A book is born

The Land: Our Gift and Wild Hope was officially launched in Santa Fe , New Mexico at the Lucky Bean Cafe on November 15th, 2011. It was a moving and successful evening thanks to all who attended. The book was also well-received at the Quivira Coalition's 10th annual conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico, November 10th to 12th.

The festive Quebec City launching took place at the Librairie Pantoute on December 7th.

EVENTS 2013

September
The Land: Our Gift and Wild Hope has been named FINALIST for the New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards in two categories: Nature/Environment and First Book!

November
Billed with Isabelle Forêt and Michel Leclerc as 3 featured poets, on the 8th, I was moved by the public's enthusiastically warm reception of my poetry performance in French at the Tam Tam reading series in Quebec City.

SOON, AN AUDIO/E-BOOK! After having enjoyed being celebrated as a finalist at the New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards banquet on November 15th, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, I drove the beautiful drive up to Colorado where I spent a week recording The Land with Diana and Jaime Andrade of Brook Forest Voices in Evergreen, CO. We are doing an enhanced e-book, meaning an e-book with full audio recording as well as the text and images as they appear in the printed book. I thoroughly enjoyed being in the studio again with Brook Forest Voices (I enjoyed recording studios previously when I did my Spoken word CD BLACK GRACE).

The completed audio-e-book is planned for digital and other distribution in January. You can access Brook Forest Voices press release about our project here.

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2013/7/prweb10979872.htm

All are welcome - in person or on the net - to my spring events with The Land in New Mexico.

April 19, 20, 21st. I'll simply be enjoying The Book Border Festival in Las Cruces, participating in the dialogue on the legacy of the land, then and now, in the Camino Real region (from Mexico City to Santa Fe, NM).

Monday April 22nd, 6pm: in Santa Fe, at Collected Works Bookstore, on an Earth Day panel organized by environmental scientist Steven Rudnick on how we and our work can help reduce the effects of climate change.

Saturday, May 4th, 2-3:30pm: a reading with myself and Jack Loeffler, aural historian and defender of Western watersheds, and our exchange with Taoseños in Taos at Moby Dickens Bookshop.

May 10,11, 12th. Southwest Book Fiesta in Albuquerque, NM. I'll be at booth #531 on Saturday.

Its been just over a year now that The Land: Our Gift and Wild Hope has been making its way in the world (and into many of your homes!). I'm grateful for the wonderful responses many of you have given me and more than happy to know that the book offers people, hope, beauty and courage among today's many trials in the land.

Delightful and meaningful exchange continued during my January 2013 book tour in the Southwest. I was thrilled to be reading from The Land in my favorite home places, Denver, Taos and Santa Fe. Warm Thanks to each and all who attended! What was particularly satisfying for me with these readings was that each one was done in collaboration with others. This meets my deep desire to have the book be part of the wider on-going conversation on the land.

First was: Denver, (I was born here!) Colorado: Thursday, January 10th, at the Tattered Cover's LoDo store in collaboration with Jeff Lee and his Rocky Mountain Land Library (www.landlibrary.org). Then, Taos, New Mexico: Thursday, January 17th at the Harwood Museum in collaboration with SOMOS, "The literary heart of Taos and northern New Mexico." There I shared the stage with Nasario Garcia (nasariogarciaphe.com) and had the great pleasure of visiting with John Nichols (author of The Milagro Beanfield War and so many other writings).

At Border Book Festival with Denise Chavez and friend

Tattered Cover, Rae reading

Taos Valley

Collected Works, Rae M. Taylor, A. Kyce Bello, and Jack Loeffler

Collected Works, People for The Land

The third but not the least Santa Fe, New Mexico: Thursday January 24th at Collected WorkBookstore (collectedworksbookstore.com). For this reading I invited two other environmental authors who share the sense of the spiritual in the land to join me: Jack Loeffler, aural historian, and devoted chronicler and defender of Western watersheds (loreoftheland.org), and A. Kyce Bello, poet, mother, herbalist and editor of The Return of the River.

Please feel free to keep visiting visit this webpage for upcoming events as the year moves on!

Events 2012

October
Montreal celebrates the launching of
The Land: Our Gift and Wild Hope
on Wednesday, October 10th, 2012 at 6pm.
All are welcome to join us at
Paragraphe Bookstore
2220 McGill College Ave.
Montreal, Quebec
phone: 514- 845-5811

July: The young, enthusiastic and delightful defender of the environment Mario Ridgley hosted me for an interview about "The Land: Our Gift and Wild Hope" on his internet radio program, "Alive and Green," He has made a one-minute video reflecting our collaboration in the interview which he entitled "Let's Be One with Nature." Click here to enjoy the video: http://youtu.be/y75Jk9wJy3g

Or If you'd prefer to listen to the (50 minute) interview between Mario and I, click here:
www.voiceamerica.com/episode/63818/lets-be-one-with-nature

Summer Readings in New Mexico
In New Mexico this summer, I was joined by two "partners in hope" who I invited for a conversation with the public after each of my readings. Kyce Bello, writer and river activist, was with me at OpCit Bookstore in Santa Fe, New Mexico on July 8th and Tuda Libby Crews, active environmentalist and rancher, at Bookworks in Albuquerque, New Mexico on July 3rd. The Conversations were rich with people's experiences of thought and action in how they find hope for the land. I'm grateful to all!

June: Rae Marie performs in a solo bilingual performance with the musician Pierre Côté on June 16th in St. Vallier,QC at the beautiful Domaine de la Pointe-de-Saint-Vallier, on the shores of the St. Lawrence River. Her poetry as well as prose from The Land: Our Gift and Wild Hope make up the script.

April: The author was hosted by La Maison anglaise for a book signing for The Land: Our Gift and Wild Hope at The Salon international du livre de Quebec (Quebec Interantional Book Fair)

March: This month, Rae Marie performed with other Spoken Word poets from Montreal and Quebec City in the bilingual stage series Poésie du monde (World Poetry) within the month long festival of Printemps des poètes/Spring of the poets.

February: A launching for The Land: Our Gift and Wild Hope was hosted by Les Éditions Kalli Barri.

Published excerpts from The Land: Our Gift and Wild Hope

«Release» appears in the anthology The Return of the River, published by Sun Stone Press and edited by A. Kyce Bello. The Return of the River was launched at the New Mexico History Museum in May 2011.

« People, Land, Food, A Conversation » appears in Sustainable Santa Fe 2010, a Resource Guide Balancing Cultures, Economics and Ecology