The Presenters

E. A. “Tony” Mares, PhD, is a poet, historian, essayist, and fiction writer. His books include: The Unicorn Poem & Flowers and Songs of Sorrow (West End Press); With the Eyes of a Raptor (Wings Press); and translations of Spanish poet Ángel González, (Wings Press, 2007). He co-authored, with Tomás Atencio and Miguel Montiel, Resolana: Emerging Chicano Dialogues on Community and Globalization (University of Arizona Press, 2009). His book of poetry, Conversations I Never Had With Patrociño Barela, was published in Fall, 2010 by University of New Mexico Press.

Sara Marie Ortiz is an Acoma Pueblo memoirist, poet, scholar, youth trainer, aspiring filmmaker, and Indigenous Peoples advocate. She received her BFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts (2006) and her MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles (2009). Ms. Ortiz has served as co-coach of the Santa Fe Indian School Spoken Word Team and has received numerous writing awards, among them the Truman Capote literary fellowship (2003), the American Indian Graduate Center fellowship (2007-2009) and the Catching the Dream scholarship. Her work has been published in The Kenyon Review and other places.

Jack Loeffler is an aural historian, radio producer, and writer. His interests include restoration and preservation of habitat, and the relationships of indigenous cultures to homeland, among others. Loeffler is the author of numerous books including Healing the West: Voices of Culture and Habitat; his current radio series/book project is entitled Thinking Like a Watershed. He is the recipient of a New Mexico Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts, and the Edgar Lee Hewett Award for Writing from the New Mexico Historical Society. In 2009 he was honored as a Santa Fe Living Treasure. For more information, please visit www.loreoftheland.org.

Sawnie Morris received the prestigious 2010 Poetry Society of America’s George Bogin Memorial Award for a selection of her poems. Her writing has also won a Texas Pen Literary Award, and the National ACLU Creative Non-Fiction Prize. Her chapbook of poems, Matapolvo Rain, appears in The Sound A Raven Makes, winner of the 2007 New Mexico Book Award. She teaches literature and poetry writing at the University of New Mexico-Taos, and is co-founder and current Assistant to the Director of Amigos Bravos, a 23 year old non profit river protection organization for the Rio Grande watershed.

Levi Romero has recently been named Centennial Poet for New Mexico. The author of “A Poetry of Remembrance: New and Rejected Works,” UNM Press, and “In the Gathering of Silence,” West End Press, and other publications, he is from the Embudo Valley of northern New Mexico. Romero is a bilingual poet whose language is immersed in the regional 'manito dialect of northern New Mexico with its 17th century archaisms and melodic registers. His work has been published throughout the United States, Mexico, Spain, and Cuba. Although he holds degrees in architecture, his interests lie in the function of stories in preserving the cultural landscape of New Mexico.
— Photo credit Jeana Rodarte Romero

Steve Harris of Pilar, NM, has been a student of the history and natural history of Southwestern Rivers since 1975. He is president of a river outfitting business, Far-Flung Adventures, and executive director of the basin-wide streamflow advocacy group, Rio Grande Restoration. A single father of three, Steve speaks and writes on water policy, ecological restoration, river and flood rescue/mitigation, eco-adventure travel, and other river issues. He has served on a number of public water resource programs, including the New Mexico Soil and Water Conservation Commission and the Middle Rio Grande ESA Collaborative Program's Water Acquisition and Management subcommittee.

Cyndie Abeyta is a hydrologist and Middle Rio Grande Coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service where she manages programs working with numerous agencies, communities, stakeholders, and concerned citizens towards protecting and restoring the Middle Rio Grande. Cyndie also manages and conducts hydrologic investigations, provides technical guidance on the hydrology of the Rio Grande, and is author of numerous scientific reports.  In 2006, Cyndie received the U.S. Department of the Interior, Manuel Lujan Jr. Champions award for her outstanding work in carrying out the department’s mission in areas that impact communities.

Bob Julyan is the author of The Place Names of New Mexico. Published by the University of New Mexico Press in 1996, this book has become the standard reference for the origins, meanings, and stories behind the names of New Mexico's places – its towns, mountains, rivers, and other features. Julyan has spoken about the state's place names for the N.M. Endowment for the Humanities for 13 years, and chairs the Geographic Names Committee of the N.M. Geographic Information Council. The author of several books on area mountains, he is always eager to share information with people who have an interest in local history and geography.

Poet, writer, photographer, farmer, and community leader, Juan Estevan Arellano has devoted most of his life to documenting the traditional knowledge of the Indo-Hispano in northern New Mexico, especially as it relates to land and water. A visiting research fellow in the UNM School of Architeture, he has published several books of poetry, photography and history. He has served as mayordomo and Commissioner of the Acequia Junta y Ciénaga in the northern New Mexico village of Embudo.

Anders Lundahl, a hydrologist for the New Mexico Interstate Stream Commission, focuses on Endangered Species Act/Ecosystem habitat restoration projects as well as river system management in the Middle Rio Grande Valley. Previously, he served as agricultural hydrologist for the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District. He holds a B.S. in Geology and a Masters of Water Resources degree from UNM. He is married and is the proud father of a 5 year old daughter.

Renata Golden is an avid students of birds — and words. A resident of Santa Fe, she holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of Houston and has been published worldwide. She currently owns and operates Golden Ink, a technical writing company, and has completed a collection of essays tentatively titled “Bird Brained: Everything I Know I Learned from the Birds.” Feathered things with wings and beaks can be surprisingly good teachers, she finds.