More authors join Celebrating Authors 2021, coming in September to Branigan Library

“Celebrate Authors” will be held 2 to 4 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 19, in the boardroom and Roadrunner Room on the second floor of Thomas Branigan Memorial Library, 200 E. Picacho Ave.

The event is free and open to the public.

Moonbow Alterations and Moonbow’s Book Nook are the event sponsors.

Celebrate Authors 2021 will feature authors from Las Cruces and surrounding area with books published in 2019, 2020 and 2021. The event began in 2014.

Here are the newest additions to the list of participating authors.

• Alton Ioerger took up writing later in life as a retirement pastime after a career in public education, he said. His self-published novel, “The First Recruit,” is the story told from the point of view of a specially trained Cold War military sniper operative who, together with his spotter, moves back and forth mostly behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War era of the 1970s.

“Mark Twain is credited with saying that authors should write what they know, and since I know a lot about the Cold War, that’s what I decided to write about,” Ioerger said. “What I tried to do was weave my fictional character into historically accurate events. On one level my book is a chronological re-telling of an opaque world of dark arts and brutal assassinations in a politically charged environment. But the larger context has much more to do with weighing the human and emotional costs exacted on those involved in the events.

“Because I already knew what I would write about, I thought this book would come together quickly,” Ioerger said. “Once I got started, however, it became a blubber project and the more I chewed on it the bigger it got, so it took longer than I thought it would.  Now that I’ve done it once though, the level of satisfaction is a huge inducement to start another writing project and I would encourage anyone else who is toying with writing to set aside some time for yourself and get started. It’s not a sure cure for the common cold, but it will make you feel better.”

• Born and raised in southern New Mexico, Rosario “Chayo” Garcia learned the value of family and friends early on, she said. Garcia spent her youth during the 1960s and ‘70s riding her bike on the banks of water canals and running through freshly plowed fields with family and friends.

Garcia met the love her of life while attending New Mexico State University, got married and started a family, she said. After completing a bachelor’s degree in business administration, she and her family moved to northern New Mexico. There she raised her two boys, ran a family business and was very active in the community, Garcia said. She also grasped that people of different cultures, races and religions “can live together, building a colorful tapestry of life.” 

After helping her husband take care of his aging parents, Garcia realized that life is short, and the quality of time was so precious, she said. Her sons had started on their own journeys, and it was time to move back home. This is when Garcia decided to share her imagination with her kids, grandkids and others through children’s books, which are illustrated by local artist Rebecca Courtney.

• Samuel O. Sanchez, 75, was born in Santa Rita, New Mexico, a small copper-mining town in Grant County. He was one of three boys, with three younger sisters. The family moved to Morenci, Arizona in 1952, where Sanchez attended school. During his senior year, the family moved back to Silver City, New Mexico.

Sanchez graduated from NMSU in 1970 with a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering. He married Sylvia Nava Aug. 31, 1968; they have three sons. Sanchez began working for Kennecott Copper Corporation in Hurley, New Mexico in 1970. He later worked for Lockheed Electronics in Las Cruces.  In January 1981 he went to work for the U.S. Army at White Sands Missile Range, working there for 35 years until his retirement in 2016.

His book is titled “Born and Raised in Space; the Legacy of Two Copper Mining Towns: Two Towns That Disappeared: Santa Rita, New Mexico and Morenci, Arizona.”

It is written as cuentos, short stories, “of my life growing up in small rough mining towns,” Sanchez said.

In addition to writing, his hobbies include carpentry, building Southwest furniture and professional photography.  He pitched fast-pitch softball for 35 years and coached youth soccer for 11 years.  Sanchez designed four houses and one church and built two homes for his family. He is currently researching for another book.

• Susan Lynn Zenker is a poet and playwright who has lived in New England, Mexico City and Miami but now calls El Paso home.

Zenker has two new collections of short stories: “The Long and Short of It” for adults and Moonlight, Rainstorms, and “Other Things That Have a Soul” for teens.

“The Long and Short of It” includes her award-winning story “What I’d Be Without You,” based on a true event in Mexico City where her daughters faced a kidnapper, Zenker said. “Moonlight, Rainstorms, and Other Things That Have a Soul” features her award-winning story “Fiend,” which won 10^th place in the Children’s/Young Adults category of the 87th annual Writer’s Digest competition in 2018.

Coming soon is Zenker’s collection of monologues for teens, “On with the Show,” the author said.

Zenker’s poetry collections are called “Moody Gardens and Desert Winds.” Her poems have appeared in various literary journals such as Dreamers Creative Writing, Better Than Starbuck, and El Pas Community College’s Chrysalis.

Two of Zenker’s plays were presented in public readings at the Fox Fine Arts and Chamizal theaters in El Paso.

Zenker retired early from a full-time job solely to dedicate time to writing, a lifelong passion, she said. Publishing is a recent thing. Also an avid reader, Zenker’s true heroes are authors, she said. When she reads a book she loves, she thinks, “I wish I’d written that.”

Zenker’s advice to writers is, “Use writing prompts and timed writings; polish your work and send it off to contests continually. Write a story each week and within a year, you’ll have more than enough for two or three collections.”

Visit https://susanzenker.com.

• Devon Fletcher lived his first 18 years in Stamford, Connecticut and has since lived in California, Texas, Massachusetts and for the last 23 years, Las Cruces.

“It seems like I’ve had to recreate myself many times over since leaving home,” Fletcher said. “I was a singer in a punk rock band in high school. I had other bands in Austin and Houston. Eventually, I got pretty good at songwriting, though oddly enough, for someone so oriented around words, I usually only came up with the music. I was cooking to support myself until my mid-30s. I got pretty good at that too.”

Fletcher attended UT Austin as a geology major and then received a degree in English literature with a geology minor from the University of Houston.

Fletcher has been married twice, he said. “The second one stuck and we’ve been happy for a long time now.”

“When I moved to New Mexico, I took to the outdoors,” Fletcher said. “With all the public lands around, it was hard not to. Flyfishing was big at first. I still get out on the water, but now it’s taken a backseat to hiking. I started my blog. Southern New Mexico Explorer. in 2007, writing about hiking, camping, fishing and exploring.

“In 2014 when Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument was established, I decided I was the best person to write a hiking guide for it and with the help of my friend, David Soules, that’s what I did,” Fletcher said. “I’ve written several short pieces for a Southwest flyfishing magazine, but ‘Exploring Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument’ has been my only other foray into publishing so far.”

New for 2021, Celebrating Authors will also honor local writers who have died with a memorial board at the Sept. 19 event. To provide names of deceased authors to be honored, contact Alice Davenport at 575-527-1411 and adavenport@totacc.com.

The Friends of Branigan Library started Celebrate Authors in 2014. The event was not held in 2020 because of the pandemic.

For more information, contact Davenport or Joy Miller at joyemmamiller@gmail.com, or visit her at Moonbow’s Book Nook, 225 E. Idaho Ave., #32.

“Celebrate Authors” will be held 2 to 4 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 19, in the boardroom and Roadrunner Room on the second floor of Thomas Branigan Memorial Library, 200 E. Picacho Ave.

The event is free and open to the public.

Moonbow Alterations and Moonbow’s Book Nook are the event sponsors.

Celebrate Authors 2021 will feature authors from Las Cruces and surrounding area with books published in 2019, 2020 and 2021. The event began in 2014.

Here are the newest additions to the list of participating authors.

• Alton Ioerger took up writing later in life as a retirement pastime after a career in public education, he said. His self-published novel, “The First Recruit,” is the story told from the point of view of a specially trained Cold War military sniper operative who, together with his spotter, moves back and forth mostly behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War era of the 1970s.

“Mark Twain is credited with saying that authors should write what they know, and since I know a lot about the Cold War, that’s what I decided to write about,” Ioerger said. “What I tried to do was weave my fictional character into historically accurate events. On one level my book is a chronological re-telling of an opaque world of dark arts and brutal assassinations in a politically charged environment. But the larger context has much more to do with weighing the human and emotional costs exacted on those involved in the events.

“Because I already knew what I would write about, I thought this book would come together quickly,” Ioerger said. “Once I got started, however, it became a blubber project and the more I chewed on it the bigger it got, so it took longer than I thought it would.  Now that I’ve done it once though, the level of satisfaction is a huge inducement to start another writing project and I would encourage anyone else who is toying with writing to set aside some time for yourself and get started. It’s not a sure cure for the common cold, but it will make you feel better.”

• Born and raised in southern New Mexico, Rosario “Chayo” Garcia learned the value of family and friends early on, she said. Garcia spent her youth during the 1960s and ‘70s riding her bike on the banks of water canals and running through freshly plowed fields with family and friends.

Garcia met the love her of life while attending New Mexico State University, got married and started a family, she said. After completing a bachelor’s degree in business administration, she and her family moved to northern New Mexico. There she raised her two boys, ran a family business and was very active in the community, Garcia said. She also grasped that people of different cultures, races and religions “can live together, building a colorful tapestry of life.” 

After helping her husband take care of his aging parents, Garcia realized that life is short, and the quality of time was so precious, she said. Her sons had started on their own journeys, and it was time to move back home. This is when Garcia decided to share her imagination with her kids, grandkids and others through children’s books, which are illustrated by local artist Rebecca Courtney.

• Samuel O. Sanchez, 75, was born in Santa Rita, New Mexico, a small copper-mining town in Grant County. He was one of three boys, with three younger sisters. The family moved to Morenci, Arizona in 1952, where Sanchez attended school. During his senior year, the family moved back to Silver City, New Mexico.

Sanchez graduated from NMSU in 1970 with a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering. He married Sylvia Nava Aug. 31, 1968; they have three sons. Sanchez began working for Kennecott Copper Corporation in Hurley, New Mexico in 1970. He later worked for Lockheed Electronics in Las Cruces.  In January 1981 he went to work for the U.S. Army at White Sands Missile Range, working there for 35 years until his retirement in 2016.

His book is titled “Born and Raised in Space; the Legacy of Two Copper Mining Towns: Two Towns That Disappeared: Santa Rita, New Mexico and Morenci, Arizona.”

It is written as cuentos, short stories, “of my life growing up in small rough mining towns,” Sanchez said.

In addition to writing, his hobbies include carpentry, building Southwest furniture and professional photography.  He pitched fast-pitch softball for 35 years and coached youth soccer for 11 years.  Sanchez designed four houses and one church and built two homes for his family. He is currently researching for another book.

• Susan Lynn Zenker is a poet and playwright who has lived in New England, Mexico City and Miami but now calls El Paso home.

Zenker has two new collections of short stories: “The Long and Short of It” for adults and Moonlight, Rainstorms, and “Other Things That Have a Soul” for teens.

“The Long and Short of It” includes her award-winning story “What I’d Be Without You,” based on a true event in Mexico City where her daughters faced a kidnapper, Zenker said. “Moonlight, Rainstorms, and Other Things That Have a Soul” features her award-winning story “Fiend,” which won 10^th place in the Children’s/Young Adults category of the 87th annual Writer’s Digest competition in 2018.

Coming soon is Zenker’s collection of monologues for teens, “On with the Show,” the author said.

Zenker’s poetry collections are called “Moody Gardens and Desert Winds.” Her poems have appeared in various literary journals such as Dreamers Creative Writing, Better Than Starbuck, and El Pas Community College’s Chrysalis.

Two of Zenker’s plays were presented in public readings at the Fox Fine Arts and Chamizal theaters in El Paso.

Zenker retired early from a full-time job solely to dedicate time to writing, a lifelong passion, she said. Publishing is a recent thing. Also an avid reader, Zenker’s true heroes are authors, she said. When she reads a book she loves, she thinks, “I wish I’d written that.”

Zenker’s advice to writers is, “Use writing prompts and timed writings; polish your work and send it off to contests continually. Write a story each week and within a year, you’ll have more than enough for two or three collections.”

Visit https://susanzenker.com.

• Devon Fletcher lived his first 18 years in Stamford, Connecticut and has since lived in California, Texas, Massachusetts and for the last 23 years, Las Cruces.

“It seems like I’ve had to recreate myself many times over since leaving home,” Fletcher said. “I was a singer in a punk rock band in high school. I had other bands in Austin and Houston. Eventually, I got pretty good at songwriting, though oddly enough, for someone so oriented around words, I usually only came up with the music. I was cooking to support myself until my mid-30s. I got pretty good at that too.”

Fletcher attended UT Austin as a geology major and then received a degree in English literature with a geology minor from the University of Houston.

Fletcher has been married twice, he said. “The second one stuck and we’ve been happy for a long time now.”

“When I moved to New Mexico, I took to the outdoors,” Fletcher said. “With all the public lands around, it was hard not to. Flyfishing was big at first. I still get out on the water, but now it’s taken a backseat to hiking. I started my blog. Southern New Mexico Explorer. in 2007, writing about hiking, camping, fishing and exploring.

“In 2014 when Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument was established, I decided I was the best person to write a hiking guide for it and with the help of my friend, David Soules, that’s what I did,” Fletcher said. “I’ve written several short pieces for a Southwest flyfishing magazine, but ‘Exploring Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument’ has been my only other foray into publishing so far.”

New for 2021, Celebrating Authors will also honor local writers who have died with a memorial board at the Sept. 19 event. To provide names of deceased authors to be honored, contact Alice Davenport at 575-527-1411 and adavenport@totacc.com.

The Friends of Branigan Library started Celebrate Authors in 2014. The event was not held in 2020 because of the pandemic.

For more information, contact Davenport or Joy Miller at joyemmamiller@gmail.com, or visit her at Moonbow’s Book Nook, 225 E. Idaho Ave., #32.