Yes, New Mexico literature belongs on the map
Our region’s literary culture can match anywhere in the world—with the right champions.
ZACH HIVELY
Much of the rest of the country doesn’t quite know what to make of New Mexicans.
Sure, this shows up in some of our shared experiencias nuevomexicanas: U.S. companies tell us they don’t ship internationally. We get informed our driver’s licenses aren’t valid ID and we need to show a passport. We get asked if the water is safe to drink. We see maps with our state simply… omitted.
Heck, we are the only state to put “USA” on our license plates, as if to say “No, really!”
But the lack of awareness goes beyond the “Mexico” in our state name. I think many people from other places don’t know what to make of New Mexico because our blend of heritages and cultures is unlike what exists anywhere else.
And of course, I understand our peculiarity through a publisher’s lens.
Who are New Mexican authors?
New Mexico is highly regarded in the fine art scene—just ask art aficionados about Canyon Road in Santa Fe. But we’re generally less well regarded with the literary arts.
Even New Mexicans, in my experience, cannot identify many New Mexican writers. I’ve asked audiences at readings and talks to name what New Mexican authors they can think of. Universally, so far, I’ve gotten these answers:
Rudolfo Anaya.
Tony Hillerman.
Oh yeah, Anne Hillerman!
Silence.
There’s no way to count how many people in New Mexico (or with a strong affinity to it) are writing, and how many are publishing. The storytelling culture here runs thick. We are surrounded by family stories, legends, poets, writers.
So why don’t we New Mexicans know how good we have it?
Is it just that our writers are so different from what editors tend to read in New York, Boston, London, that we don’t get touted as New Mexicans? Are we too strange yet not exotic enough to warrant attention? Or, is it precisely because our literary culture is so distinct from any other?
A culture that reveres its writing
I’ve experienced what happens when a distinct culture prizes its literature. For a time, I lived and studied in Ireland. The island, weirdly enough, is akin to New Mexico in many ways (aside from all the water): a largely rural land with historically little wealth, strong religious influences on the historical culture, and a turbulent colonial history. Both places, it’s not strange to see a long-ruined house next to a modern home. The stone and adobe weather differently, but the effect is the same.
Yet the literary culture of Ireland is deep—writers are revered, and so is their work.
And I see no reason New Mexico could not match Ireland, or any other region on Earth, with its literature.
New Mexico has individuals and organizations championing and cultivating its literary culture. The ecosystem has room to become more involved, more self-sustaining.
If it does, it will extend from the independent bookstores and the writing groups and the ravenous readers already here, nourishing (and funding work from) each of the many cultures and languages and traditions that coexist in our unreal state.
What does New Mexico’s literary culture need?
What infrastructure we have already is actually outstanding; we just need more of it so that our excellence in the literary arts becomes as apparent and as obvious as our reputation in the fine arts.
Critically, New Mexico writing needs more high-quality independent publishers: organizations with the expertise to identify and hone impressive works, the skills to produce high-quality physical books, and the agility and daring to develop important voices regardless of the authors’ platforms or (more often) their obscurity.
This is why Casa Urraca Press exists, and what it aims to do: We are here to develop books that resonate with the diverse people of New Mexico and the broader Southwest. The more that we can connect writers, readers, book lovers, poets, and storytellers, the richer and stronger our literary culture grows.
Our supporters—readers who leave reviews, bookstores that host events, patrons who gift our books—are major parts of our region’s literary ecosystem. They keep us going here at Casa Urraca, for sure, and they feed an increasingly thriving culture of words and books and writers and spoken-word performances.
We all do better when we all do better. That’s as true in New Mexico and the Southwest as anywhere else.
So we keep publishing some of the best, most engaging, most creative, most necessary work coming out of our part of the world.
The world deserves to read our voices—and we deserve to celebrate our own, here, in this enchanted state we call home.
Zach Hively
Zach Hively is the founder and publisher at Casa Urraca Press. He is also the author of the humorous essay collection Call Me Zach Hively Because That Is My Name, the Reading the West Book Award-winning Desert Apocrypha, and other poetry books.