SOMOS. We are . . .

the literary heart of Taos,

the Society of the Muse of the Southwest.

We are a place for the written and spoken word

We are SOMOS . . . and you are welcome here.

Countdown to the Taos Storytelling Festival

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Somos sign and storefront

Miguel Santistevan

Poet Laureate

Beginning 1/1/24 through 12/31/25

Miguel Santistevan has a Bachelors of Science in biology from the University of New Mexico and a Masters of Science in Ecology from the University of California, Davis. His research interests are food systems of the upper Rio Grande and Sangre de Cristo Mountains.  Santistevan is certified in permaculture and xeriscape design and has directed youth in agriculture programs.  He has dozens of publications in local papers like Green Fire Times and has delivered professional presentations to meetings of the Bioneers, the Green Festival, and the International Ethno-Biology Congress. He produced a public radio program called "Que vivan las acequias!" with the NM Acequia Association and KCEI-FM Radio, Taos County. He is a parciante and has served both as a mayordomo and president. Santistevan is a teacher, storyteller, musician and an amazing poet. For the 2024-25 theme of "Poetry with Youth," he will use his position as a guest lecturer in the public schools and other venues to recruit young people to submit poetry, artwork, and photographs for a project called "Home: the Good, the Bad, the Ugly."  This project will result in a DIY publication of a zine that will be something that can be shared in print or digitally.  When the zine is completed, there will be a reception with reading and projection of the featured poems, art, and photos of the young people who are willing to perform their pieces.

Sawnie Morris women of words taos nm

Dr. Ray Christian

Storytelling Festival 2024

Ray’s stories have appeared in Readers Digest’s  Best Stories in America (2016) and  American Hero’s (2017) editions. He was selected as the 2017 Serenbe France Focus Storytelling Fellow (Atlanta, GA) and his stories have been featured on NPR radio shows such as The Moth Radio Hour, Snap Judgment, and Backstory as well as the Risk podcast, among many others.  As a competitive storyteller, Ray is a ten-time Moth Story Slam Champion, and winner of the 2016 National Storytelling Festival Story Slam. Sharing his stories across the US and Canada, Ray has made several appearances on Moth Mainstage, The National Storytelling Festival Exchange Place (2019) , and was part of the 2018 tour of Snap Judgment Live!

In 2018, Ray has been named as the best known story teller in the south by Bitter Southerner magazine. Glynn Washington, host and producer of Snap Judgement, calls him “a storyteller’s storyteller.”  He is distinguished for his exceptional accomplishments as a performer and spoken word performer and his training and experience as an educator and motivator.

Ray is currently the producer and host of What’s Ray Saying, a podcast that utilizes history , storytelling and commentary to provide a unique perspective on the African American cultural experience.

Sawnie Morris women of words taos nm

Laura Jacobs

Writers Showcase

Sunday, June 9th, 4pm - SOMOS Salon

Reading from Surviving TransphobiaI in celebration of National LGTBQ+ Month on Sunday, 6/9, at 4pm at the SOMOS Salon.

She is a psychotherapist, activist, public speaker, and author devoted to the exploration of identity and the relationship between individual and society, the diversity of gender identity and sexual expression, and the search for meaning. Jacobs is the editor of Surviving Transphobia: Transgender and Nonbinary Experts on Endurance

An anthology of transgender and gender nonbinary leaders and role models writing on their own experiences of transphobia, their suffering, and strategies for endurance so that members of the community can grow from understanding the private lives and struggles of those in the public eye. These authors also share their reflections on the current climate of politicized, weaponized transphobia.

Recent years have been agonizing, most especially for those of us who might be role models.  After each new assault on trans lives, we model confidence when we are equally traumatized ourselves, we assert our community’s ability to thrive when we are sometimes just as uncertain as our audiences.  How do we balance our internal distresses with our visibility to the public eye?  How do we demonstrate strength each time there is a new anti-trans proclamation?  How do we persevere in our own lives?  And how can we use our stories to teach endurance to others trans and gender nonbinary themselves?

Martín Espada

Writers Showcase

A reading on 4/12/24 at 5:30pm and a workshop “The Craft of Poetry” on 4/13/24 from 9-noon. Both events are virtual. Zoom credentials will be shared upon registration.

Martín Espada has published more than twenty books as a poet, editor, essayist and translator. His new book of poems from Norton is called Floaters, winner of the 2021 National Book Award. Other books of poems include Vivas to Those Who Have Failed (2016), The Trouble Ball (2011), The Republic of Poetry (2006) and Alabanza (2003). He is the editor of What Saves Us: Poems of Empathy and Outrage in the Age of Trump(2019). He has received the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the Shelley Memorial Award, the Robert Creeley Award, an Academy of American Poets Fellowship, the PEN/Revson Fellowship and a Guggenheim Fellowship. The Republic of Poetry was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. The title poem of his collection Alabanza, about 9/11, has been widely anthologized and performed. His book of essays and poems, Zapata’s Disciple (1998), was banned in Tucson as part of the Mexican-American Studies Program outlawed by the state of Arizona, and reissued by Northwestern. A former tenant lawyer in Greater Boston, Espada is a professor of English at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.

Allison Adelle Hedge Coke

Taos Writer’s Conference Keynote Speaker & Instructor

5:30pm, location to be announced
Allison Adelle Hedge Coke’s most recent honors include 2023 Thomas Wolfe Prize and Lecture. Her most recent book, Look at This Blue, was a 2022 National Book Award Finalist, a CLMP Firecracker Award Finalist, an ASLE Book of the Year Finalist, and won the 2022-2023 Emory Elliott Book Award. In 2021, she was inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters  and awarded the 2021 AWP George Garrett Award from AWP. Hedge Coke was selected for an inaugural Legacy Artist Fellowship from the California Arts Council (2021-2022), and recently awarded the UCR Dean’s Mellon Professorship (2022-2023). An American Book Award winning author and 2016 Library of Congress Witter Bynner Fellow, she has written or edited 18 books and is a Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing for the University of California Riverside, where she directs UCR Writers Week Festival, directs the Medical Health and Humanities Designated Emphasis in the School of Medicine, where she teaches Death and Dying and Narrative Medicine,  and is affiliated faculty for the newUCR  department of Society, Health Equity, and Sustainability. Her eighth authored book is Look at This Blue (Coffee House Press, 2022) and tenth edited book is Effigies III.

Upcoming Events

exuberant woman sitting outdoors at a desk with typewriter

Open Tues-Sat  12pm-4pm  575.758.0081  108 Civic Plaza Drive

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  • LANL (Los Alamos National Labs)  • New Mexico Humanities Council • Nusenda Foundation • Witter Bynner Foundation • Amazon Literary Partnership • Literary Emergency Fund