NMPW News:New Mexico Press Women announces its program for its 2018 state conference, “Telling Truths Boldly: Harnessing the Narrative Drive,” April 27 and April 28 at the Lodge at Santa Fe.
The conference, geared toward writers and communicators from a variety of genres, will feature talks, panels and a memoir writing workshop.
New Mexico Press Women, an affiliate of the National Federation of Press Women, is New Mexico’s largest inclusive media organization and is open to men and women. Conference registration is open through April 12 at newmexicopresswomen.org.
Festivities begin following a no-host happy hour from 5 to 7 p.m. April 27 at the Lodge’s Hilltop Bar and Grill. At 7 p.m. author and entertainment lawyer Sherri Burr will interview best-selling author Hampton Sides on “Writing Secrets from a Best-Selling Author.” Sides is best-known for his gripping nonfiction adventure stories set in war or depicting epic expeditions of discovery and exploration.
He is the author of the best-selling histories Ghost Soldiers, Blood and Thunder, Hellhound on His Trail and In the Kingdom of Ice. The talk is open to full registrants, as well as those who have preregistered with a $15 fee for the event.
The April 28 program leads with an address by Sara Solovitch, the editor of Searchlight New Mexico, a nonpartisan, nonprofit news organization dedicated to investigative reporting and innovative data journalism. Solovitch’s investigative and long-form stories have appeared in Esquire, Wired, Politico, the Washington Post and other publications.
Santa Fe New Mexican’s editorial-page editor Inez Russell Gomez will moderate a panel on “Creating Narratives.” The panelists include Cindy Nava, Karen Jones Meadows and Lorene Mills. Nava is the executive director of Learning Alliance New Mexico and president of the American-Mexican Bi-National Dreamer Association. The DACA recipient blogs for Huffington Post and has produced a TEDX talk on empowerment. Playwright Jones Meadows creates stories that are specific in culture and character while universal in theme, passion and resolution. She is performing in an off-Broadway production of her play Harriet’s Return: Based upon the Legendary Life of Harriet Tubman. Mills is the host of New Mexico PBS-TV’s longest running public affairs program, “Report from Santa Fe.” She co-produced the award-winning documentary film, “Ol’ Max Evans —The First Thousand Years.”
Next on the program, award-winning Southwest correspondent for the New York Times, Simon Romero, will lead a conversation on “Revisioning a Local Story for a National Market.” The New Mexico native spent many years covering South America for the New York Times. He also wrote for Bloomberg News when he was based in Brazil.
NMPW’s Zia award luncheon at noon will feature readings by the finalists for the Zia Award in the nonfiction category. The winner is announced at the luncheon.
Poet and author Lauren Camp will lead a memoir writing workshop at 2:45 p.m., which will be open to the public for a $25 preregistration fee. Camps leads memoir writing workshops throughout the country.
The conference concludes with a Reception, Silent Auction, and Awards Banquet and keynote address by author Caroline Fraser. Her book Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder has been named one of the New York Times’ 10 Best Books of the Year and has been nominated for BIO International’s 2018 Plutarch Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award in biography.
Fraser’s writing has appeared in The New York Review of Books, The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, the Los Angeles Times Book Review and the London Review of Books, among other publications.
The NMPW conference is sponsored by The Santa Fe New Mexican and New Mexico Bank and Trust. To register and learn about special lodging rates visit www.newmexicopresswomen.org.
The conference is organized by the Northern New Mexico Presswomen chapter. For more information contact nnmexicopresswomen@gmail.com.