Meet Our Members
Below is a sampling of NMSPS member profiles. NMSPS members in good standing are encouraged to request their own listing for this page (including bio, photo, and up to three weblinks) by clicking here.
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Megan Baldrige
Megan Baldrige studied Japanese Literature at Yale, Humanities at California State College, and Education at UNM. She home-schooled her own children for a few years, taught English to other people’s children for twenty years, and GED classes recently. She has published poetry books with the help of Jules’ Poetry Playhouse: five books of knitting poetry, a book of poems about our president, and one about her late dog. Her poetry book Knitting Matters won best crafts book in 2019; her Unpresidented was a finalist for political books in the NM/AZ Book Awards in 2018. She led the NMSPS Poets in the Classroom project in 2019 and works as a docent at the wonderful Albuquerque Museum. She likes to grow flowers, tutor children, knit sweaters, write light-hearted poetry and walk in the bosque.
Shirley Blackwell
To find a hidden thing already there, one must first pay attention. A childhood spent in the grand but unforgiving landscapes of the desert southwest and a career as a national security analyst reinforced that insight for Shirley Blackwell. Her poetry is an eclectic harvest, combining rigorous intellectual investigation with a personal longing to understand both the workings of the cosmos and of the human heart. Her books of poetry are available at Amazon.
Shirley is a past president of NMSPS, co-founder of the BlackBerry Peach Prize for poetry, and a tireless advocate for advancing poetry in New Mexico and the nation.
Irene Blea
Irene Blea is a New Mexico native with a Ph. D. in Sociology from the University of Colorado-Boulder. She obtained an AA in Mental Health and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Southern Colorado. The award-winning scholar, poet, and novelist retired as a Tenured, Full Professor and Chairperson of the Department on Mexican American Studies at California State University-Los Angles, and has published textbooks, poetry, many popular articles, one play, and four novels. She now writes fiction drawing from the social-historical experiences of her family and her community. Her novel, Daughters of the West Mesa, followed her Suzanna trilogy and motivated the Albuquerque community to insist on closure to the still unsolved mystery involving the discovery of the remains of 11 females and an unborn fetus buried in the desert. Blea travels extensively and maintains a strong internet presence, speaking engagements on university campuses, and conferences.
Sinclair Browning
Sinclair Browning is the author of eleven traditionally published fiction and non-fiction books, some of which have been national nominees for the Shamus, Barry and Indie Excellence Awards. She’s taught creative writing and done editing through the Long Ridge Writers Group, the University of Arizona and Pima Community College, and has been a judge for the Edgar, Shamus, and St. Martin’s Press Best First Novel Awards. A former board member of the Arizona Humanities Council, Sinclair was one of five nominees for the 2000 Arizona Arts Award. She has a B.A. in English Literature and Creative Writing (University of Arizona)
Chelsea Bunn
Chelsea Bunn is the author of Forgiveness (Finishing Line Press, 2019), which was a finalist for the New Mexico/Arizona Book Award, Eric Hoffer Book Award, Paris Book Festival Award, and a semi-finalist in the New Women’s Voices Chapbook Competition. She received the Rita Dove Award in Poetry, was selected as Thinker in Residence by Art in Odd Places, was twice awarded the Academy of American Poets Catalina Páez & Seumas MacManus Prize, was named a Best New Poet of 2018, and was a finalist for the Lit Fest Fellowship for Emerging Writers, the Red Wheelbarrow Poetry Prize, and the Tom Howard Prize in Poetry. Her work has received recognition from The National Federation of State Poetry Societies, Poetry Society of America, Georgetown Review, and Lighthouse Writers Workshop. She holds an MFA in Poetry and BA in English from Hunter College. She is a Poetry Reader for The Adroit Journal.
Elizabeth Cohen
Raised in the Village of Los Ranchos, Elizabeth Cohen is a multi-genre writer who holds a degree in poetry and creative writing from Columbia University. She is a published poet and memoirist, a twenty year veteran journalist and columnist, and the author of a book of six books of poetry, most recently Martini Tattoo, from Alien Buddha Press; a collection of short stories, an award winning memoir, and a co-authored biography of the first Navajo woman surgeon. She has been a visiting professor at Western Connecticut State University and was appointed to the Philip and Eleanor Piaker Chair in Creative Writing and Judaic Studies at Binghamton University in 2003.
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Dino de Leyba
Dino was raised in Albuquerque’s beautiful North Valley. His mother was a songwriter who encouraged him at an early age. Their frequent visits to the local library and storytelling hour was the beginning of his interest in writing, poetry and composing song. After moving away for school, Dino’s manuscript Sketching a Life became text for students pursuing careers in fashion design. His work has appeared in many publications and portions of his memoir have recently been sold to Advance Publications and Condé Nast, publishers of French Vogue. Dino is a member of SouthWest Writers, the National Federation of State Poetry Societies and is a board member of the New Mexico State Poetry Society. He resides in the foothills area of the Sandia Mountains with his dog Cash.
Jesse Ehrenberg
Jesse Ehrenberg moved to New Mexico from New York in the early 70’s. He started writing poetry as a teenager and has never seen any reason to stop. In 2018 his book, SURPRISE!, won prizes for both cover and content from the New Mexico Press Women, and in 2019 it won a Silver Award in the inaugural Margaret Randall Poetry Book Contest. His work can also be found in many New Mexico poetry anthologies, and a video of his poem “The Cat and I” can be found under his name on YouTube.
Jeffrey Field
It ain’t what you think. Former newsman, car salesman, teacher. Everything is Thou, if you so allow it.
Instagram page
Twitter
Jeffrey’s Website
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Lenora Rain-Lee Good
Lenora Rain-Lee Good lives by the Columbia River in Richland, Washington. She lived in and loves Albuquerque, but couldn’t adjust to the altitude. Her poetry has most recently appeared in Quill & Parchment and Five Willows Literary Review, both online literary magazines; Washington 129, anthology of Washington State Poetry, chosen by the WA State Poet Laureate, 2016-2018, and her chapbook, Blood on the Ground: Elegies for Waiilatpu. She was an Author-Editor in the aerospace industry, and an Instructor in the WAC. Besides writing and selling her poetry, she has sold novels, radio plays, photographs, and even a quilt. Her favorite quote about poetry is from the late Robert A. Heinlein, “A poet who reads his verse in public may have other nasty habits.” Oh, yeah, she does.
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Emory D. Jones
Dr. Emory D. Jones is a retired English teacher who has taught in high school and in several community colleges. He has six hundred and eighty-eight credits including publication in such journals as Writer’s Digest, Smokey Blue Literary and Arts Magazine, The Avocet, The Light Ekphrastic, Big Muddy; A Journal of the Mississippi River, Three Line Poetry, Auroras & Blossoms, Pegasus, Halcyon Days Magazine, Falling Star Magazine, Pasques Petals, 50 Haikus, The Cumberland River Review, The Delta Poetry Review, Calliope, Deep South Magazine, Modern Poetry Quarterly Review, and Encore: Journal of the NFSPS. He lives with his wife in Iuka, Mississippi.
Terri Klein
Terri Klein is a performer, poet, and playwright. She moved to Albuquerque in 2015, after 55-1/2 years of living all over the United States, with brief stints in Switzerland and the former Yugoslavia. Her poetry has appeared in a smattering of journals and anthologies. Up to the Minute, a CD of her shortest poems, was produced by Hours Apart Productions in March, 2019. Terri’s short plays have been produced in four states. Her first full-length play, What Next, was produced at Albuquerque’s Adobe Theater in October, 2018. For more about Terri’s performance world, find Hours Apart Productions on Facebook.
Alex Langston
A. M. Langston is a restless South-westerner searching for deeper meaning inside the wires and waves that make up the technology surrounding us during our every waking minute. Born in Illinois in 1988 and raised across the United States, he has called New Mexico home since 2004. Langston’s writing is full of dark humor, abstract imagery, and unforgiving honesty. He currently has seven self-published books, including three poetry collections. More to come in 2023.
Janna Lopez
Janna Lopez is an intuitive book coach, creative writing teacher with a MFA, and published author of Me, My Selfie & Eye. Her second book, a collection of poems, “WinSome & Fuckdamonium,” will be out March 2022. Her third book, “The Art & Invitation of Self-Conversation—Writing That Moves You Beyond Fear to Freedom,” is out May 2022, and is based on her work with hundreds of writing clients. She leads creative writing and poetry retreats for individuals and small groups in Santa Fe through Land of Enchantment Writing.
Gary Lucero
As a child, Gary was a fanatical photographer, toting his Canon SLR all over his neighborhood in West Albuquerque, taking photos of whatever interested him. As much as Gary enjoyed taking photos, he loved reading about photographers and cameras even more. He often imagined designing and building cameras, but that wasn’t his fate. He has always been an avid reader of non-fiction and loves reading about people who create, and about those creations. Today, Gary is a software engineer, writer, poet, dog lover, and explorer of (virtual) worlds. He writes compelling content that stirs emotions, expounds his philosophies, and challenges even his own expectations. He has dabbled at self-publishing in the past but has now released his first professionally produced book of dark-themed poetry.
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Jules Nyquist is the founder of Jules’ Poetry Playhouse in Placitas, NM. She took her MFA in Writing and Literature from Bennington College, VT. Zozobra Poems, 2019 is the NM/AZ Book Award winner in philosophy and Homesick, then 2018, is the NM/AZ Book Award winner in poetry. Her latest is Sestina Playbook. Her two previous books of poems, Behind the Volcanoes and Appetites (Beatlick Press), were finalists for the 2017 and 2014 NM/AZ Book Awards, respectively. Widely interviewed and published, she is co-editor of the Poets Speak series with the award-winning HERS anthology and co-founded Poetry Playhouse Publications. Jules chaired the NMSPS Convention in 2017 and is former NMSPS Membership Chair. She served on the Albuquerque Poet Laureate Selection Committee 2016-2017. She received the NMSPS Mission Award in 2013. She lives in Placitas, NM with husband John Roche and their two cats.
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Annmarie Pearson
Andi Penner
Andi Penner’s essays, stories, and poems have been published in academic journals, chapbook collaborations, and anthologies. She has recorded poetry for the Telepoem project, and has long been a favorite featured poet at open mics, coffee houses, libraries, colleges, and bookstores. Her second full-length collection, Rabbit Sun, Lotus Moon, was a finalist for a 2017 New Mexico-Arizona Book Award. Both Rabbit Sun and her first collection, When East Was North feature the art of Meg Leonard, a nationally known landscape painter who lives in Placitas, NM. Andi visited several Albuquerque schools as an NMSPS Poet in the Classroom, and served as president of the New Mexico State Poetry Society, 2015-17.
Andi’s books, published by Mercury Heartlink, are available from your favorite local bookstore or online retailer.
Bernadette Perez
In 1990, Perez received the Silver Poet Award from World of Poetry. Her work has appeared in The Wishing Well; Musings, Small Canyons Anthology and Poems 4 Peace. Contribution to La Familia: La Casa de Colores, and Fix and Free Anthologies. Included in the mega-unity poem by Juan Felipe and in The Americans Museum Inscription by Shinpei Takeda. Published in over 100 publications between2015-2021.
Sylvia Ramos Cruz
Sylvia Ramos Cruz is inspired by art, women’s lives, and everyday injustices. Her work is rooted in places she calls home—Puerto Rico, New York, New Mexico.
Her photographs and award-winning prose and poetry appear in local and national publications. Among these are Persimmon Tree, Malpaís Review, Latina Critical Feminism, Southwestern American Literature, Sin Fronteras, Artemis, and Choice Words: Writers on Abortion. May 29, 2020: In the Year of Our Peril was named “Best” non-fiction work in the 2020 SOMOS contest. Railyards Trilogy: Poems and Photographs, multimedia collage work, is in the City of Albuquerque’s Public Art collection.
Ongoing projects are writing Haibun about journeys to historic NM women road markers and research-based works about the woman suffrage movement and suffragists in New Mexico.
She is a retired general surgeon, world traveler and women’s rights activist still working to have the Equal Rights Amendment in the Constitution.
Bonnie Rucobo
Bonnie K. Rucobo is an Albuquerque poet, author, and photographer. Born in Washington, D.C., she received a B.A. from Reed College in Portland, OR. She attended law school at Golden Gate University in San Francisco, CA, and interned at Fair Employment Practices, a state agency working against discrimination. Rucobo is the author of two award-winning children’s books published by The Wildflower Press of Albuquerque: King Pachuco and Princess Mirasol and its sequel. She has also published Word Sculptures in the Albuquerque Museum Sculpture Garden, a collection of twenty ekphrastic poems and illustrations describing sculpture at the Albuquerque Museum. Her poetry has been anthologized in many publications, and she has served as President of the New Mexico State Poetry Society. She led NMSPS’ Poets in the Classroom project for two years and has served as a docent at the Albuquerque Museum for six years.
Janet Ruth
Janet Ruth is a NM ornithologist and poet. She is active in the Albuquerque Chapter of NMSPS and a regular at local poet open mics. Her writing focuses on connections to the natural world. She has recent poems in Tiny Seed Literary Journal, The Ocotillo Review, Sin Fronteras, Spiral Orb, Unlost: Journal of Found Poetry & Art, Ekphrastic Review, and anthologies including 22 Poems & a Prayer for El Paso (Dos Gatos Press, 2020) and Offerings for the Journey: Poems for Stewart S. Warren (Poetry Playhouse Publications, 2020). Her first full-length book, Feathered Dreams: celebrating birds in poems, stories & images (Mercury HeartLink, 2018) was a Finalist for the 2018 NM/AZ Book Awards. Feathered Dreams is available from your favorite local bookstore or online retailer. She also collaborated on a self-published chapbook with sister-poets Andi Penner and Faith Kaltenbach – What is the Boiling Point of Clouds? (2019).
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Jeanne Shannon
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Scott Wiggerman
Scott Wiggerman is the author of three books of poetry, Leaf and Beak: Sonnets, Presence, and Vegetables and Other Relationships; and the co-editor of several anthologies, including Bearing the Mask, Earthsigns, Weaving the Terrain, 22 Poems & a Prayer for El Paso, and the best-selling craft books, Wingbeats I & II: Exercises & Practice in Poetry. Poems have appeared in hundreds of journals and anthologies, most recently in Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry column. He runs Dos Gatos Press in Albuquerque with his husband, David Meischen, and he has been Chair of the Albuquerque chapter of the NMSPS since 2017
Liza Wolff-Francis
Liza Wolff-Francis is a poet and writer with an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Goddard College who served two terms as a member of the Albuquerque Poet Laureate Program’s Selection Committee and continues on the organizing committee. She was chosen to write in Tupelo Press’ 30/30 poetry challenge for the month of September 2020. Her writing has been widely anthologized and her work has appeared in El Palacio magazine, Evening Street Review, We’Moon, among others. She has a chapbook out called Language of Crossing (Swimming with Elephant Publications, 2015) and she blogs to support mental health through writing at Writeyourbutterfly.com
Robert Woltman
Born and raised in Chicago, Robert Woltman has lived in Albuquerque with his wife, Janet, since 1973. He is retired from a career as a graphic artist and museum exhibitions curator/designer. His poetry and prose have appeared in two Harwood Art Center poetry anthologies, Sin Fronteras/Writers Without Borders Anthology Journal Nine, and Montana Magazine. He is a former book reviewer for the Albuquerque Journal, and his essay, “Ekphrastic Poetry and the Second Life of Art,” was published in Word Sculptures in the Albuquerque Museum Sculpture Garden, the 2019 book of poetry by Bonnie Rucobo. His ghazal, “The Great River” was featured in the Visitors Guide to the 2019 Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta, and the 2019 Poets Picnic booklet included one of his haikus. In 2019, he also participated in the Poets in the Classroom project. In addition to writing, his pursuits include making art, hiking and baking.
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Lynne Zotalis
Raised in the Midwest, Silver City, NM is now Lynne’s permanent address. The mother of four adult children and four granddaughters, life has always been about instilling peace and kindness to those within her influence. Lynne has been published in the R.H. Cunningham Short Story Contest. Her poetry has appeared in Tuck Magazine, writinginawoman’svoice, The Poetic Bond VII, VIII and IX, and Lyrical Iowa, among others. She has worked with John Noltner promoting peace through A Peace of my Mind. Her Amazon author page lists her books, the most recent, Hippie at Heart (What I Used To Be, I Still Am).
◼ How To Be Listed
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[ top ]Last updated on November 20, 2024