Albuquerque author wins 2023 WILLA Literary Award

ALBUQUERQUE AUTHOR WINS AWARD

Katy Hammel is the author of “Meg and the Rocks,” which has won a 2023 WILLA Literary Award in the category of Young Adult Fiction & Nonfiction.

The book tells the story of Meg, who befriends a Japanese American held inside the Manzanar Internment Camp during World War II. That story weaves together Meg’s story with the uranium rocks used in the development of the atomic bomb.

The book also deals with such issues as identity, friendship and belonging.

Meg is a fictional character. But Hammel has said that Meg was inspired by her mother’s experience living outside the real Manzanar camp as a teenager. Hammel’s grandfather was a chaplain at Manzanar.

The camp was located in California. It is now a National Historic Site.

“Meg and the Rocks” was published by Plot Duckies Publishing of Albuquerque.

Hammel is an assistant principal at Atrisco Heritage Academy High School in Albuquerque.

The WILLA Literary Award, given to books in multiple categories, recognizes the best in literature that features women’s and girls’ stories set in the North American West published each year. The award is named in honor of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Willa Cather.

“Meg and the Rocks” also won an award from the New Mexico Press Women.

Albuquerque author wins 2023 WILLA Literary Award

NEW RELEASES FROM SANTA FE PRESS

Sunstone Press of Santa Fe has recently published several books. One is “Taos Vendetta: A Fernando Lopez Mystery” by Albuquerque author James C. Wilson.

In the mystery, Hollywood actress Anne Lewis is found drowned in the pool of a Taos hotel and the Taos County Sheriff, Hank Mathews, asks his longtime friend private investigator Fernando Lopez to help with the probe.

Lopez discovers that the actress had a lot of enemies. Suspects include a jealous co-worker; the executive producer off the movie who was being sued by Lewis and two other women for sexual assault; Jack Ryan, a cowboy-lover boy who had been coming to the hotel bar every night looking for hookups with women in the film’s cast.

“Taos Vendetta” is the eighth in the popular Fernando Lopez series.

The author is emeritus professor of English and journalism at the University of Cincinnati.

Another recent title from Sunstone Press is “Historic Catholic Churches of Northeastern New Mexico,” the third volume in a series by author-photographer David Policansky.

This newest book covers the churches north of Interstate 40, east of Santa Fe County, and the western half of Taos County. These churches include the famous San Francisco de Asís in Ranchos de Taos.

A press release on the book said that many small, historic churches in New Mexico lack funds for maintenance as rural populations decline, and some churches are at risk of disappearing.

The first two volumes in the series are “Historic Catholic Churches Along the Rio Grande in New Mexico” and “Historic Catholic Churches of Central and Southern New Mexico.”

Policansky was born in Cape Town, South Africa and came to the United States to study biology. He has published more than 35 scientific papers and has worked at the National Academy of Sciences. Policansky and his wife live in Mountainair.

Sunstone is also publishing “All That Glitters Is Ours: The Theft of Indian Mineral Resources” by author Roberta Carol Harvey. The book centers on the wars Americans Indians fought against Anglo settlers and the military to retain their rights to minerals — gold, silver, copper and lead — in many regions west of the Mississippi.

Harvey, a citizen of the Navajo Nation, is a historian, an attorney and a lecturer on Indian law related to policy, land, water and natural resources. She lives in Colorado.

— Compiled by David Steinberg/For the Journal