‘Celebrate Authors 2021’ welcomes more writers for September event

 “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.

Here is the second group of four authors signed up for this year’s event.

Celebrate Authors started in 2014.

Ellen Roberts Young has been a member of the writing community in Las Cruces since 2004. She has two full-length collections, “Made and Remade” (2014) and “Lost in the Greenwood” (2020), as well as poems in numerous print and online journals. She is an editor of Sin Fronteras/Writers Without Borders Journal. She blogs at www.freethoughtandmetaphor.com and offers her books at ellenrobertsyoung.com.

“I am fortunate to have had two very different books accepted for publication this past year,” Young said. “‘Transported’ (Finishing Line Press) is a chapbook about my childhood travels when my father got a Fulbright grant to teach in Egypt and the way that experience shaped me. ‘Lost in the Greenwood’ (Atmosphere Press) is a collection of poems centered around the Unicorn tapestries of 500 years ago, their art, their mysteries, their world and their fascination.”

“Greenwood” was a finalist in the poetry division of the National Indie Excellence Awards.

Frank Thayer is a Las Cruces author and professor emeritus at New Mexico State University. A New Mexico native, he also taught in Canada for 11 years before returning for a 30-year career at NMSU. Thayer wrote three journalism textbooks during those years. Thayer was an author of the 2015 books “The Aztec UFO Incident” and “Magic in the Desert,” the latter being the story of the undefeated 1960 Aggie football season. Thayer’s fiction focus began in 2016 with “Cobston Trilogy: The Ontario Horror,” followed by “Terror Tales of the Southwest,” then “The Whispering Darkness,” and followed by “The Vampire of San Vicente” in fall 2020 during Covid.

In June 2021, Thayer published a horror novella, “A Taste of Salt.”

Thayer said he is heavily influenced by classic authors such as Edgar Allan Poe, H.P. Lovecraft and Arthur Machen. He feels comfortable with one foot in the world of the supernatural, Thayer said.

For something completely different, Thayer is now completing a novel about dysfunctional college administration in the 1960s titled “The Quantum Jump Machine.”

 While Thayer is dedicated to classic supernatural horror tales, “this book in preparation reminds readers that some things are just … funny,” he said.

“I wrote my first story at age 6, my first (fairly decent) poem at 12,” Thayer said. “I can’t tell anyone else how to do it or how not to. If it is important to you, you’ll find your way.”

Jack Eakman writes about his passion for leadership and what brings out the best qualities in those we entrust with our futures. His foundation is built upon his education in management and public administration, his experiences as a factory worker, laundry washman, hospital manager and administrator, Las Cruces city councilor (2015-19), member of many boards of directors and mentee, then mentor of many.

Eakman credits “the relatively few leaders who have made positive and dramatic improvements in our daily lives,” he said. He relates the qualities and talents of those leaders that set them apart: “their ability to inspire, ignite self-motivation, set up competent teams, create ground rules that expedite advancement and bring about self-satisfaction and (make) friends and associates for life.”

“Better leaders bring about healthier and more fulfilling lives,” said Eakman, adding that he writes to inspire leaders to bring out the best in others.

Eakman published “Thank You for Leading” in June 2020 and “Thank You for Your Lessons” in December 2020.

Growing up in rural Pennsylvania, Eakman and his two brothers began learning about leadership at a very early age.

Their father was a kosher butcher five days a week and a pastor on Sundays. Their mother taught piano lessons, with their father driving her to students’ homes every Saturday and writing his sermon for the next day while waiting in the car.

“My mother and father became leaders right before my eyes,” Eakman said, “transforming themselves from the effects of backbreaking laborers into spiritual beacons.”

Rosemary Matos spent most of her life in Minnesota. Retirement and sunshine brought her and her husband to Las Cruces nearly four years ago. She has enjoyed writing since being on the newspaper staff in high school.

Journaling, short stories, letters and poetry have been an important part of her life, Matos said. Recently, memoirs and children’s books have become an interesting and fun method of expression, primarily influenced by extended family members and various pets owned by her four children, she said.

Rosemary enjoys reading, traveling, gardening and spending time with her children and grandchildren.

"Writing doesn't come easy to me, but it is worth the effort involved and it brings me to a sense of well-being,” she said. “The next project I have in mind is an epistolary novel, in addition to a series of children’s books."

After many visits to Cuba with her husband, Matos discovered a story needing to be told, she said. The 1950s and ‘60s brought profound changes to Cuba. Her book, “Promises,” is based on the life of a military family and friends of the family during those difficult years in Cuba. Culture, food and revolution are vividly described in this brief history, as are love for family and country. And of course, there is betrayal.

“Promises” is not yet available, but will be published by the time Celebrate Authors is held.

For  more information, contact Joy Miller at joyemmamiller@gmail.com and Alice Davenport at 575-527-1411 and adavenport@totacc.com, or visit her at Moonbow’s Book Nook, 225 E. Idaho Ave.,  No. 32.