Mysterious Thinking
In New Mexico, a scholar hunts for mysteries and monsters. An apparition in a 19th-century painting stirs another liminal experience: grief.
September 04, 2026
Literary
Books + LiteraryInside Southwest Contemporary
Our Favorite Books (and One Apocalyptic Podcast) of 2025
Desperate times call for exceptional reads. Pick up an ode to "bad" writing, a novel set in the West Bank, and more 2025 book picks by the Southwest Contemporary team.
December 15, 2025
Books + LiteraryInside Southwest Contemporary
Our Favorite Books (and One Epic Article) of 2024
The Artist's Way for werewolves, a guide to forgetting the Alamo, and other compelling reads from the Southwest Contemporary editorial team.
January 06, 2025
New Mexico is in the Midst of an Under-the-Radar Indie Book Publishing Renaissance
Despite economic flux, new independent book publishers are blooming—and veteran presses are thriving—across New Mexico.
December 12, 2024
Reexamine the West with an Interactive Reading by Poet Paisley Rekdal
Paisley Rekdal will read selections from West: A Translation with live guidance from the audience in a powerful, informative, and cathartic experience at 516 Words on Thursday, December 5, in Albuquerque.
November 20, 2024
Oracle Bones: High Desert Divination with Terry Tempest Williams and Gaylord Schanilec
In Oracle Bones from Red Butte Press, a writer and an artist wander the Utah wilderness to discern the future. Then it comes true.
May 15, 2024
Diné Writer Brendan Basham Transmutes Words into Worlds
Diné artist, writer, and educator Brendan Basham approaches writing as he does life: as a process of transformation.
April 16, 2024
Phoenix Artist and Curator Clottee Hammons Highlights Black History, Art, and Culture
Clottee Hammons, the Phoenix artist, curator, and knowledge-keeper who leads Emancipation Arts, has spent decades elevating Black history, arts, and culture while combatting historical and contemporary racism in Arizona.
March 22, 2024
InterviewUtahVol. 9 Living Histories
Paisley Rekdal Reimagines History in West: A Translation
Salt Lake City-based writer Paisley Rekdal discusses poetry as an archive and cultural connecter in the history of the transcontinental railroad.
March 01, 2024
FeatureUtahVol. 9 Living Histories
Living at the Home of Truth: Emma Kemp Blends History with Memoir in Marie’s Place
After living at an abandoned commune in rural Utah for eight years, author Emma Kemp blends history with memoir in her forthcoming book.
March 01, 2024
Books + LiteraryInside Southwest Contemporary
Our Favorite Reads (and One Podcast) of 2023
Southwest Contemporary’s staff—Roman Aragón, Natalie Hegert, Steve Jansen, and Lauren Tresp—pick their favorite reading materials of 2023.
January 04, 2024
Jenn Shapland, Author of New Book Thin Skin, on Writing (and Not Writing, Sometimes)
Santa Fe-based Jenn Shapland, author of multi-award-winning My Autobiography of Carson McCullers, chats about the writing life and her new collection of essays, Thin Skin.
October 25, 2023
No Longer a Hypothetical: If the Sky Were Orange: Art in the Time of Climate Change
If the Sky Were Orange: Art in the Time of Climate Change looks at global warming with a right brain/left brain lineup of scientists, journalists, and artists.
October 24, 2023
Torrey House Press, the “Intermountain West’s Only Nonprofit Environmental Publisher,” Reworks Western Identity
Torrey House Press, an Intermountain West nonprofit environmental book publisher founded in 2010, renews its commitment to Western voices with a new focus on diverse perspectives.
September 21, 2023
SponsoredBooks + LiteraryNew Mexico
Santa Fe’s Radius Books Announces Artist Weekend 2023
Join art book publisher Radius Books for Artist Weekend 2023, a free community celebration with artists, writers, and collaborators in New Mexico.
August 01, 2023
FeatureArizonaVol. 7 Finding Water in the West
All Things Visible: Author Lydia Millet on the Sonoran Desert, Strange Morphologies, and Small Acts of Courage
Tucson-based author Lydia Millet reflects on themes of climate change, place, and privilege in her new book Dinosaurs.
March 03, 2023
Illustrations from a Murder Capital: Alice Leora Briggs Portrays Ciudad Juárez’s Recent Dark History
Abecedario de Juárez by artist Alice Leora Briggs and photojournalist Julián Cardona is partly an illustrated glossary of narcolenguaje and partly a collection of stories from the streets.
August 19, 2022
“Being Born is Just Plagiarizing Your Parents”: An Interview with Good Actors Author Sommer Browning
Denver poet, librarian, gallerist, and comedian Sommer Browning talks about her new book Good Actors and how it relates to other art forms and interests.
May 25, 2022
Miraflores: San Antonio’s Mexican Garden of Memory by Anne Elise Urrutia
Drawing on public and private archives and fifty years of personal documentation, Anne Elise Urrutia’s book Miraflores brings to life her great-grandfather’s San Antonio garden in unmatched detail.
May 19, 2022
Aerial Concave Without Cloud by Poet and Artist Sueyeun Juliette Lee
Sueyeun Juliette Lee’s Aerial Concave Without Cloud is an extended meditation on how thinking through and with light can help to illuminate profound personal grief.
May 11, 2022
Real Phonies and Genuine Fakes by Poet Nicky Beer
Denver-based poet Nicky Beer’s Real Phonies and Genuine Fakes is a clever, probing look into the collective desires and fears underlying our love of illusion.
March 29, 2022
FeatureNew MexicoVol. 5 Collectivity + Collaboration
On Light and Line: The Radical Poetics of Mei-mei Berssenbrugge
Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, renowned New Mexico-based poet, opens up about her personal poetry process and collaboration across artistic disciplines.
February 25, 2022
Book Review: A Treatise on Stars by Mei-mei Berssenbrugge
Mei-mei Berssenbrugge's A Treatise on Stars, the latest book by the New Mexico-based poet, makes a case for communication with star beings.
November 16, 2021
FeatureNew MexicoVol. 2 Flights of Fancy
Sunbeams 99¢: Friends of the Orphan Signs
For the past ten years, Friends of the Orphan Signs has been placing small moments of wonder on empty, abandoned, and suspended-in-time signs that anchor Albuquerque to its past as a stop along Route 66.
April 30, 2021
In A Modern Rendering – The Color Woodcuts of Gustave Baumann
Born in Germany in 1881, Baumann’s parents moved to Chicago when he was ten, and the budding artist began attending the School of the Art Institute in his teens, at one of its most fecund and influential periods. Baumann wasn’t the first of his Chicago peers to discover New Mexico, but he planted deeper roots than most. Fellow master printmaker and Baumann’s soul-heir Tom Leech contributes a heartfelt reflection on decades spent working with the artist’s materials, upholding his legacy at Santa Fe’s Palace of the Governors...
January 28, 2020
Father
Julia Brennan is a writer and performer from central New York. Her work has been published in Hotel America, Big Big Wednesday, and Tarpaulin Sky Press, among other publications. Her debut novel, Hunting Season, won the 2019 Tarpaulin Sky Book Award and will be published in 2020.
August 28, 2019
What Pain Can Do
About the pain. I’ll first describe it clinically, as if I were a camera. I began to sweat everywhere after a flash of heat lit my skin (the whole organ). I lost the ability or will to control the movement of my eyes, which rolled around the room. My eyes also streamed tears, though my face lacked the grimaces and spasms which normally accompany them. Finally, I moaned.
August 01, 2019
New Mexico Women: Natalie Goldberg
Natalie Goldberg, author of "Writing Down the Bones," made New Mexico her home and the center of her writing practice fifty years ago.
July 26, 2019
Writings: Medallions
After planting and harvesting crops for over forty years, you would think a being might finally comprehend the ephemeral nature of all things. Not, alas, this one. At least not within my deep inner recesses, in the private folds of knowing...
June 26, 2019
Writings + The Printed Page
John Shepherd’s pack weighed him down, straps cutting into fleece, water bottle digging into his hip. The hike had taken longer than he’d anticipated. The light was fading...
May 24, 2019
