El Palacio Live

Please join us for a reading panel and Q&A with three contributors to the spring issue of El Palacio. The readings will feature Darryl Lorenzo Wellington’s article, “Jean Toomer’s Search for Identity in Taos,” which recounts the complex historical and personal contexts –including his experiences in Taos—that led Jean Toomer to reject traditional ideas of race. Leeanna Torres will read from her essay about her profound experience during a Penitente service in her home community of Tomé, and Lazarus Letcher will read from their article about New Mexican filmmaker StormMiguel Florez’s documentary, The Whistle, which recounts lesbian life in Albuquerque in the 1980s.

Following the readings, editor of El Palacio, Emily Withnall, will facilitate a Q & A. Light refreshments will be served.

The event will take place at Santa Fe Public Library, Main (145 Washington Ave).

More on the authors: 

Darryl Lorenzo Wellington was the 6th Poet Laureate of Santa Fe. His poems and essays on African American history, African American writers, and poverty and racism in America have appeared in many publications, including the recent anthology Going for Broke: Living on the Edge in the World's Richest Country.  His most recent collection is Legible Walls: Poems for Santa Fe Murals. Darryl enjoys working for the Alto Arts Integration program where he teaches poetry in the Santa Fe public schools.

Leeanna T. Torres a Nuevomexicana writer with deep Indo-Hispanic roots in New Mexico. She has worked as environmental professional throughout the West since 2001. Her essays have appeared in various print and online publications (Blue Mesa Review, High Country News, High Desert Journal), as well as several anthologies, including Torrey House Press’s First & Wildest; The Gila Wilderness at 100 (2022), and Elementals: An Elemental Life, Vol. 5, forthcoming by Center for Humans & Nature Press (2024).

 Lazarus Letcher (they/them) is a Ph.D. candidate in American Studies at the University of New Mexico. They have written for Autostraddle, them, and the occasional dry academic journal. They play viola in folk band Eileen & the In-Betweens and for art installations/ performances with the group Stages of Tectonic Blackness.

Photo credits:

Jean Toomer, Taos, New Mexico, circa 1935. Courtesy Jill Quasha. Copyright the Estate of Marjorie Content.

Capilla de Santa Rita, Penitente chapel near Chimayó, New Mexico, ca. 1955. New Mexico Tourism Bureau, New Mexico Magazine Collection. Courtesy of the Palace of the Governors Photo Archives (NMHM/DCA), Hp.2007.20.562.

Collage of Albuquerque lesbian youth in the 1980s. The Whistle, 2019. Courtesy of StormMiguel Florez.