Arthur Sze has been chosen Santa Fe's Poet Laureate. Arthur has been publishing poetry in New Mexico for a long time, and worked with the library a few years ago to offer three cycles of community poetry workshops here at the Santa Fe Public Library and at the Institute of American Indian Arts; the workshops followed through with the publication of anthologies of some of the work, Retinal Exchange (1998), Signs and Portents (2000), and Audible Fire (2002). There's a profile of Arthur at the Academy of American Poets website; and of course there were news stories when the appointment was announced.
Earlier this week it was announced at the American Library Association's midwinter conference that Pat Mora's book, Doña Flor : a tall tale about a giant woman with a great big heart, illustrated by Raul Colón, has won the 2006 Belpré Prize for Colón's illustrations and was named an honor book for Mora's narration. The Pura Belpré Award, "established in 1996, is presented to a Latino/Latina writer and illustrator whose work best portrays, affirms, and celebrates the Latino cultural experience in an outstanding work of literature for children and youth."
Children's librarians all over the country watch for the ALA announcements of the Newbery, the Caldecott, the Belpré, and other prizes; and rush to be sure they have enough copies of all the prize-winning books in their collection. We're working on that ourselves, but of course already had plenty of copies of Doñ Flor and others of Pat Mora's books, because she is one of our own local authors.
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