Santa Fe celebrates literature with literary festival
May 22—The inaugural Santa Fe Literary Festival has brought together a diverse group of world-renowned authors, award-winning chefs and local poets for a three-day event filled with stories and thought-provoking conversations sparked by love and appreciation for the written arts.
The event also offered a spotlight Saturday for young poets from Santa Fe Community College.
Between presentations from best-selling authors Margaret Atwood, Don Winslow and John Grisham, the festival's thousands of attendees were invited to listen to students' works at the downtown Santa Fe Community Convention Center.
"It was a great opportunity, you know. I don't know the next time that I'll probably be in the same building as, like, Margaret Atwood or Sandra Cisneros or George R.R. Martin," community college student Marcelina Gallegos said. "So, it's just really special."
A long line of festival-goers stretched out the door of the convention center ahead of a talk by Atwood, whose 1985 novel The Handmaid's Tale, a dystopian story centered on a conservative regime's extreme oppression of women, inspired both a film and television series. She published a popular sequel, The Testaments, in 2019.
On the minds of many Atwood fans was the uncertainty surrounding reproductive rights, which long have been protected by the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade. A draft decision in a court case shows justices may overturn that ruling as a growing number of states approve legislation banning or severely restricting access to abortions.
"I read The Handmaid's Tale a million years ago. I've never thought I couldn't even witness the potential of actually going there," festival attendee Sharmine Procket said.
As she waited for Atwood to take the stage, Hilary McDaniel said she remembered reading the author's work when she was younger
"It was prophetic," she said.
Gallegos said she was inspired by Atwood to read a poem at the festival she had written two years ago about the silencing of sexual assault victims in her community.
"In New Mexico, we have a problem of pushing things under the rug under the guise of being a good Catholic woman or just being conservative. It's not something that we think about all the time, but it's everywhere," she said.
Sterling Scherchel — a young Black poet who uses the pronouns "they" and "them" — said they wrote a poem to send a message about race and justice to the festival's mostly white audience.
Scherchel's poem, "White,"explored the "white moderate's" failure to offer equity to marginalized people as it espouses diversity and inclusion.
"I think a lot of people like to pat themselves on the back for just even seeing artists like us," Scherchel said. "So I didn't want to just get up on stage and be one more person of color performing for free, for those people who can walk away and say, 'Oh, yeah, I consume diverse content.' I wanted them to actually hear what I was saying and walk away feeling a sense of obligation."
The young writers from the community college and their professor, Theresa Wilson, got a chance to have a private meeting with local biographer James McGrath Morris and ask about what it's like to work as a writer.
McGrath Morris talked about the challenges of making a living as a writer and the importance of having passion. He said teaching allowed him to work and have enough time to write what he wants to write.
"You earn money in order to write rather than write in order to earn money," he told the students.
McGrath Morris, a resident of Santa Fe, recently published a biography on New Mexico writer Tony Hillerman and is known for his biography on Joseph Pulitzer and Charles E. Chapin, the city editor of Pulitzer's New York Evening World.
Some of the community college students said they were disappointed to find the city's first literary festival was cost-prohibitive for many aspiring writers and young book lovers.
Gallegos said she had hoped to invite her parents and little sister to the event but realized it was too expensive for her family.
Tickets for an individual panel ranged from $50 to $150. Alternatively, attendees could buy an all-day pass for $200 to $300 or an all-access pass for $1,700. The festival offered discounted tickets for students and New Mexico residents.
Organizers said many panels had sold out, some of which had room for 900 attendees.
"Margaret Atwood and Colson Whitehead will probably be paid a very large number, but probably a third of what they might have asked because of the goodwill," McGrath Morris said about the cost of bringing authors to festival.
Gallegos and fellow poets said they hope next year's event gives more young people an opportunity to share their work and learn from the masters.
