New Mexico’s literary history is brought to life by five accomplished writers who call New Mexico home.

Available for readings and lectures, their work highlights the importance of poetry, storytelling and literature in telling New Mexico’s storied heritage, and shaping its promising future.

The Centennial Authors are: Author Don Bullis, Storyteller Joe Hayes, Distinguished Writer N. Scott Momaday, Children’s Author Vaunda Micheaux Nelson, Poet Levi Romero

Centennial Author

Don Bullis

Don Bullis is available as a guest speaker. For more information contact him at don.bullis@worldnet.att.net

Don Bullis’ eclectic background includes a turn as a small-town newspaper editor and stints in New Mexico law enforcement ranging from a county sheriff’s deputy and detective sergeant, town marshal, and state organized crime commissioner to a criminal intelligence operational supervisor.

Bullis also writes a weekly column for the Rio Rancho Observer. His writings encompass fiction and non-fiction, and he has won many awards, including the New Mexico Book Award for NM: A Biographical Dictionary.

Some of the titles that he has authored are the Old West Trivia Book, NM’s Finest: Police Officers Killed in the Line of Duty, and his latest book, Bloodville.

Centennial Storyteller

Joe Hayes

If you would like to have Joe Hayes participate as a keynote speaker at a conference or tell stories at your school or library, contact him at joehayes@newmexico.com

According to Cinco Puntos Press, an independent press in El Paso, TX, Joe Hayes is one of America’s premier storytellers, a nationally recognized teller of tales from the Hispanic, Native American and Anglo cultures.

His bilingual Spanish-English tellings have earned him a distinctive place among America’s storytellers.

Joe began sharing his stories in 1982. His books have received the Arizona Young Readers Award, two Land of Enchantment Children’s Book Awards, four IPPY Awards, a Southwest Book Award and an Aesop Accolade Award. His book, The Day It Snowed Tortillas, was chosen by the editors of The Bloomsbury Review as one of their 15 favorite children’s books.

He is the resident storyteller at the Wheelwright Museum of the American

Other Books by Joe Hayes:

• La Llorona: The Weeping Woman: An Hispanic Legend Told in Spanish and English
• A Spoon for Every Bite
• Tell Me a Cuento / Cuentame un Story

Centennial Distinguished Writer

N. Scott Momaday

Navarre Scott Momaday was born in Lawton, Oklahoma and spent his early years on the Kiowa Indian reservation and in Arizona with both parents who were teachers. His father was also a painter, and his mother, a children’s book author.

In addition to his exposure to the Kiowa traditions, Momaday has also been influenced by the Navajo, Apache, and Pueblo Indian cultures of the Southwest.

His writing career led to the breakthrough of Native American literature into the mainstream, and his novel, House Made of Dawn, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1969.

Other honors include the first Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers’ Circle of the Americas in 1992. In 2007, he received the National Medal of Arts by former President George W. Bush. In May 2010, he received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Momaday founded and operates the Rainy Mountain Foundation and Buffalo Trust, a nonprofit organization working to preserve native cultures.

Biographical information excerpted from the Academy of Achievement and Wikipedia websites.

Other books by N. Scott Momaday:

• The Journey of Tai-me
• House Made of Dawn
• The Way to Rainy Mountain
• Angle of Geese
• The Gourd Dancer
• The Names: A Memoir
• The Ancient Child
• In the Presence of the Sun
• The Native Americans: Indian Country
• The Indolent Boys
• Circle of Wonder: A Native American Christmas Story
• The Man Made of Words: Essays, Stories, Passages
• In the Bear’s House

Centennial Children’s Author

Photo courtesy of Drew Nelson

Vaunda Micheaux Nelson

Vaunda Micheaux Nelson is available as a guest speaker. For more information, please contact her at vaundanelson@gmail.com

Vaunda Micheaux Nelson brings books and children together and feels lucky to have two careers that foster this. This children’s librarian and author says, “It was destined from the day I was born. My mother found my name in a novel she was reading.”

Vaunda works as a Senior Librarian in Children’s Services at the Rio Rancho Public Library. She was recently honored with the 2010 Coretta Scott King Award by the American Library Association for her book, Bad News for Outlaws: The Remarkable Life of Bass Reeves, Deputy U.S. Marshal.

Other Books by Vaunda Micheaux Nelson:

• Who Will I Be, Lord?
• Juneteenth
• Almost to Freedom
• Ready? Set. Raymond!
• Beyond Mayfield
• Zoolutions
• Possibles
• Always Gramma

Centennial Poet

Levi Romero

Levi Romero is available as a guest speaker. For more information contact him at lowcura@comcast.net, 505-306-1539

Centennial Poet Levi Romero was born in Dixon, New Mexico. His varied New Mexico life experiences that have influenced him are: an Albuquerque elementary student, a lowriding teen, an UNM student who earned a bachelor’s and master’s degree, and a visiting research scholar in the UNM School of Architecture and Planning.

“Levi Romero is a strange kind of wizard. He can walk up a New Mexico arroyo and come back with a mysterious object full of quotidian magic. Like a rusted tobacco can the grandfathers used to roll their smokes. And when you pry open the lid, you can hear their laughter and gossip coming out. That’s what he does in poem after poem. I read his work and I learn again how to love this life.” — Luis Alberto Urrea

His first collection of poetry, In the Gathering of Silence, published in 1966, features “Woodstove of My Childhood,” an epic poem based on personal and communal histories. His latest collection, A Poetry of Remembrance: New and Rejected Works, with UNM Press in December 2008, sold out within a month of its publication.

Excerpted from “Levi Romero Sows Culture Crops,” by Carolyn Gonzales, UNM Today, August 28, 2009.