Honoring Breast Cancer Awareness Day

This will be an in-store event and live streamed to Zoom, please register for Zoom here.

Order The Fiction of Stillness (paperback, $18) online from CW here and Write Until You Cry (paperback, $15) online from CW here, or call the store to order (505) 988-4226.

We will be honoring Breast Cancer Awareness Day and Month by donating a portion of sales to local cancer treatment organizations of Robyn and Melina's choice.

About The Fiction of Stillness

The Fiction of Stillness evokes the author's focus on finding respite during breast cancer treatment and recovery - the physical touchstones carried into the chemo ward, the calming touch of her daughter, cherry juice to offset the loss of taste, and an ongoing retreat to a nearby porch. This poetic dialogue with cancer seeks to dispel fear and offer remedy, including the promise of milagros (miracles), the body's visible and invisible medical tattoos, the echo of lingering animals in her bloodstream and a renewed understanding of stillness and healing.

About Robyn Hunt

Among her former lives, Robyn Hunt owned a small bookstore in the San Francisco Bay Area and ran printing presses with a print and design collective, producing “bread and butter” jobs to enable the creation of poetry books and broadsides. Returning more than 30 years ago to her native Santa Fe, she occupied a New Mexico legislative press box as reporter and hosted ongoing readings and other literary events in a bookstore on the Old Santa Fe Trail.

Her inaugural collection of poems, The Shape of Caught Water, was released in 2013 and selected for award by the New Mexico Press Women’s 2014 Poetry Division competition. Other writing includes a one-act play, In Possibility: An Imaginary Correspondence, co-authored with Evangeline Brown and produced by Theaterwork in Santa Fe. Her work is also visible on her blog, As Mourning Doves Persist, and in various journals. She lives today with her husband in Santa Fe where she works as a development and communications director for a non-profit social services agency. robynhuntpoetry.com

About Within my Shadows, Into my Light

Dr. Melina Martinez's poetry reflects the essence of Northern New Mexico, capturing its culture, food, and the complex emotions of joy and sorrow. It conveys a deep connection to the land and its people, evoking the struggles and dreams of generations who have lived there. "The landscape is filled with dreams that life can be real, fulfilled, hard but satisfying. It's about feeling the dirt generations have worked to scratch a meager living, looking into the eyes of your family and sensing their fear, hope, despair." The work draws on the beauty of the landscape, interwoven with the challenges of life, and the relentless will to persevere, guided by an inner voice. Through vivid imagery, the poems embrace both the hardships and the blessings of life, celebrating resilience and the pursuit of meaning.

In 2023, Melina Martinez participated in the Jimmy Santiago Baca Annual Writer’s Retreat. Poetry about her cancer journey emerged at the retreat and was featured in the resulting anthology, Write Until You Cry: A Jimmy Santiago Baca Workshop Anthology, edited by Veronica C. Evans.

About Dr. Melina Martinez

Of Hispanic, Greek, Italian & Indigenous descent, Melina Martinez traces her lineage in NM to 18th century settlers. She was raised with 3 older brothers, several furry companions, & many farm animals near the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, streams and arroyos. Experiencing poverty as well as tremendous fortune and opportunities to grow have inspired her to leave a legacy of truth, love, and beauty aiming to share with the world what it is to be New Mexican from the depths of her gathered experiences as expressed  through her poetry.