Dear Festival Friends,

On the cusp of a weekend featuring so many literary superstars, we’re delighted to host a community workshop affirming that writing is for everyone. Presented in partnership with Swan Quill West, “Voices in the Library,” taking place just a few blocks from the Convention Center at the Santa Fe Public Library’s downtown location, will explore the transformative power of writing and creative expression. 

Navajo Nation Poet Laureate Jake Skeets, Santa Fe Poet Laureate Tommy Archuleta, Tucson Poet Laureate Logan Phillips, and Deborah Jackson Taffa, author of Whiskey Tender, will participate. The afternoon, which is free and open to all, will include writing prompts to evoke memories and inspire new thinking and discussion of the role of reflection and revision in the creative process. The Swan Quill West Voice Project and Vital Spaces Unhoused Art will also participate, and their work will be displayed in the library’s second-floor gallery.

The workshop will take place on the Friday afternoon that opens the Festival, May 15, from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m., and will be followed by a community reading by the participants. Registration is required for the workshop, and all are invited to the community reading at 3:00 p.m. 

We hope you’ll join us for this rare opportunity to witness our community’s creativity in action! 

COMMUNITY NEWS

To help fuel that creative energy and stoke your excitement for the weekend, a trifecta of free literary happenings will be offered in Santa Fe on Thursday evening, May 14:

• Contemporary art space Pie Projects, located in the Baca Railyard, will host artist Jill O’Bryan in conversation with poet Rick Barot and environmental writer Laura Paskus from 5:00 to 6:00 p.m. The group will discuss O’Bryan’s solo show “A New Breath,” which explores the artist’s decades-long investigation recording interactive processes among the elements of earth and air.

• From 5:00 to 7:00 p.m., Daniel Cooney Fine Art at the Lena Street Lofts will host a reception with Festival author Alison Bechdel celebrating Robert Giard’s Particular Voices: Photographts of LGBTQ+ Writers and Artists, 1985–2002. The show includes portraits of Bechdel, Michael Cunningham, Eileen Myles, Edmund White, and Festival author Colm Tóibín. Giard’s work creates an extraordinary visual record of the flowering of queer voices in the wake of the Stonewall rebellion and the AIDS crisis. It also pays homage to many earlier twentieth-century activists and writers who contributed to gay, lesbian, transgender, and queer cultures and communities. The exhibition runs through June 6.

• From 6:00 to 7:00 p.m., Collected Works Bookstore & Coffeehouse will present Festival author Scott Simon, the beloved host of NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday. Simon will tell his moving tales of the marvelous animals who have crossed his path in a discussion of his book Ulysses S. Cat and Other Animals I Have Known with New York Times bestselling author Hampton Sides and Anne Goodwin Sides, former senior editor of NPR’s Weekend Edition.

Board of Directors
Edward Gale, Chair

Janet Bailey | Juliet Erickson

Andrea Fellows Fineberg | Jenny Kimball

James McGrath Morris | Carmella Padilla

Jenna Scanlan | Mary Sloane

Maria Gale, Ex Officio

Founders
Clare Hertel | Carmella Padilla | Mark Bryant