Cynthia Leitich Smith of the Muscogee Creek Nation, and author of several books and stories for young readers, will begin the Summer Sunset Lectures at the Student Union Building, Ballroom C, on Saturday, June 26, at 7 p.m. with a lecture and book signing. Smith is the award-winning author of “Jingle Dancer,” “Indian Shoes” and “Rain is Not My Indian Name.” The event is free and open to the public.
Her more recent titles are a picture book, “Santa Knows” and two young adult Gothic fantasy novels, “Tantalize”, “Eternal” and, most recently, “Blessed.”
She is a member of faculty at the Vermont College M.F.A. program in Writing for children and Young Adults.
Special “Meet the Author” sessions will be held Friday, June 25 or Saturday, June 26 in the Student Union Building, Ballroom C, at 1:30 p.m for her younger readers. Participation is limited to 50 students for each session. Registration must be completed by June 18.
For more information contact Mary Alice Tsosie at 277-8922 or mtsosie@unm.edu
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Other scheduled speakers are musicians, Matias Pizarro and Keith Sanchez. Their lecture titled, “Where Have all the Rock Stars Gone? The experience of an immigrant musician struggling to navigate the dangerous seas of the music industry in the midst of its current demise,” is set for July 31 at 6:30 p.m. in the George Pearl Hall auditorium.
Pizarro, a musician, artist, cultural promoter and underground activist, will speak on his upbringing in Chile, Brazil and El Salvador as a budding musician and on his later experience as an immigrant artist in the United States.
Sanchez is a singer-songwriter, and recording artists whose music has been distributed throughout the United States and Latin America. He toured and performed as lead singer and lyricist for the band Stoic Frame, an act that garnered a number one charting song on the national R&R charts and became an underground phenomenon.
Both events are sponsored by the Office of the Vice Provost for Academic Affairs and University Libraries.