New Mexico’s Wisdom Keepers
SHANNON CARR-STEVENS WANTED to find a way to photograph the stories of her parents. Like her dad’s boyhood memories of being a lonely shepherd at a camp on Laguna Pueblo in the monsoon-rich days of…
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What We’re Reading: Jack Rittenhouse: A Western Literary Life
THOSE WHO FREQUENT used and rare bookstores in New Mexico may know writer, editor, and publisher Jack Rittenhouse (1912–1991) for the 50 beautifully designed letterpress books he produced at…
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The Story Behind Cooney’s Tomb
BESIDE THE TRICKLING WATERS of Mineral Creek in the Gila National Forest, a man’s body has rested inside a massive granite boulder since 1880. The odd gravesite reveals the stakes of the yearlong…
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Pie Town’s Pies and Dark Skies
THE RELATIVE WELL-BEING of the state of New Mexico can be measured by the amount of pie there is in Pie Town. That’s the heartwarming notion that strikes me at the 43rd annual Pie Town Pie Festival…
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Bob Wills Found a Melody in Roy
THE BITTERSWEET WHINE of Bob Wills’s fiddle is a fitting soundtrack for the high lonesome country of the eastern plains. In the village of Roy, the King of Western Swing’s face greets motorists from…
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What We’re Reading: The Sleeping Sisters
POWERED BY THE MYTHICAL Aztec goddess Cōātlīcue, with her skirt made of snakes, The Sleeping Sisters (Mulholland Books) is a roiling stew of Chicana-Indigenous literary horror. Albuquerque resident…
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Walking with Willa Cather
THE SANGRE DE CRISTO MOUNTAINS SEEMED to dare her to write about them. The literary allure was in their potent name, meaning “the Blood of Christ.” It evoked the saturated hue that flushed over them…
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Five Museum Exhibitions to See
1 Wonders on Wheels. The mobile museum program of the Department of Cultural Affairs tours the state to bring The Arts of Democracy in New Mexico, an exhibition celebrating 250 years of freedom and…
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Inside New Mexico’s Small-Town Museums
“YOU GO TO A MUSEUM to learn the heart of a town,” says Britney Swart, executive director of the Herzstein Memorial Museum in Clayton. I’m only a few steps inside, though, when she intuits a darker…
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Try Cherry Pie in Pie Town
TWO TRICKS OF THE TRADE are shared by the glistening cherry pie varieties on offer at the Pie Town Pie Co. Sarah Chavez, owner of the historic cafe in the pastry-loving hamlet on US 60 between Quemado…
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