Todd A. Norman, from Alamosa, is the Author of Ideas To Save The Planet, which contains "ideas which could End Hunger, Thirst, Poverty, and Climate Change. In it [Norman is] offering solutions to our Social, Political, Spiritual, and Economic problems, and [he's] speaking even more powerfully than Al Gore is about the solutions to our Environmental problems."

Dr. Carole Counihan and her husband, Dr. Jim Taggart, are donating proceeds from their books, "A Tortilla Is Like Life: Food and Culture in the San Luis Valley of Colorado" and "Alex and the Hobo", to benefit the Antonito Scholarship at Adams State College. The authors are scheduled for a book signing at 10 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 9, 2010, in the Antonito Library. The women of Antonito and the food that helps define their culture is the topic of Counihan's book, "A Tortilla Is Like Life" and Taggart's book is co-authored by Antonito native Jose Inez Taylor.

Milagro's Coffeehouse in Alamosa, Colorado will host local author Catherine Parra Dix on Saturday, December 12 from noon to 3 pm for a "La Puente" Christmas fundraising event. Dix is the author of Rosetta Stones, a young adult novel which recently won the New Mexico Book Award's 2009 "Best First Book" prize and a bronze medal for the 2009 Moonbeam Children's Book Award in the young adult fiction category. (Independent Press/IPPY.) La Puente is a non-profit organization promoting awareness of hunger and homelessness in the San Luis Valley of southern Colorado.

A graduate of New Mexico State University, Dix and her family have resided in Alamosa for eight years. She works locally with farmers and ranchers in natural resources conservation and was one of the original contributing writers for The Denver Post's "Mile High Mamas" blog.

The book-signing event is free and open to the public. For more information contact Liz at Milagro's Coffeehouse at 719-589-7299. If you are interested in scheduling Catherine for book club parties and writer workshops contact Catherine at catherinedix ( @ ) catherinedix dot com or visit www.catherinedix.weebly.com.

In the book A Tortilla Is Like Life: Food and Culture in the San Luis Valley of Colorado by Carole M. Counihan, Counihan features extensive excerpts from these interviews to give voice to the women of Antonito and highlight their perspectives. Three lines of inquiry are framed: feminist ethnography, Latino cultural citizenship, and Chicano environmentalism. Counihan documents how Antonito's Mexicanas establish a sense of place and belonging through their knowledge of land and water and use this knowledge to sustain their families and communities. Women play an important role by gardening, canning, and drying vegetables; earning money to buy food; cooking; and feeding family, friends, and neighbors on ordinary and festive occasions. They use food to solder or break relationships and to express contrasting feelings of harmony and generosity, or enmity and envy. The interviews in this book reveal that these Mexicanas are resourceful providers whose food work contributes to cultural survival.

Located in the southern San Luis Valley of Colorado, the remote and relatively unknown town of Antonito is home to an overwhelmingly Hispanic population struggling not only to exist in an economically depressed and politically marginalized area, but also to preserve their culture and their lifeways. Between 1996 and 2006, anthropologist Carole Counihan collected food-centered life histories from nineteen Mexicanas--Hispanic American women--who had long-standing roots in the Upper Rio Grande region. The interviews in this groundbreaking study focused on southern Colorado Hispanic foodways--beliefs and behaviors surrounding food production, distribution, preparation, and consumption.

Kathy Hettinga - who grew up in Alamosa and now is a professor of art at Messiah College near Harrisburg, Pa. - has returned to the San Luis Valley year after year, responding to its mystical lure and desolate beauty. She's taken more than 10,000 photos in the valley's historic cemeteries, recording the graves of generations of residents, some of them prosperous, most of them poor, and published them in her new book, "Grave Images".

Somewhere in the Southwest, there is a town that is used as an example in a new book about municipal politics and urban planning. The book, "City Boy: Urban Planning, Municipal Politics and Guerrilla Warfare," is based on a true story, but Mike Tedesco, the author, said he changed the names of the people and the town.

Can one womans tragedy turn into happily ever after? Claire Caspian is a firstrate professor, teaching even the most cynical student to find beauty in literature. But with her own personal story, she isnt as successful. Having recently lost her husband, Claire returns with her young son to the tiny desert town of Romeo, Colorado, where she grew up. There she settles in with her feisty old Abuelita, the richest woman in the county and attempts to rebuild her life. But love comes searching for Claire in the form of attractive local doctor Stephen Reyes. Will another tragedy prevent her from accepting love the second time around? Or will she embrace her new Romeo and finally find a happy ending?

Love Finds You in Romeo, Colorado by Gwen Ford Faulkenberry is a series of fulllength romance novels that give readers a peek into the flavor of local life across the United States. The novels are uniquely named after actual American towns with quirky, interesting names that inspire romance and are just plain fun! This means that each fictional story draws on the compelling history or unique character of a real place. Our fresh, original love stories will feature everything from romance kindled in small towns, to old loves lost and found on the high plains, to new loves discovered at exciting vacation getaways.

Growing up, Edna Smith Hiller never knew she would be the heroine of a prize-winning book. Now, at age 94, the Colorado State Veterans center resident has seen the diaries she and her mother kept for their children and grandchildren become a book, Fly With the Mourning Dove, a finalist in the WILLA Literary Award category for creative nonfiction. There were seven categories and judges were told to only choose finalists if there were books of such a quality as to qualify for that position.

The San Luis Valley is home to a long tradition of building in earth. Mud brick, or adobe as it is called locally, is used in schools, churches, agricultural buildings, businesses and homes throughout the valley and San Luis Valley native Ronald Rael has recently authored a book on the topic of Earth Architecture that grew from his website on the same subject.

Synopsis
Currently it is estimated that one half of the world's population—approximately three billion people on six continents—lives or works in buildings constructed of earth. And while the vast legacy of traditional and vernacular earthen construction has been widely discussed, little attention has been paid to the contemporary tradition of earth architecture. Author Ronald Rael, founder of EarthArchitecture.org provides a history of building with earth in the modern era, focusing particularly on projects constructed in the last few decades that use rammed earth, mud brick, compressed earth, cob, and several other interesting techniques. EARTH ARCHITECTURE presents a selection of more than 40 projects that exemplify new, creative uses of the oldest building material on the planet.

An engaging narrative addresses the misconceptions associated with earth architecture. Many assume that it's only used for housing in poor rural areas—but there are examples of airports, embassies, hospitals, museums, and factories that are made of earth. It's also assumed that earth is a fragile, ephemeral material, while in reality some of the oldest extant buildings on the planet are made of earth. The book also touches on many topics that pervade both architecture and popular media today, such as the ecological benefits and the politics of building with earth, particularly in developing nations where earth buildings are often thought of as pre-modern or backward. With captivating discussion and more than 300 images, Earth Architecture showcases the beauty and simplicity of one of humankind's most evolved and sophisticated building technologies.

Ron McLarty's novel Art in America has scope, and then some. His plot brings a sliver of the New York City theater crowd to Creedemore, a tiny, former mining town in the San Luis Valley that is staging a pageant. The fictional town suggests the real theatrical town, Creede, whose name resembles it. Read a review of the book by the Durango Herald.

Ralph G. Nash is a Korean War veteran, but he’s fascinated with World War II and the men and women who served from the Upper Rio Grande. Through meticulous research Nash has gleaned bits of information about veterans from Del Norte, South Fork, Creede Summitville and the surrounding area and put it into a book and on a CD that is available for reading and printing at the Del Norte Library.

Brown-on-Brown: A Luis Móntez Mystery by Manuel Ramos marks the return of Manuel Ramos's character, Luis Móntez. A Denver defense attorney who is always just one step ahead of his creditors and not too particular about the cases he takes on, Móntez's next client is Dominic Santos. Santos has been charged with torching the property of a powerful Anglo San Luis Valley rancher and causing the death of a hired hand. The backdrop of Brown-On-Brown is the ever-present Chicano/Anglo disputes over water rights in Colorado's San Luis Valley. Ramos effectively provides the Chicano perspective on water and land disputes while guiding the reader through a maze of multiple murders. According the Rocky Mountain News, the book is an "insider's look at the lives of Colorado Hispanics."

Poet Aaron A. Abeyta of Antonito, an assistant professor in the English department at Adams State College, and author of the novel, "Rise, Do Not Be Afraid," and two collections of poetry, "Colcha" and "As Orion Falls," writes of memory and history and how, he hopes, the two will sustain the valley's people.

La Garita: Growing Up In and About the San Luis Valley, by F. Amadeo White, was recently updated and expanded from the original 1971 version. The book is available for $20 at the Saguache County Museum and the La Garita Trading Post.

Author Wayne Sheldrake has lived in the San Luis Valley since 1980 and has just released a new book, Instant Karma: The Heart and Soul of a Ski Bum, which examines his place in the close community of ski bums, people who give up normality to live on their own terms. Sheldrake's is a life of recklessness and restlessness, dedicated to adventure, courage, and the joy of second and third chances. He maps the hidden trails of virgin snow and conjures the rush of hucking off cornices and skiing blind in sudden snowstorms with exacting detail, all the while seeking to understand the bonds of romance, friendship, and learning to let go. In Sheldrake's universe, instant karma is what happens when we believe our grandest passion can t be separated from the everyday, and then live in accordance with that faith.

"The AS&F will post a guard at the city limits of Alamosa with instructions to shoot any of the (censored) who dare come this far west." What's this all about? It has to do with an ASC professor's book being banned due to the use of the word "washing." Learn more in the historical document (PDF format) collected by Adams State College's "This Day in ASC History."

Emerita Romero-Anderson hopes to make it a little bit easier for students to learn a history that came to her only through the course of decades in the book, "Jose Dario Gallegos: Merchant of the Santa Fe Trail", which charts the life of her great-great grandfather, Jose Dario Gallegos. The merchant who made his living bringing goods back and forth across the Santa Fe Trail, was among the first group of settlers to arrive in San Luis and founded the state's oldest business, a general store that's now the R+R Market. The book can be purchased by calling 888-570-2663, or online at www.filterpressbooks.com.

Manassa's "M" and Del Norte's "D" are listed in "Hillside Letters A to Z"

A groundwater management proposal would take some land in the SLV "out of agricultural production for 15 years while other land will be permanently removed from irrigation."

Alamosa made it into "101 Best Outdoor Towns"

The San Luis Valley doesn't get much lightning compared to the rest of the state.

Thank goodness for Briefs from the San Luis Valley.

Aaron A. Abeyta is the author of three books, which include Colcha and As Orion Falls. He was recently interviewed by La Bloga to talk about his most recent novel Rise, Do Not Be Afraid.

Former San Luis Valley resident Christopher O’Brien has released his third book, Secrets of the Mysterious Valley, which takes a fantastic journey through one of the world’s most enigmatic locales. The San Luis is rife with strange activity, including a large number of documented UFO reports, unusual animal deaths, Native American legends, cryptozoology, and secret military bases. San Luis Valley is also the publicized birthplace of the 'cattle mutilation' mystery. Is hidden, haunted San Luis Valley America’s Most Anomalous Region? No other region in North America features the variety and intensity of unusual phenomena, and since 1989, Christopher O’Brien has documented thousands of strange reports.