Literary festival goes international but keeps Southwestern roots

May 6—To acclaimed Irish author Colum McCann, storytelling can be "an act of radical empathy."

His 2020 book Apeirogon focuses on a bond between an Israeli and Palestinian father and, similarly, McCann hopes his educational program Narrative 4 can build empathy between seemingly disparate groups by way of storytelling.

Narrative 4 leads young participants in exercises in retelling — and rethinking — the stories of others.

McCann, a National Book Award winner, will give a talk on storytelling at the Santa Fe International Literary Festival, which has brokered a partnership to bring his program to students at Santa Fe Community College and several area high schools.

During a recent interview, McCann said the world finds itself in fractious times, in an epidemic of loneliness and isolation.

As "twee" as it may seem, he said, he truly believes "storytelling is one of the ways to dissolve those boundaries and bring them down."

With programming like McCann's, Santa Fe's literary festival, now in its second year, is demonstrating international ambitions, but co-founders said the event has also deepened its roots in the literary traditions of the region while cultivating passion for storytelling throughout the community.

Festival to honor Anaya's legacy

The three-day festival, which begins May 19, will bring a host of authors from near and far to the Santa Fe Community Convention Center for discussions, tours and tributes, along with lots of books. Jennifer Egan, John Irving, Gillian Flynn, Laila Lalami, Ed Yong and many more have joined the roster for talks over the weekend.

During the successful 2022 debut, the festival attracted more than 10,000 participants. Co-founders Carmella Padilla, Clare Hertel and Mark Bryant said they hope to continue bringing global names in literature to New Mexico while continuing to honor local and regional writers.

Last year's festival gave a posthumous tribute to New Mexico mystery writer Tony Hillerman, creator of the Chee and Leaphorn series of detective novels. Padilla said this year's tribute will go to the "godfather of Chicano literature" Rudolfo Anaya, including free readings of the late author's children's books and a panel discussion of the impact of works like the New Mexico classic Bless Me, Ultima.

"Rudy was somebody whose work was totally rooted in the New Mexican landscape and what he called the Indo-Hispano identity of the Southwest," Padilla said. "It introduced the world to a way of looking at New Mexico, and it resonated not only locally but internationally, and that's grown through the decades."

A discussion of Anaya's legacy as part of the region's literary tradition will feature Denise Chávez, Luis Alberto Urrea and Estevan Rael-Gálvez. A screening of the 2013 film adaptation of Bless Me, Ultima is scheduled at the Jean Cocteau Cinema on May 22.

Padilla said she is compelled to draw attention to New Mexican literature, which she said traces back to Indigenous oral traditions in the 13th century.

"I'm a native, homegrown Santa Fean," she said. "I'm involved in this because I'm also an author, but it's really about my community and shining more of a light on the literary roots of our state and centuries-long traditions of storytelling. ... It's so important that we continue to show off our community as a place that has a strong voice and deep knowledge to share."

'Rich tradition of storytelling' in Santa Fe

One of the preeminent literary figures of Santa Fe, N. Scott Momaday, will serve as honorary chairman at the festival, a designation organizers said makes him the event's "most distinguished guest."

The 89-year-old Kiowa writer won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1969 for his novel House Made of Dawn, which was based on his firsthand experiences in Jemez Pueblo.

Momaday remains an active writer and told The New Mexican on Friday he would likely discuss his 2020 novella "Earth Keeper: Reflections on the American Land" at the festival, as he was "especially pleased" with the recent book.

Momaday said he has noticed recent growth in both the literary community of Northern New Mexico and in an appetite for literature. The festival, he said, is the biggest and most ambitious event he could think of celebrating literature in the region.

"The festival is something that we have needed for a long time," he said, "and I'm especially glad that we have it now."

Science writer David Quammen, who also plans to appear at the festival, said he expects to find an audience receptive to his ecological message in Santa Fe.

Quammen authored Breathless in 2022, an account of the coronavirus pandemic and the race to develop vaccines that he hopes reads like a gripping thriller. His upcoming book The Heartbeat of the Wild chronicles 20 years of stories published in National Geographic that were centered around conservation.

"The great outdoors is not just a place we go to participate in adventure sports, but also a place that we care about, the mountains, the landscape, the waters, the biological diversity," Quammen told The New Mexican. "I know that's true of most people in Santa Fe, and that's what has guided my work for the last 20 years at National Geographic and for 15 years at Outside magazine before that."

Quammen said he became fascinated with the Ebola virus while trekking in the Congo, sparking his interest in "the ecology and evolutionary biology of scary viruses."

While evolving from a fiction author to a natural history writer to a science writer, he said he retained his deepest influences from William Faulkner as well as his mentor Robert Penn Warren.

Festival co-founder Bryant, a former magazine editor and a publishing consultant, said his group has attempted to curate for the festival a group of authors representing some of the greatest examples of writing and thinking across a range of genres.

"We got into this, in part, because we felt like Santa Fe ... has been a home for the performing arts, but not many knew there was this rich tradition of storytelling here, from the Native and Hispano traditions," Bryant said. "It came together in a shockingly good way."

He and others felt the time was right to begin such an endeavor to spotlight the shared humanity of storytelling, when "books are being banned" and "tolerance and civility are in such short supply," he said.

Bryant said he was surprised by an "incredible sense of abiding community" that has grown from the festival since it began last year.

"I think if we can bring people together and touch them with the different kinds of experiences you can have at a festival like that," he said. "The more people feel like stakeholders in this and the better and better it can be," he said.