Writing the Trail
What compelled you to write this book? There were so many points of entry for me to study the women of the Santa Fe Trail. I have lived along the Santa Fe Trail and have been the chief executive of…
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The String Family
MOST JAZZ MUSICIANS PREFER A double bass with a sprightly pizzicato tone. But Charlie Haden chose a model made around 1843 in France by the renowned J.B. Vuillaume, one of only three known to exist…
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To See and to Suffer
FROM THE INTERIOR of the dome atop Holy Trinity Orthodox Church, an image of Jesus gazes upon me. Rendered in desert-washed jewel tones highlighted with glints of gold leaf, he looms larger than the…
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Restoring Life to the Lordsburg Playa
IN THE FIRST BLUSH of dawn, the Lordsburg Playa conjures a mirage—a layer of dew rising from its fractured, elephant-skin crust, glistening with bright promise. Maybe the land has learned something, I…
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Unearth the Wonders of Portales
THE PLAINS OF EASTERN NEW MEXICO begin bending into gentle hills and folds—grass-coated dunes, some of which are still “actively migrating,” says Brendon Asher. The archaeologist and director of the…
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Take a Spin to See the Roto-Sphere
WHEN IT WORKED, the Roto-Sphere above the El Comedor de Anayas restaurant, in Moriarty, lured hungry motorists off I-40 and onto Old Route 66. Neon lights lined its 16 colorful spikes. The ball they…
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What We're Reading: Girl Flees Circus
HOBBS NATIVE C.W. SMITH rolls out the inaugural novel in the University of New Mexico Press’s Lynn and Lynda Miller Southwest Fiction series, Girl Flees Circus, which rockets readers into a 1920s…
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A Brief Timeline of Native History
850: First great houses built at Pueblo Bonito and Una Vida in Chaco Canyon. 1050: Chaco culture reaches its height. 1068–1072: First Chacoan structures built at what is now called Salmon Ruins. 1105:…
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Ancient Enigmas
IN THE 17TH CENTURY, the Four Corners region turned cruel. Chaco’s Ancestral Puebloan people had fled three centuries earlier, their elaborate social structure abandoned as the culture’s various…
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Cultural Vocabulary Lesson
Navajo people use the name Diné to describe themselves. The Bureau of Land Management area with Navajo defensive sites is called the Dinétah by archaeologists. In the Diné language, Dinétah refers…
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