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Alexandra Fuller
TWC Keynote Speaker
Alexandra Fuller is the keynote speaker and guest instructor for the Taos Writers Conference, 7/24-7/26/26.
Alexandra Fuller is the author of four memoirs, including DON'T LET'S GO TO THE DOGS TONIGHT --- a New York Times Notable Book for 2002, the 2002 Booksense Best Non-fiction book, a finalist for the Guardian’s First Book Award, and the winner of the 2002 Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize --- and the New York Times bestselling COCKTAIL HOUR UNDER THE TREE OF FORGETFULNESS, two books of nonfiction, and the novel QUIET UNTIL THE THAW. Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, National Geographic, Granta, The New York Times, The Guardian and The Financial Times.
She is also the author of Fi: A Memoir of her Son, who died suddenly in his sleep at the age of twenty-one. After decades of writing memoir, longtime area resident Alexandra Fuller reached a milestone in the genre.
On Monday, 11/17/25, she was announced as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in that category.
“Fi: A Memoir of My Son” is described by Pulitzer officials as “an elegiac meditation on motherhood and grief, written from the rage and pain of losing a child, but in a voice that ultimately resonates with beauty and hard-won acceptance.”
When the awards and finalists were announced from New York, Fuller was hunkered down in her Tetonia yurt, working on a new project. Her phone was turned off.
Earning critical acclaim and breakout success in 2001 with “Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood,” Fuller followed the debut with seven other books, all memoir or biography.
Sylvia Rains Dennis
Poet Laureate
Beginning 1/1/26 through 12/31/27
Beyond an extensive career in botany and forest biodiversity focused on the Southern Rocky Mountains, my creative pursuits interweave a love of language, creative arts, music and memory. Poetry and wordsongs preceded writing during my upbringing, threading my understanding of connection to wild mountain homelands, while also visiting relatives in the northern reach of the Great Lakes woodlands and the boreal/mixed forests.
Current projects include finalizing two full poetry manuscripts, editing a dramatic lyric/poetry hybrid narrative piece, and compiling more recent poems for collections. In response to a
devastating loss of biodiversity in our shared homelands, I recently completed the final draft of a five-act play, Keystone Cascade, which includes poetic and sung lyric and an opportunity for community engagement during performances planned for several mountain communities in northern New Mexico and western Colorado.
Recent poetry, narrative and lyrical compositions have appeared in SeedBroadcast (SEED: Climate Change Resilience), Sonora Review, and the New Mexico Poetry Anthology (2023). Among the many to show encouragement and support, I would like to recognize New
Mexico Writers, the Bread Loaf School of English, The Shakespeare Institute, Orion Environmental Writers at Middlebury College, the Society for Ecological Restoration, Denver Women’s Press Club, the Ecological Society of America, and small communities belonging to the Institute of American Indian Arts, the University of New Mexico, as well as to all encountered by heart. Much gratitude to SOMOS for encouraging the creative voices of the land-based communities and cultural traditions of Northern New Mexico.
Having long served as faculty at the University of New Mexico at Taos and Colorado Mountain College, I have an extensive university and teaching background in forest biology, biodiversity
and botany with a focus on the natural sciences and conservation-in-practice (Colorado State University, Oregon State University and the University of California at Davis). Additional research in theater and multicultural literature include a Master's in English (Middlebury College; Oxford, Vermont and Santa Fe, New Mexico) and PhD studies at the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford-upon-Avon, Great Britain.
Upcoming Events
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Mailing Address: P.O. Box 3225, Taos, NM 87571
THANK YOU TO OUR FUNDERS
SOMOS programs are made possible in part by these organizations: New Mexico Arts, a Division of the Department of Cultural Affairs, and by the National Endowment for the Arts • Taos Community Foundation • The McCune Foundation • The National Endowment For The Arts • The Virginia Wellington Cabot Foundation • Taos County Lodgers Tax • TaosNetLLC for high speed internet service • Lions Club • Milagro Rotary Club • New Mexico Humanities Council • Nusenda Foundation • Witter Bynner Foundation • Amazon Literary Partnership • Literary Emergency Fund