The President’s Message: NMPW Board Meeting and Setting a Direction

By Regina Griego
Hello, members of the New Mexico Press Women (NMPW). I chaired my first board
meeting on June 29, 2024. We engaged in filling necessary board positions, reports
from the treasurer, the historian, the vice-president, and our chapter representatives.
We are financially healthy and all is well with our NMPW organization. We also have
very strong participation and regularly scheduled regional meetings held by the
Albuquerque Press Women’s (APW) and Northern New Mexico Press Women’s
(NNMPW) chapters.

The board approved a revision of our Procedure Manual. Loretta Hall led the effort and
had several modifications she knew needed to be made. I looked at it through the eyes
of a newcomer and suggested several changes coming from my background in
Requirements Engineering. After reviewing changes with those most affected by them,
we asked for input from the board and ultimately the board approved the new
Procedures Manual with minor changes suggested at the board meeting. You can find
the Procedures Manual on the website.

At a more strategic level, we approved three initiatives:
1) changing the way the Broadsheet is produced and distributed,
2) standing up a Tech Committee whose goal is to decide on the portfolio of tools
and applications we use and their role in the operations, communications and
marketing of NMPW, and
3) moving ahead with developing a bid process to upgrade our website.

These actions align with my vision for NMPW moving forward. We need to
enhance our visibility. We need to provide valuable information to our members.
To maintain our viability as an organization, we must integrate social media, the
Broadsheet, and our website, for outreach to new members, contest entrants,
and other people we touch in our activities at the state and chapter level.
Our ultimate goal is to grow our membership and widen our demographics so we
stay healthy as an organization. I would love your input as members in this effort,
please e-mail me at president@newmexicopresswomen.org. Please refer to Léonie
Rosenstiel’s article on the changes to the Broadsheet.

Finally, the board discussed the annual Communication Contests and NMPW Annual
Conference. The NMPW professional and high school contests will begin on November
1, 2024, a month later than last year. The NMPW Annual Conference will be held at
Isleta Resort and Casino, on Mar 21-22, 2025. Our theme will be “Artistic Expression.”

The board approved a Conference Committee that includes the chairs of the board’s
contests, scholarships, and publicity committees. Please send me your input and ideas
for speakers and panels for our 2025 Conference.

The 2025 National Federation of Press Women (NFPW) conference will be held on
September 11-14, 2025, in Golden, Colorado. It’s a great opportunity for all members of
NMPW to attend since it is so close. I’ve reached out to the Colorado Conference
Planning team and told them that we would help in any way we could. Mark your
calendars for the NMPW and NFPW Conferences and prepare your contest entries!

27 New Mexico Entrants Placed in Nationals

36 Entries Submitted for National Contest on June 22, 2024 at the NFPW Conference in St. Louis. 
(Each line represents a placement in the national contest)
  • May 6 is the deadline to apply for First-Timer’s grant from the NFPW Education Fund 
  • May 10 is the deadline to send NFPW photos for the awards slide show
  • May 20 is the last day to get the early-bird discount on conference registration.
  • Photos, phonetically spelled names, and questions can be sent to haplotkin@outlook.com
Entrant First Name
Entrant Last Name
Glenda
Balas
 
Jennifer
Black
 
Sherri
Burr
 
Sherri 
Burr
 
Sherri 
Burr
 
Sherri 
Burr
Jonny
Coker
 
Mary Lou
Cooper
 
KC
Counts
 
Merilee
Dannemann
 
Sonja
Dewing
 
Susan
Dunlap
 
Jill
Gibson
 
Katy
Hammel
 
Natalie
Hegert
 
Kathleen
Hessler
 
Patricia
Hodapp
 
Tara
Lumpkin
 
Angelina
Malone
 
Vicki
Mayhew
 
Anthony
Moreno
 
Noah
Raess
 
Sherry
Robinson
 
Sherry
Robinson
 
Sherry
Robinson
 
Leonie
Rosenstiel
 
Janet
Ruth
 
Mark
Tiarks
 
Mark
Tiarks
 
Jim
Tritten
 
Jim
Tritten
 
Christian
Valle
 
Khadijah
VanBrakle
 
Patrica
Walkow
 
Leora
Zeitlin
 
 
The entrants in yellow above have co-entrants: 
 
Anthony Moreno’s co-entrant is Evelyn Sandoval – evelynsandoval9395@gmail.com, an NFPW member
 
Jim Tritten has two co-entrants: NFPW member Joe Badal and Dan Wetmore, who NFPW was unable to find in its membership database. Co-entrants must be NFPW members to be recognized  with an NFPW award.

New Mexico Press Women Celebrates 75th Anniversary banquet with speech by George RR Martin

By Denise Tessier

“A Time of Dire Need for Courageous Communicators”

NMPW President Sherri Burr awards Courageous Communicator Award to George RR Martin

George R.R. Martin has received and been nominated for numerous awards – the Nebula, the Locus, the Bram Stoker, the Hugo and more; film versions of his novels have won Emmys. But the author who has sold more than 100 million books says the award he received last month from New Mexico Press Women – the “Courageous Communicator” – really made him pause and reflect.

“We are in a time of dire need for Courageous Communicators,” he told those at NMPW’s 75th anniversary conference on March 16. And he wondered aloud, was he truly among the courageous?

During a generously long and thoughtful keynote speech at the NMPW awards banquet, he pondered this question after grimly assessing the pulse of free speech: “We used to have it here in the United States. I think we may be living in one of those dark periods.” And he warned his audience at the outset: “This is not a safe space. This is not a safe speech. I don’t like being told what words to use.”

He took listeners on a historical tour of banned speech, of truth and lies, quoting along the way some of his “heroes,” like George Orwell, Kurt Vonnegut, Oscar Wilde, and Voltaire. He quoted William Butler Yeats’ The Second Coming:

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.

In 1644, John Milton urged England’s Parliament to let truth and falsehood “grapple in a free and open encounter,” believing that “truth will surely prevail.” “He was a godly man,” Martin said of Milton, one who felt that “to be truly moral, we must be free to grapple with immorality.” In 1667, Milton’s Paradise Lost was “promptly banned.”

Literature, art, journalism and democracy itself are in peril, Martin warned. He noted that 41 states have or are considering banning books, with so-called morality groups turning in lists of dozens of deemed offenders, including “To Kill a Mockingbird,” the Harper Lee novel that consistently tops the list of educators, librarians and regular citizens as one of America’s best.

Martin said he has come to expect book banning and censorship from the right, but to have it come now from the “woke” left, he said, “appalls me.”

Joe McCarthy’s “red scare” inquisitions in the early 1940s, he noted, ended many careers, including that of the highest-paid writer in Hollywood, Dalton Trambo. Trambo, whose credits include Spartacus, Roman Holiday and Johnny Got His Gun, summarized that period in what is considered a treatise on free speech and thought, Time of the Toad. Censorship became a part of the process in both film and TV with the advent of “sensitivity readers” (censors), Martin said.

“People are afraid now, including me,” Martin said. “Being named a Courageous Communicator makes me wonder if I’ve done enough.” Martin then recognized that Meow Wolf, the wildly popular immersive art experience in which he invested millions, had recently canceled the sold-out appearance of Jewish-American singer Matisyahu after the venue was inundated with threats of protest from pro-Palestinian groups the day of the show. (That cancellation, and subsequent cancellation in Santa Fe of a talk by the Israeli general counsul have since sparked a series of letters, columns and a pro-freedom of speech editorial in the Santa Fe New Mexican.)

Unfamiliar with this entertainer, Martin said looked to the internet and still wasn’t sure what to make of Matisyahu’s art – based on the Chicago Tribune’s performance description of a “soul-shaking brand of dancehall reggae . . .that captures both the jam band vibe of Phish and the skapunk of Sublime.” Martin was certain, however, of how he felt about the cancellation.

“Those people who take credit (for the cancellation) and are proud are wrong,” he said simply.

He noted that another of his investments, the Jean Cocteau theater in Santa Fe, was among the few brave enough to screen “The Interview” after threats from its satirical target, Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. At the NMPW banquet, Martin’s Beastly Books had a table that sold not only his works, but banned books, including The Handmaid’s Tale and two James Bond books by Ian Fleming.

Martin lauded the bravery of Alexei Navalny and quoted British writer Beatrice Hall, who in her 1906 biography The Friends of Voltaire, wrote: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it” as an illustration of Voltaire’s beliefs.

Who gets to decide what is hate speech? Martin asked. And “the Steal,” he noted, “is a lie that refuses to die.”

We have to “grit our teeth and learn to live with hate and falsehoods,” Martin concluded. As for being a Courageous Communicator,  “I will try to do better in the future. I promise.

“All of us need to do better.”