2013 Participant Video on YouTube

Winter Light on the Rio Grande - 

photo by the 2014 Featured Artist, Geraint Smith

Please watch and share this video that Jennifer Simpson produced for the Conference to find out what leads participants to come for the first time and then return.

Faculty Publications - Debra Monroe - "Why I Wrote About Sex"

Debra Monroe just had an essay published with the title, "Why I Wrote About Sex." It’s getting a lot of attention from writers, both beginning & established.  Its premise is that writing about sex is never writing about sex; it’s writing about civilization itself.

Read it here.


Debra is teaching again this summer at the Taos Summer Writers' Conference (you can find out more about her class here) from July 13-18.

2014 Instructor Appearances - Dani Shapiro

Dani Shapiro at Poets & Writers Live

Credit: Bastian Schweitzer Dani Shapiro will be the featured reader at Poets & Writers Live: INSPIRATION.  The author most recently of Still Writing: The Perils and Pleasures of a Creative Life from Atlantic Monthly Press, Shapiro is a perfect addition to the program for this inaugural Poets & Writers Live event, which has Inspiration as its theme. The event will take place on Saturday, January 11 in Los Angeles. Kevin Larimer, editor in chief of Poets & Writers, will lead a session on Publishing 101; Cheryl Klein, director of our Los Angeles office, will lead a discussion on local resources for writers; poet Harryette Mullen, fiction writers Ron Carlson and Charles Yu, and LA Times columnist and author Meghan Daum will discuss what motivates them to write. We'll finish the day with a literary mixer at a local watering hole. Space is very limited. Register today at the Early Bird price of just $50. (After January 1, registration will be $75.) Poets & Writers Live is a new initiative that aims to bring together everything you expect of Poets & Writers -- trustworthy information, inspiration, and community -- in a real-time, real-life forum. So, if you're not in southern California, stand by! We plan to bring Poets & Writers Live to other cities, and to develop an online extension.

Participant/Lecturer Achievements - Katherine Toy Miller

2010 Taos Resident Award winner and 2011 presenter of "Spiritual Connections: Georgia O'Keeffe and D. H. Lawrence," Katherine Toy Miller, appeared on a one-hour BBC television documentary on "D. H. Lawrence: A Journey Without Shame" Saturday, November 23 at 22:15 in the UK. The program is to be shown in a slightly edited version on BBC World News February 1 and 2.

Congratulations, Katherine! We will look forward to seeing you on television in February.

Katherine Toy Miller, winner of the 2010 Taos Resident Award at the Taos Summer Writers Conference, has an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Arizona and a Ph.D. in English from Florida State University and currently teaches at the University of Nevada, Reno.

Registration opens December 2, 2013, 9 a.m. MT

Join us for the 2014 16th Annual Taos Summer Writers' Conference July 13-20.

Registration for the 16th Annual Taos Summer Writers' Conference 
opens December 2, 2013.

Weeklong Workshops - click here for faculty, bios and course descriptions.

2014 Faculty

Minrose Gwin, Frank Huyler, Priscilla Long, Kristen-Paige Madonia, Michael Maren, Greg Martin, Jane von Mehren, Debra Monroe, Tomás Q. Morín, Kent Nelson, Dani Shapiro, Les Standiford, Leslie Ullman, Amanda Eyre Ward

On-site Registration and Evening Opening Event: July 13 - Classroom Instruction (one workshop that meets daily): July 14-18 
Registration capped at 12 participants per workshop - 
Choose one morning (9 a.m. - 12 p.m.) or afternoon (2 p.m. - 5 p.m.) workshop
We do not advise taking more than one weeklong class

Weeklong Master Classes - click here for faculty, bios and course descriptions.

 

2014 Faculty: John Dufresne—Novel, BK Loren—Novel, Summer Wood—Novel, 
Pam Houston—Short Story Collections, Justin St. Germain—Memoir, Amy Beeder—Poetry

On-site Registration and Evening Opening Event: July 13 - Classroom Instruction: July 14 - 89 
Registration capped at 6 participants per workshop - 
Choose one morning (9 am -12 pm)or afternoon (2 pm to 5 pm) workshop
We do not advise taking more than one weeklong class

Weekend Workshops - click here for faculty, bios and course descriptions.

2014 Faculty: Stephen Benz - Prose Style, Nancy Naomi Carlson - Literary Translation,
Veronica Golos - Poetry, Lisa Lenard-Cook - Innovative Revision, Demetria Martinez - Character Development, Andy Ross - Query Letter, Robert Wilder - Humor Writing

On-site Registration starts Saturday, July 19 at 8 am with Opening Ceremonies at 9 a.m.- 
Classroom Instruction: July 19 and 20 from 10 a.m. - 12 p.m. and 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. 
Registration capped at 12 participants per workshop.

Agent Consultations

2014 Confirmed Agents: Jane von Mehren - Freelance Editor and Andy Ross - Andy Ross Agency

Registration capped at 10 per consultant.

Participant Publications - Teddy Jones - Jackson's Pond, Texas

Congratulations, Teddy Jones! This is a novel Teddy workshopped in John Dufresne's master class. The fourth chapter was printed as a short story last spring in Persimmon Tree. Teddy workshopped the first chapter as a short story with Robert Boswell in 2009.

Here’s a link to it on Amazon. It’s available both in paperback and e-book, for Kindle, Nook and other e-reader platforms, from MidTown Publishing, Inc.

Faculty Publications - Debra Monroe in Longreads

'You're in Trouble. Am I Right?': My Unsentimental Education

Debra Monroe | 2012 | 20 minutes (5,101 words)

Debra Monroe is the author of five books, most recently the memoir, On the Outskirts of Normal. Her nonfiction has appeared in The American Scholar, Doubletake, The Morning News and The Southern Review, and her Guernica essay “Gray Area” was just shortlisted for The Best American Essays. This is from her sixth book, in progress—it first appeared onJohn Griswold's Inside Higher Ed blog, and our thanks to Monroe for allowing us to reprint it here.

Debra Monroe will be teaching a weeklong workshop in personal essay at the 2014 Taos Summer Writers' Conference. Registration opens December 2, 2013.

Participant Publications - Eileen (Kalinowski) Wiard - Inside Outsiders

Congratulations, Eileen! We wish you all the best as you wait for your proof copy!

Past Participant Publication - Eleni Bastea

Congratulations, Eleni!

Poets! In 2014, the Taos Summer Writers' Conference will be offering a master class in poetry with Amy Beeder as well as two poetry weeklong workshops with Tomas Q. Morin and Leslie Ullman. Class descriptions and instructor letters will be up on the website by mid-November.

Past Participant Publications - Jay D Roberts

Master class participant, Jay D. Robert's book,  Break the Chains, is now available. Congratulations, Jay!

After the release date, 11/26/13, it will also can be purchased online on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Break the Chains
Transforming Shame into Forgiveness
by Jay D Roberts, MD

If you were abused over and over again, would you become an abuser, or would you learn to forgive? Dr. Jay Roberts had to go to prison to learn the answer.

In 1999 Dr. Roberts was in at-home hospice care preparing for his own death from a neurological disease. At the point where he finally gave up, he experienced a spontaneous, overnight healing. It was not the first time he had 'cheated' death. He had survived a fifty-foot fall from a cliff, a plane crash, and attempts on his life by rebel insurgents in remote areas in the Philippines in the 1970s. This near-death escape was different, though, because it was the culmination of a turbulent, lifelong dialogue with God that started when he was a child being bull-whipped by his alcoholic father. Yet even after his complete recovery from disease, it would take a maximum security prison environment to reveal to him the mysterious power of forgiveness.

In the telling of his fascinating story of extreme abuse, of the compulsion to become a pain and wound-care specialist, of medical school in a third-world country against a dangerous political backdrop, and of his return home to deal with the demons he'd left behind, Dr. Roberts tackles the big questions illuminating physical, mental, and spiritual growth. Break the Chains affirms faith in both God and the human spirit. It is as revealing and inspirational as it is truthful and poignant.

332 pages - $23.99 (paperback)

Past Participant Gigs - Sandra Ramos O'Briant

Sandra Ramos O'Briant Reads from her award-winning novel

Saturday, September 28, 2013, 5:00 p.m.

Location: Taos, SOMOS Salon at 233-D

Paseo del Pueblo Sur

more »

 Albuquerque, Bookworks,

Sunday, 09/29/2013 3:00 pm

4022 Rio Grande Blvd NW,

The Sandoval Sisters' Secret of Old Blood won First Place at the the 15^th annual International Latino Book Awards, 2013 in two categories: Best Historical Fiction and Best First Book.

Merchants have always loved the Santa Fe Trail. The Mexican-American War was fought to gain more land, but it was also about controlling trade, and that meant controlling Santa Fe:  it was the first foreign capital captured by the U.S. An unbelievable influx of men occurred, but nary a word has been written about how that affected the New Mexican women. Until now. The war is the backdrop for the Sandoval sisters' individual coming-of-age stories in which they cope with racism, sexism, political intrigue and the power of superstition in that time and place.

“sizzling . . . a delightful historical romp set in New Mexico . . . fits into literary space created by Anaya's timeless Bless Me, Ultima." La Bloga   

"An outstanding family saga."  Historical Novel Review and History and Women

"Woven among the stories of love and life is eroticism, mystery, witchcraft, folktales, superstition, political intrigue, corruption, and violence. Told with a fluid style that grabs you from the first page and leaves you hungry for more at the end."  Dr. Michele Shaul*, Co-Editor of the e-journal Label Me Latina/o

Dr. Shaul's complete review

“The author excellently interweaves much history of the United States and Mexico during that time. The book is written with great skill and talent. One of the top 10 Latino Books, 2012.” The Latino Author

"This story of love, mysticism and betrayal tests the ultimate boundaries of sisterhood. I loved this brave, lushly written tale of life in old Santa Fe." Jill Smolinski, author of Objects of My Affection

Press Kit download at www.thesandovalsisters.com

Reviews and Interviews

Sandra Ramos O’Briant grew up in Santa Fe and spent summers in Texas, but calls Los Angeles her home now. She was an executive recruiter in Beverly Hills before beginning her writing career. Her short stories and creative nonfiction have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies.  A complete list is here.

Fourth Annual Rudolfo and Patricia Anaya Lecture

The UNM English Department's fourth annual Rudolfo and Patricia Anaya Lecture on the Literature of the Southwest will take place this year on September 26 at 7:00 p.m. in the SUB Grand Ballroom and will feature a talk by renowned Native American writer N. Scott Momaday.  The series was launched in 2010 with a generous endowment from renowned writer Rudolfo Anaya to promote the study and appreciation of the SW.  The lecture is free and open to the public; a small reception will follow.  

Please announce widely to your associates and on your community listservs.  If you have any questions or further inquires, please follow us on facebook at https://www.facebook.com/Anaya.Southwest.literature, or email the committee at anayalecture@unm.edu.

The 1999 - 2013 Taos Summer Writers' Conference Video on YouTube

To commemorate the first 15 years of the Conference, Founding Director, Sharon Oard Warner, and longtime participant and intern, Jennifer Simpson, came up with a plan of making a video. We are proud to present the results on our new YouTube Channel.

Taos Summer Writers' Conference 1999 - 2013

Come take a look and enjoy!

Participant Achievements - Martha Burns

image from taosartschool.org - Taos Mountain

2012/2013 Novel-in-Progress instructor Laura Brodie shared the good news with us:

Martha Burns, piece, "Cody Posey," which was workshopped in Laura's class last year, is a finalist for the creative non-fiction category of the Faulkner-Wisdom competition in New Orleans.  Additionally, her novel is also a finalist.  Martha will learn the results in September. 

We are keeping our fingers crossed, Martha!

Participant Achievements - Teddy Jones

Hardly back to life as usual at our UNM office in Albuquerque, and already we have Conference participants sharing news of their exploits!

Congratulations, Teddy Jones. Two pieces of her work have been named semifinalists in the Faulkner-Wisdom Fiction Competition. One is a short story, “Last Rodeo, “ a segment of the novel workshopped in this year’s master class with John Dufresne. The other is the novel, The Goods, which benefitted considerably from last year’s master class with Summer Wood. See results at http://www.wordsandmusic.org/2013%20Winners_Finalists.html.

Thank You for an Incredible 15th Annual Conference!

On behalf of all of us, thanks for making the 15th Annual Taos Summer Writers' Conference so great! We hope you all are feeling as inspired as we are. Until next time!

- TSWC 2013 Staff

Meet the Leo Love Awardee in Prose: Christine Fadden

Christine Fadden has lived across the United States from Delaware to Oregon, and her wanderlust propelled her to travel the world teaching English. Her love of language and communication led her back to her childhood passion for writing, and in 2009 she received her MFA from Warren Wilson College. She is currently based in Story, Wyoming where she does freelance writing, teaches community classes, and is hard at work on a novel. “Just as there is no substitute for living in another country if you want to master a foreign language, there is no substitute for committing yourself to a passionate and engaged writing community if you want to write,” Fadden says. She will be taking the weeklong master class with instructor Antonya Nelson, an intensive workshop for fiction manuscripts. 

On Friday, July 19th at 12:30 pm in the Sagebrush Inn Conference Center in Taos, NM, Fadden will read from her novel-in-progress, The Geometry of Changing Course, which is set in southern New Jersey and honors all things 1980–including that year’s World Series Champs, the Philadelphia Phillies. This event is free and open to the public.

Fadden’s work has been published in many journals including New South, Sou’wester, Painted Bride Quarterly, and The Louisville Review. An excerpt from her forthcoming novel will be published this year in the American Literary Review. Fadden has received numerous fellowships, residencies, and awards from organizations including the Jentel Artist Residency, Vermont Studio Center, Brush Creek Foundation for the Arts, and the Wyoming Arts Council.

The Leo Love scholarships are offered annually in prose and poetry to honor the life and contributions of Leo Love, a writer and devoted supporter of the Taos Summer Writers’ Conference. This merit-based award is given to a Conference participant whose work stands out as excellent and captivating. The scholarship provides full tuition for a weeklong workshop. Past recipients in prose include: Kim Bradley, St. Augustine, FL (2012), Emma Rainey, Fairfield, IA (2011), and Sally Smith Hutchins, Brentwood, TN (2010).

Meet the Leo Love Awardee in Poetry: Adam Crittenden

Albuquerque poet Adam Crittenden has been awarded the Leo Love Scholarship in Poetry for the 2013 Taos Summer Writers Conference. Crittenden will share his work at a lunchtime reading Thursday, July 20th at 12:30 pm at the Sagebrush Inn Conference Center. This reading is free and open to the public.

Crittenden will be attending the Conference for the first time and is enrolled in Daniel Mueller’s Flash Fiction Workshop. Crittenden believes that, “Mueller's expertise will give me the opportunity to make my narrative blend better with the poetic techniques that I use.” He is currently working on a manuscript comprised of flash and prose poetry.

Adam Crittenden holds an MFA in poetry from New Mexico State University where he was awarded an Academy of American Poets Prize. He also serves as an editor for Lingerpost, Puerto del Sol and Apostrophe Books. His work has appeared or will appear in Whiskey Island, Bayou Magazine, Metazen, Matter Press, and several other journals. He teaches writing at Central New Mexico Community College and online courses at New Mexico State University.

The Leo Love Scholarship is a competitive, merit based scholarship awarded to one poet and one prose writer each year. The Scholarship honors the life and contributions of Leo Love, a longtime supporter and attendee of the Conference.

Meet the Taos Resident Award Winner: Jan Smith

Jan M. Smith is an active member of writing communities from New England to New Mexico. She is working on her Masters of Fine Arts degree in creative writing from Goddard College in Plainfield, VT, and currently lives in Taos, New Mexiso. Smith says, “I think creatives are attracted to Northern New Mexico--especially Santa Fe and Taos. I felt the call to stay here after only visiting for two hours -- after living my entire life in New England!” In 2008, Smith left a twenty-five-year career in social work to pursue her dream of becoming a writer. In addition to writing, she curates the Society of the Muse of the Southwest (SOMOS) Winter and Summer Writing Series. She is a successful writer across genres, publishing poetry and short stories in Howl, the UNM journal, Chokecherries, and The Pitkin Review. She is currently working on a coming-of-age memoir titled, Blink Like Crazy.

The Taos Resident award recognizes excellence in fiction, nonfiction, or poetry, and provides paid tuition support to a resident of Taos County, New Mexico for the Taos Summer Writers’ Conference. The Conference, named one of the top ten writers’ conferences in the US and now in its 15th year, will be held at the Sagebrush Inn Conference Center in beautiful Taos, New Mexico, July 14-21. Participants from worldwide convene in weeklong and weekend workshops led by acclaimed writers in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and screenwriting.

Jan Smith will be participating in a fiction workshop led by the highly admired author of four bestselling novels, Wally Lamb. She says, “When I saw that he was teaching at the TSWC this year, I HAD to come.” Smith will be reading on Wednesday, July 17th at 12:30 p.m. at the Sagebrush Inn Conference Center. This event is free and open to the public. 

BK Loren at Bookworks July 7th at 3:00 PM

Taos Summer Writers' Conference 2013 faculty member B.K. Loren will discuss her two award winning books: Animal, Mineral, Radical and Theft at Albuquerque's independent bookstore, Bookworks, on Sunday, July 7 at 3:00 PM.

BK is teaching a class entitled: Beginning Memoir - Songs of Innocence and Experience: Finding the Core of Your Memoir at this summer's conference (in only a matter of weeks!). Of the class she says, "Stories give the world its shape and meaning in a way that cannot be explained by science alone. Every person has a story (or many stories) to tell. In this course, we’ll work on exploring our life experiences and listening intently to our own stories."

BK Loren has worked as a naturalist, large predator monitor for CO State Parks, professional brainstormer, assistant chef, ranch hand, furniture maker, UPS driver, and college professor. She currently teaches writing at Chatham University’s low residency program, the Iowa Summer Writing Festival, and many other venues throughout the United States and Canada. She is a winner of the Mary Roberts-Rinehart National Fellowship and has also received The Dana Award for a novel-in-progress for Theft. Loren currently lives with her partner, two dogs, and two cats in Colorado.

Meet the Hispanic Writer Awardee: Donna Gutierrez

Albuquerque native Donna Gutierrez is this year’s winner of the Taos Summer Writers’ Conference Hispanic Writer scholarship award. Gutierrez says, “I am so excited! This year, everything lined up just right for me, and I am looking forward to attending my workshop and being in the company of such wonderful and talented people.” She will take advantage of the award to attend Laura Brodie’s Intermediate/Advanced Novel-in-Progress weeklong workshop. In addition, Gutierrez will do a reading of her work at 12:30 p.m., Tuesday, July 16th at the Sagebrush Conference Inn Center in Taos, NM. This event is free and open to the public.

Gutierrez is a student in the Master’s of Fine Art program at the University of New Mexico (UNM) English Department as well as works as an Extended Learning Project Manager in the New Media and Extended Learning unit of UNM’s Extended University. Her writing explores the theme of diminished expectations, asking, “How do we live our lives when we find that things don’t always turn out the way we planned?”

Raised in a home where resources were so tight there was no paper on which to write, Gutierrez applied her No. 2 pencil to writing her stories on the family’s old white Frigidaire refrigerator as a child. From those beginnings, tracing her New Mexico roots to the farms and ranches of Chilili, NM, one of North America’s oldest settlements, to her professional career in digital technologies, Gutierrez’s writing delves into what it means to straddle fences, or worlds, as it were. “I often feel as though my older relatives have no idea of what I do. Also, people that I talk to at work have no real idea about what it is like to grow up with so little money, there wasn’t any extra for writing paper. Writing on the refrigerator is not common to most people.”

Congratulations Donna!

Meet the Native Writer Awardee: Shauna Osborn

The Taos Summer Writers’ Conference is pleased to announce poet Shauna Osborn as the recipient of the Native Writer Award. Based on the strength of her application, Osborn was awarded admission to the weeklong Conference, where she will take a poetry workshop from renowned poet Luci Tapahanso. Of the Conference, Osborn says, "I want to gain an understanding of the writers that will be there, and I look forward to talk about the craft of writing." Traveling from Albuquerque, Osborn eagerly anticipates to the change of scenery Taos offers, and the impact it will have on her work.

As a child in rural Oklahoma, Osborn was drawn to writing fiction and poetry. Turning her attention completely to poetry in high school, Osborn was and continues to be concerned with “the little moments in life that others might miss.” She believes, “as a writer, we often come back to things we’re trying to understand in a different way.” For Osborn, poetry holds an important therapeutic place in a community, and she often works with a variety of groups and schools to extend its power. Some of her current projects include a book length chorepoem, a hybrid work of theater, choreography and poetry, called Red Earth Woman and White Buffalo Gal Go to Mexico.

A reading, free and open to the public, will be given by Osborn on Tuesday, July 16th at 12:30 PM, at the Sagebrush Inn, Taos, NM.