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Women
In Search of Identity
(Three
Taoseña Women read
from
their travel memoirs.)
In Abbie
and William's Studio
7:00
PM, Tuesday, August 17, 2010
114
Los Pandos -- Taos, NM
Parking
at Smiths or the corner of Montoya and Los Pandos
Tel.
575 621 5928
Admission
is free.
Taos
is known as a place that has drawn soul-searchers for over a millennium.
It has become a haven for artists, writers, hippies, mountain men,
fools, drop outs, gurus, and desperados from every walk of life in search of the deeper meanings
of existence. Perhaps it is this
search that gives the women of
Taos
, from the founding of the
Pueblo
onward, an unusually strong character of self-reliance and autonomy.
This reading showcases three such women who will read from their travel
memoirs as they made their journeys to our beloved town.
When they began their travels, none of the three knew
Taos
would be their destination. Like
many before them, some strange magic made
Taos
their
Land
of
Journey
’s Ending.
Heather
Antonissen:
"Eat,
Pray, Love" meets "Grizzly Bears and Camping for Dummies" in
this entertaining and touching memoir by Heather Antonissen.
Enduring wild animals, wild men and endless days of solitude, the aspiring
opera singer and city professional shucked high heels and hairspray to go into
the depths of the desert to look for answers to life's great
mysteries: purpose, passion and love. In her year-long ordeal,
Heather was stripped down to the rawest of essentials. Through her journey
however, she also found a new way of living, one filled with
peace and joy, adventure and growth, and even at the end of it, love.
The question remains though, what kind of love?
Jan
Smith:
"Destination
Unknown" 
“On
Friday, June 13th, 2008, I drove away from my home of twenty-five years in
rural
New Hampshire
, my car packed with essentials for living on the road for at least three
months, with no definite destination planned. During the previous three years
I had sold my house, my businesses, ended a relationship with my partner of
eleven years and my two daughters had finished college and were living on
their own. The signs for change were at first subtle; then became increasingly
louder. I just kept following my inner voice; it was my homing device that
gave me a peek of a few feet ahead at a time. I had a vision of becoming a
writer. One that I had shelved thirty-five years ago in pursuit of a more
traditional social work career. I had three possible locations in mind:
Taos
,
Ashland
,
Oregon
or
Maui
. I first set out to
England
, then
Canada
to interview people for a book idea on "Manifesting Your Dreams". I
arrived in
Taos
on August 31, 2008, with the worst cold I ever had. I was too ill to continue
driving and although unimpressed with
the
dry and dusty landscape I hunkered down for a week in a cheap motel room to
recover....”
Phaedra
Greenwood:
From the back cover of Phaedra’s book
North With the Spring:
What could be
more fun than traveling with your family in
Europe
for five months? Not that it was all fun. There were cold, dreary days,
illness, missed connections, a stolen wallet, gypsy attacks, lost adults and
missing children. But “the Splat family”—as they sometimes called
themselves--agree that there were definitely more highs than lows such as
Easter in Sienna, a picnic on a spring day outside the walls of San Giminiagno,
skiing in the luminous Alps and a day of exploring Chartres Cathedral in
France.
North With the
Spring is drawn from a
family journal kept by Mom and Dad--Jim and Phaedra--and their son and
daughter, Brian, age thirteen, and Sara, age ten. It's a lively, descriptive
and truthful story of their adventures and misadventures as they fly from
New York
to
Madrid
in January of 1985, take a train to
Genoa
, and then a ferry to
Palermo
. The plan is to hang in Sicily for a month or two, then wander north with the
spring, enjoying the delights of primavera
over and over as they explore Italy, the Jungfrau in Switzerland, then Paris,
London and parts of Scotland.
Both the light and dark sides of traveling are growing
experiences. The fights they have, the odd and interesting things they
encounter, their interactions with the natives and the things they learn about
the world and themselves draw the “Splats” closer as a family.
Bios
Heather
Antonissen is the winner of numerous opera competitions and has
performed throughout the
United States
in a variety of mainstage productions and venues including opera, music
theater, jazz standards and recital. A native of
Anchorage
,
Alaska
, Heather initially attended college on a basketball scholarship and went on
to graduate summa cum laude from
Oregon
State
University
with a degree in voice, conducting and theater. She then received a graduate
degree magna cum laude from the New England Conservatory. Currently a resident
of
Taos
,
New Mexico
, Heather performs in a variety of styles including jazz, music theater and
classical music.
Jan
M. Smith left her thirty year career as a clinical social worker in
2008 to pursue creative writing in
Taos
. She has been the curator for the SOMOS Writers Series since October, 2009.
She is currently working on a collection of short stories and a novel,
“Of Sinner and Saints” to be completed by the winter of 2011.
Phaedra
Greenwood is a freelance writer and photographer whose essays, stories
and reviews have appeared in many art and literary magazines. She honed her
writing skills for five years in a peer group with Laurel Goldman at
Duke
University
in
Durham
,
North Carolina
. She has won numerous literary
prizes including the Katherine Anne Porter Award and has had short stories
anthologized in Fever by Harper/Collins and Scrapbook of a Taos Hippie by Iris
Keltz. As a journalist and
columnist for The Taos News, she received two first place awards in 2000 from
the New Mexico Press Association for Best Review and Columns. In 1995 she won
the PEN New Mexico Award for a short story, “Dogs and Sheep,” which is
included in her memoir Beside the Rio
Hondo. Phaedra was a Finalist for the New Mexico 2008 Book Award.
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