OUR HISTORY
NUESTRA HISTORIA
 The Border Book Festival, Inc. (BBF) is a 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization
founded in 1995 by a group of writers, artists and community people
committed to celebrating literature and the art of story in the southern
United States--Northern México border region. We began what we imagined then would be a one-day book fair. Since then we have grown into a major literary festival, founder of The Cultural Center in Mesilla, New Mexico and Galería Tepín, an art gallery located across the street from the Center.
Based in Mesilla, New Mexico, the Border Book Festival believes that literature and the arts can bridge the many boundaries--racial, ethnic, generational, cultural, socio-economic, and gender-based--that divide our community. Ours is a grass roots organization that impacts its community by offering programs that are blueprints of positive communication, interaction and connection between people in our borderland region.
The Border Book Festival, Inc. is a catalyst between many different groups and
organizations including city, state and governmental agencies, schools,
businesses and community centers. We are a bridge builder and model for
positive exchange between diverse people in the borderland region including cities and towns in West Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and Northern México.
Traditional festival elements include school outreach programs, children’s and family storytelling, an interactive multigenerational creativity workshop, panels, readings, as well as the 4th Annual Saturday Viva La Vida Concert sponsored by Ranchway BBQ and Mexican Restaurant.
The Premio Fronterizo honors a major American writer for their life long
contribution to literature that transcends borders, real and imagined, and
whose body of work has done much to add to the southwestern literary canon.
Past winners of the Premio Fronterizo have included: Rudolfo Anaya, Sabine
Ulibarrí, Tony Hillerman, Byrd Baylor, Leslie Marmon Silko, Barbara
Kingsolver, Gary Soto, Sandra Cisneros, Luis Rodríguez, N. Scott Momaday,
Luis Urrea, Ofelia Zepeda, Joy Harjo, Martín Espada and Cristina García.
In addition, we present the Sunshine Community Service Award to a local
business, organization or person who works to promote literature and the art of story at a grass roots level as well as the Cauthon Volunteer Service award to hardworking festival volunteers.
The cornerstone program of the Border Book Festival is the Emerging Voices
Program, a series of hands-on writing workshops held throughout the year at
various venues throughout the area including schools, community centers and public facilities.
The Border Book Festival is committed to bringing audiences to writers and writers and book artists to audiences. Our programming is innovative, challenging, and transformative.
The BBF has had considerable impact in the Southern New Mexico border
corridor as well as throughout the region. We have been touted in the New
York Times as a "place where books matter," and featured in Publisher's
Weekly as one of the top regional book festivals in the U.S.
The 17th annual Festival, Vasundhara, will take place April 8-10, 2011 in Mesilla, New Mexico. Vasundhara means the One Who Holds Us/Mother Earth in Sanskrit. The festival will explore our relationship to the things that bind and matter to all sentient life in a series of literary and arts events. A special art invitational exhibition will be featured at Galería Tepín.
Featured writers include writers Sandra Cisneros, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Martín Espada and Cristina García. Artist and master draftswoman, Liliana Wilson will offer a Colored Pencil Drawing workshop and anthropologist and healer Margarita Návar will offer a special workshop. In addition, Elise Capron, agent with the Sandra Dijkstra Agency, will offer insights on the future literature and the word.
Vasundhara, the 17th annual Border Book Festival, will offer panels, workshops, music, dance, talks, readings and interactive creative events for people of all ages in a creative fusion of East Indian/Latino/American and World cultures in a festival that highlights global inquiry and a coming together as a universal family.
For more information contact the Border Book Festival
575-523-3988
bbf@borderbookfestival.com
www.borderbookfestival.org |
