{"id":25015,"date":"2024-11-05T13:12:52","date_gmt":"2024-11-05T20:12:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/san-juan-county-women-published-in-new-anthology\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T05:07:48","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T05:07:48","slug":"san-juan-county-women-published-in-new-anthology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/san-juan-county-women-published-in-new-anthology\/","title":{"rendered":"San Juan County women published in new anthology"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Photo
Photo of the cover of the SouthWest Writers new anthology, \u201cMosaic Voices.\u201d (Courtesy Kathleen Holmes)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Everyone has a story to tell. Out of more than 400 entries from across the country, writers who put pen to paper, or perhaps more accurately fingers to keyboard, three San Juan County writers recently received awards for their work.<\/p>\n

Roberta Summers, Kathleen Holmes and Terry Nichols were winners in the recent SouthWest Writers contest. Each of the women won in different categories: short story, poetry and travel memoir.<\/p>\n

The writing contest provided 20 categories that were judged by number, all entries were stripped of the author\u2019s names and assigned a number in order to ensure that those who were reviewing the entries remained impartial.<\/p>\n

The award-winning stories and poems are published in the SouthWest Writers\u2019 new anthology, Mosaic Voices.<\/em> Southwest Writers is an organization based in Albuquerque which provides writing workshops and various contests, their motto is \u201cWriters Helping Writers.\u201d<\/p>\n

A self-described avid writer and enthusiastic poet, Holmes was awarded first place in the Free Verse Poetry category. Over the past four years, she has won 11 awards for poetry and short-story writing. This is the third year she was awarded first place in the Free Verse Poetry category.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s nice to be published, she said. She described the lure of writing poetry. \u201cIt\u2019s like putting emotions into words. There\u2019s a feeling of accomplishment when I put it in a poem and it sounds like something I might want to share,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Nichols won second place in the travel category for her essay, \u201cHow to See an Elephant.\u201d The story recounts her unforgettable experience in Sri Lanka in 1984, when a new friend lures her into the jungle for an exciting opportunity to see an Asian elephant but turns into something much different.<\/p>\n

Nichols continues to indulge her perennial interest in travel with a trip to Egypt and enjoys writing for adults and young readers. Her work includes an award-winning middle grade fantasy, \u201cThe Dreaded Cliff,\u201d which features Flora, a hopelessly lost, word-mangling packrat trying to get home as she faces self-doubt and dangers galore.<\/p>\n

Summers won honorable mention for her short story, \u201cManhattan Rodent Control Operations,\u201d which is set in the early 1900s when cats were used to control rats and mice in fancy hotels. She has other writing irons in the fire as well. She has just released her new novel \u201cPele\u2019s Children,\u201d a sequel to her first book, \u201cPele\u2019s Realm,\u201d both crime adventure novels set in Hawaii.<\/p>\n

\u201cI write because I have something to say. It’s a burning desire. This was especially true of my Downwinder’s story, \u2018Fatal Winds,\u2019\u201d Summers said. A Downwinder herself, she has won two awards for that book, which explores the plight of people with cancer caused by being in the path of radioactive fallout. Summers will be signing her books at Feat of Clay in Aztec on Saturday, Nov. 23, from 2 to 4 p.m.<\/p>\n

The three women are also active in San Juan Writers. \u201cI’m so very proud of our local writers. It’s an honor to be among such a talented group,\u201d Summers said. \u201cI’m one of the founding members of San Juan Writers, a 20-year-old critique group that has elevated writers from beginners to authors publishing novels, poetry, essays, short stories and memoirs. San Juan County has a burgeoning and vibrant writing community,\u201d she noted.<\/p>\n

San Juan Writers is within a month of publication of its second anthology, \u201cIn the Company of Animals.\u201d<\/p>\n

For information about San Juan Writers, visit: sanjuanwritersgroup.com; for information about SouthWest Writers, visit: southwestwriters.com.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

of the cover of the SouthWest Writers new anthology, \u201cMosaic Voices.\u201d (Courtesy Kathleen Holmes) Everyone has a story to tell. Out of more than 400 entries from across the country, writers who put pen to paper, or perhaps more accurately fingers to keyboard, three San Juan County writers recently received awards for their work. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25016,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1060,1240,1222,799,28,1241],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-25015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-arts-entertainment","tag-aztec","tag-bloomfield","tag-farmington","tag-headlines","tag-kirtland"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25015"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25015\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78770,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25015\/revisions\/78770"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25015"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=25015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}