterner’s journey to the American West. It is also a story of personal and philosophical transformation.

Raising Wrecker - SUMMER WOOD’S novel is set amid the giant trees of Northern California’s magical Lost Coast. It’s the story of a nearly-broken boy who unexpectedly finds a family, an unconventional family celebrating the highs and lows, joys and pains of real and ragged love. Winner of the 2012 WILLA Award for Contemporary Fiction and a Book-of-the-Month Club Selection. Summer Wood lives in Taos and is a recipient of the $50,000 Literary Gift of Freedom from A Room of Her Own Foundation. www.summerwoodwrites.com

And They Called It Horizon - As Santa Fe Poet Laureate (2008-2010), VALERIE MARTINEZ appeared at over 60 public events. While traversing the city, she wrote about it - poems, meditations, and narratives that capture the present and past of the city and its people, all collected in this volume. Valerie has also included her most recent book, Each and Her (2011 Arizona Book Award winner, nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, The National Book Critics Circle Award and more!). http://valeriemartinez.net/

Tia’s Tamales - This is a delightful bilingual tale from New Mexico children’s book writer, ANA BACA. Luz’s school day is canceled because of snow and her abuela decides it’s the perfect time to teach her to make tamales, just as her father, Diego, was taught by his tia on a long-ago winter day. Winner of the 2011 New Mexico Book Award.

Spirit Birds They Told Me - The title of Mary Oishi’s book is drawn from her mother’s Japanese name, One Thousand Cranes. This beautiful collection of poetry brings a message of trauma and recovery, war and reconciliation, and the passage from personal shame to self-regard. They are historical, political and personal in the same breath.

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