Report from Santa Fe; Rudolfo Anaya

You Report from Santa Fe is made possible in part by grants from Umexico Tech on the Frontier of Science and Engineering Education. For bachelors, masters and PhD degrees, Umexico Tech is the college you've been looking for, 1-800-428-TECH.

I'm Ernie Mills, this is report from Santa Fe. I was a guest today, a person we've been waiting years to do this show with Rudolfa Anaya, probably one of the greatest writers ever produced in the state of New Mexico. Rudolfo, great to see you today. Thanks for having me on your show. Well, I felt it's time to have a nice warm show at Christmas, and I was thinking you were born in a little community. I think it's near Santa Rosa, Pestura, in New Mexico, my correct, October of 1937, and you then went and got your elementary school education in Santa Rosa, went to Albuquerque, we graduated from high school there, and I was thinking the other day that I came to New Mexico in 1957, and at that time it was road construction in Albuquerque, and you were at the Browning Business School in 1957, and there was a period there of about four years where you went to the University of New Mexico, got a degree and literature,

and got a master's degree if I'm correct in counseling, and then went back and got a master's in literature also, and it was almost as if there were an escalation of a career that couldn't have been better planned. What happened? It wasn't so much that it was planned, maybe it was more by accident. I guess the short story is, while I was at the University, I started reading literature. I mean, for the first time, so to speak, we had literature classes in high school, but somehow they either didn't turn me on or they weren't fulfilling. So right out of high school, I spent two years in business school, and probably would have made a career out of it. I had some excellent teachers that really helped me, so they wanted me to be a CPA, but I was dissatisfied with

that, and I went up to the University and enrolled as a freshman, not having any preparation, so to speak, for a college career, for an academic career, but I guess falling in love with literature and reading and trying to understand what literature is all about, and then beginning to write poetry myself. I write poems, I write short stories. It was by accident. I think one falls into what one is supposed to be. If there's such a thing as a guiding spirit, I wasn't supposed to be in business school. I was supposed to be in literature classes. When someone said to me once, at least you go to a business school, you learn how to type, which always helps in any kind of a writer. I thought at first it would be very practical for me to say, I'm going to go through your Vita and list the awards and the accomplishments

the achievements you've made. If I did that, you and I wouldn't have a word to say for the rest of this broadcast. It's uncanny, the achievements you had over the years. I stopped counting its seven honorary doctorates. That's almost unheard of in this day in Asia. Marvelous. Well, it surprises me, but I'm very grateful for them. You've had them here in New Mexico, but it's also been national. California, Maine, New York, Michigan, and international as well. I believe you had taught at the University of New Mexico, retired. I guess it was around 1993 or 1993 and became the Emeritus Professor of Literature, but you still do work at the University itself. Did you ever think then that you'd be at a day like this looking to get a next millennium and having people like me say, well, we crossed paths in 1957.

What are your plans for the millennium? No, I think few people plan that far ahead or can follow that narrow path. It's kind of looking back that we're surprised and we say, see, I did write a lot of books and my wife and I have traveled to many countries because we also fell in love with travel. Looking ahead, keep writing, maybe keep traveling. Continue doing the work I do with schools, with teachers. I do a lot of lecturing. I'm invited to lecture at different places. Perhaps take life a little easier. I said, we can always predict that won't happen. You had made a comment to someone once and you said, you really don't commission works or take commission works from the publishers, but you do what you feel

you want to do and then you go to the publisher afterward and that in a sense, it would make almost what you're doing eclectic. Well, it allows me to be eclectic so that very early in my career after I published Bless Me Ultima in 1972, I knew that I wanted to do a couple of more novels in an autobiographical sense. But I also wanted to explore the short story. I was writing short stories. Later on, I began to play around with drama and I've been writing plays. Very few people know that I've written, I think, seven full length plays that have been produced. I wrote a travel journal when I went to China. I've written dozens of essays, a lot that have to do with education. Recently, I'm into children's literature, which is just as fulfilling and also into the murder mystery. Recently, I wrote three murder mysteries

and people are clamoring to have me write another one. They like the character that I've invented in the murder mysteries. There's a lot of writers at write for the publisher because the publisher gives them an advance and then you have a year or two to produce the book. I've been lucky not to get into that situation, which allows me to do whatever I want to do. Well, I'm sure that people will say to you, they'll say, what did you mean in this book? Bless Me Ultima, I'm sure it happens constantly, but you have children's books now you're working on. I don't look upon them as children's books. I look upon them as adult books. They're marvelous. Good, they're from 9 to 90. You have a very dear friend of both of ours. You went to Edward Gonzalez and Charming gentlemen. I think he asked for direction of what kind of illustrations for the books.

You said again, do them as you see them. Do your thing. The artist in a children's book works with a art director at the publisher. They look at the story and they look at a page and they say, how about this drawing for this particular scene? I think that's enough of a boss to have telling you what to do. They don't need the writer necessarily in there. All of the illustrators including Edward Gonzalez that have worked on my recent children's books. I kind of leave them alone. They come to me and they show me drawings and they say, is this going well? It's vast for advice and I say, we can discuss it. Just like the writer, I think the artist wants to be his own person and bring out what inspires

in that particular scene. You know, I looked and I felt like a dilatant, of course, going back over your career because bless me Ultima is a book. It's almost revered. People that I know who have, you know, they've based their studies upon the book and in a sense I want to, that was around 1972 or 1973, I believe, that you completed. Published in 1972. Published in 1972. And watching it again, they did not seem to me to be an attempt to say I'm coming back with the same kind of a book immediately. I saw it as broad expanse that you are reaching out to on the travels. And again, the plays that the plays from what I gather have been very well received. You know, but these, these are today people look at this and say, that's a full career. What you're looking at and these items are several full careers. You know, the traveling on your trip, it was to

China, am I correct? 1984. Tell me a little bit about it. Tell our audience a little about them. Oh, it was a fabulous trip. I think in 1984, China was in a sense just opening up and allowing more tours and visitors. I had a fellowship with the Kellogg Foundation. So about a dozen or so fellows and I decided to use our fellowship to travel through China visited Beijing and Xi'an and Chongqing and were on the Yangtze River on a boat with full of Chinese for three days eating the food, mixing with the people, getting to know them. Just fabulous. Warm, receptive people. And as is my custom, I guess, it was interesting for me to look for comparisons between the Nuevo Mejicano, the people of New Mexico that

I know and the Chinese and their culture. Interestingly enough, I found similarities, at least in the peasant culture and that kind of working farmer that I remember from my grandfather from Puerto de Luna, the farms they had there. So people all over the world have more in common than we realize sometimes. You have your reputation, of course, in working with youngsters. And again, I think trying to inculcate into them what you did, saying just don't, very so many. Have you talked about things before you've done them? And I've noticed that. You do it. Right. And get it out. But I've heard you talk to groups like in the Penn Society and others and say, don't talk at all out. I think there's a difference

between the storyteller or the oral tradition and the page. If you're in the oral tradition and telling stories, then that's what you do. You sit around in the evening with family or friends and the stories begin to be told and one leads to another. And as you know, in New Mexico, we have a wealth of folk tales, the Quentos that have been passed on generation to generation. But when you become a writer and you face the blank page or nowadays the computer monitor, it's something that you do and you have to compose on your own. And I think if you tell that story that you're composing, it goes out into the oral tradition and somehow takes away your inspiration and your energy and your sense of figuring out

the story on your own. So yeah, that's an idiosyncrasy you might say that I don't normally talk about the story until I've got a first draft or a good second draft, except there is one exception. My wife, I sometimes as I'm working through a story and that happened just recently. I told her the little story that I'm working on, but that's the one exception. You can tell Patsy. That's fair again. I talked to a gentleman who is working with one of the larger book stories recently. And I was very pleased because he said, in fact former Governor Bruce King, who I know is a good friend of yours, and he published a book and he said, I really want to see what I can do for local authors. That's a nice change in this day and age because I go back to the period. I remember, I think we had done

a show, you and I, on the bilingual station up here in George Gonzales station. And when it said to me once, he said, well, there doesn't seem to be that much interest among in literature, among the Hispanic writers. And I said, where are you coming from? So we have a remarkable background, you know? And I see now more and more major steps made to promote the Hispanic literature. And it's nice to have a young man come in, heading up a book store at such, he had asked me, said, can you come over and MC a function where Bruce King was promoting his book? That is happening. As a matter of fact, my wife and I founded a literary prize, a national Chicano literary prize for up and coming writers seven years ago. So each year we award a thousand dollar prize to a writer at the beginning of their career because we know that in our community we need that kind of nurturing.

One thing I think that happened in our community and the Hispanic community, let us say, is that for such a long time we were in the oral tradition. It's not that we didn't have the resources and the material and the inspiration and in a sense the literature. If you look at our folktales, our Quentos, you will be surprised at the themes of human nature and fantasy and humor and the so-called new magical realism is not new to us. It's in the folk material, it's in the folktales. But being in that tradition and the storytelling tradition creates a lag certain time lapse in getting to the written tradition. And so although we're kind of new at the written tradition, we're really coming along and it's just been that

sense of time to move from one tradition I think to the other. Of course the resources haven't been there for the Hispanic writers in this community. When you have to go and work 12, 16 hours a day, it leaves very little time for luxury which is what the writer needs. You do need that concentrated amount of free time to compose. I think more and more are now taking the dive into that and foregoing the instant gratification and writing poetry and music and songs and drama. I'm very glad to see some of these efforts that help these writers. You know, I've always had the feeling that people who traveled to state in the Mexico, there's a nurturing for writers. Scott Mamade, for example, when he came out here I think

Stan Steiner. And I know Dr. Mamade, he went, I think, one of the first places. He went to his Hobbes in the Mexican. Most people say I couldn't imagine that. But again, his family being at the Indian schools, they got the Hamist Prebleau and been up in Farmington near Bloomfield, but Tony Hilleman. There's always been a community of writers that have done that. I know when I first went to the University of New Mexico in 1974 we started a group called the Rio Grande de Riders Association and got together people from Tows and Las Cruces and Gallup and all the small towns we could find. And we took the show on the road. We'd go down to Las Cruces and do readings. We'd go to Las Vegas and do readings. Later on, I mentioned Stan Steiner. I got very involved in doing a booth at the State Fair. Why not? And there were ideas

of having a van where we could package some books and take writers out to these small communities. Penn, New Mexico now is helping with that effort. And you had been the founder out here, Penn, New Mexico. Of the chapter, yes. That's right, of the local chapter. If you had to single out, say, three highlights of the career up to date, because I'm sure there are many more to come. What would you, what would you look at? I suppose finishing Bless Me Ultima and having it published was a highlight. But always added to the publication of the book is the real reward is when people read it. And when I'm told by somebody that comes to a book signing and said, my deal read that. And he's

never read a book before or a high school student that says, I never finished a novel. You're talking about maybe a high school student that's a senior. I've really never finished a novel till I read yours. To me, that's a big reward. So there have been so many, I think, getting married and the help that I've had from my wife because she reads all my first drafts. You have a very good relationship with Patsy, don't you? It's very, very good because as I understand most writers and don't get along in their marriages, there's a lot of tensions and conflicts and splits and what have you. But we have worked out a relationship so that, of course, she's been in literature and she writes herself. That's been, I think, most helpful. What else can I name? Oh, there are just too many good

things. You mentioned meeting the person who's read the book, who said, oh, I've read this. And the young lady, the director of this show, Dr. Lorraine Carpenter, she was working on her doctorate when we met. And you'd try not to get too involved because they can speak out there in doctor of dissertation too. That one of the books she was referring to, Constellin, she had three, was blessed me with them. And I said, oh, I know him. You're in. She said, you know, Udafa, and I do. And again, it was thrilling for me. But then again, you're hard to track anyway because when you made the move to the children's books, and there's this being shown. We've already had a reception at the Capitol. And it's the second, there were two books. And one of them, I want to hold up. It's, this is the latest. It's the Aralitos for Abuela. And this is the latest book. And it's illustrated by a very, very

good friend, Edward Gonzales. And I have the, this book came out, I believe. It was first in the New Mexico magazine in a short article. And again, now it's out in book form. And again, but it'll be up here. And again, they can get it for Christmas also. It's the Aralitos of Christmas. And this is just one of the, my, my favorites also. It's become really popular. It's not only popular here in New Mexico, but it seems all over the country. Well, you know, I make my living in a sense, making predictions. And am I right that there will be at least another children's book coming along the line of the faralitos? Well, I'm going to bet $100 on your prediction. That there will be one. I have to ask this because he's been a good friend of mine. And I find him a charming fellow. You enjoy working with Edward Gonzales. I know he enjoys working with you. It, it, it, it, it seems

as if there's an injection of fun into what you're doing. Yes, of course there is. I, I think the one thing that I've done, especially when I got into the children's books where you need illustrators is that I've gone to New Mexican artists and tried to get them interested in illustrating in this area, which is a fabulous area. A person can get their name known and make a living out of it. And so I've gone to people like Edward, Amy Cordoba, illustrated My Land Sings, which is also a new book. I did a book on La Yorona for children and found the artist in Albuquerque, Maria Baca. Even some of my novels that have had cover illustrations used the New Mexico talent. I was told by my children's publisher when I first suggested Edward Gonzales. They said, no, no, you, nobody

knows about him. You need to get a big name artist. And I said, well, if we don't give him a break, when does his name get known? It's that kind of vicious cycle. And, and now they respect his work and he can go on and do other books, other illustrations. So it's, they're beginning to pay off not only for me, but I think for the artists that are illustrating the work. I think he enjoys it. He's gotten a big kick out of it. He gets a big kick. And I wanted to mention, and this particular is My Land Sings. And tell us a little bit about this because this is a collection of 10 stories for children, young adults. Again, it's 9 to 90. It's not just for children. There are five folk tales that I retail and five original stories in the book. And I think people will just find the very interesting.

They all take place along the Rio Grande and New Mexico. Some of the settings are down in Las Cruces, Missilla, Summer in Albuquerque, Summer in Bernalillo, Summer up in, in the Tauce area. And again, I found the illustrator, Amy Córdoba, living up in, in Tauce and teaching in Mora. And she had done a children's book. So when it came time to suggest someone, they looked at her work and they liked it and she did beautiful. She does, in fact, we did a show with her at one time. And she just, a very fine, fine young lady. Her dolphins, it's Christmas time. We have an awful lot of negativeism in the world we're living in today. But I can't think of, for our shows, my wife and I were talking about it and said, it's time for a warm show at Christmas. We have a lot to be thankful for. Absolutely. What advice would you have now? We have people today. We keep

stressing education, education, education. I'm sure they come to you and say, what should we do? I suspect that one of the reasons or a motive that I'm getting into children's books and the young adult literature is because we need to take books to those young people. We need to get them reading early and for them to remain readers, no matter what career you know, they choose in life. But if they continue reading, then they have that wealth of ideas and knowledge and inspiration and imagination to feed their souls, right? Literature is about feeding the spirit. If I should tell people, because I have grandchildren now and we're getting the books for them. And I'm certain that you'd be delighted to autograph them if they, if I say, we'll get the book and I have a good friend Rudolfa and I autograph them. That's a great part of being a published author

is that you do get to meet people and autograph books and that's part of that payoff you were asking me a while ago. What's the reward? It's meeting people and feeling so gratified that people are interested in reading one's work. There's a lot of gratification when people take the time to read to children. Like to thank our guest today, Rudolfa Anaya, who is an author extraordinaire for the state of New Mexico. I want to thank you for being with us on this Christmas edition of Report from Santa Fe. Report from Santa Fe is made possible in part by grants from New Mexico Tech on the frontier of science and engineering education. For bachelor's, master's and PhD degrees, New Mexico Tech is the college you've been looking for. 1-800-428-TECH. 3-800-TECH.