To be a writer, we must have a thick skin, thick as a pachyderm, gray and wrinkly and drooping off of our limbs like armor. Delusions are good. Writers certainly need their delusions of grandeur. How else would we continue obsessively against the odds that we will ever make a living? But you need to hide those delusions under, you guessed it, a thick skin.

When my husband found cheap tickets to visit the Land of Fire and Ice, we couldn’t pass up an opportunity for adventure. That’s how I found myself leaving the beautiful spring climate of New Mexico to re-experience winter all over again in Iceland. Calling it winter is really putting it mildly. no, this is a wet, windy arctic winter.

This June, my debut novella, Mama & the Hungry Hole, will be published as #4 in the Wordcraft Fabulist Novella Series from Wordcraft of Oregon. While having my first book published has been an absolutely amazing journey, I struggled for a couple of years to find a home for my novella. For one, novellas are a difficult length to sell.

Practicing yoga is more than just a butt lift and ab toner (though it’s certainly those things too). This ancient Indian spiritual practice has dozens of amazing benefits — hello elevated moods, protection from injury, lower stress, better sleep, better athletic performance, lower blood sugar, better posture, boosted immunity, balanced metabolism… I could go on, but I think you get it.

For several years in the ’90s, I worked as a bookseller at a string of indie bookstores in Seattle. Since I had dreams of being an author, I romanticized the job of pushing paperbacks on defenseless customers in search of greater meaning. Each day, I inhaled the exhilarating scent of musty paper and bookbinder glue, pausing between bookshelf aisles to read passages from novels and memoirs with intriguing cover art.

“If you go home with someone and they don’t have any books, don’t fuck them.”. I love this quote from John Waters, filmmaker and eccentric extraordinaire. It’s a call to action, a protest against the unread masses who couldn’t possibly be as good in bed as bibliophiles, because duh -- reading is just so damn sexy.

Couse is flanked by two of his models from Taos Pueblo. Eanger Irving Couse: The Life and Times of an American Artist, 1866-1936, By Virginia Couse Leavitt, 388 pp. University of Oklahoma Press. Retail $59.95. There's no better person to write a book about Eanger Irving Couse than his own granddaughter, Virginia Couse Leavitt.

AGNES MARTIN, Her Life and Art, by Nancy Princenthal, 288 pp. Thames & Hudson $24.95. Have you ever dreamed of leaving everything behind, living in an isolated cabin and doing nothing but art all day long? This may be every creative's dream at some point, but it requires a great sacrifice. You could live in a flow of remarkable bliss and generate all the art/writing/music you are inspired to do, but ultimately, you'd have to give up the company of the people you love - your friends, children and spouse.

LONG TIME LOST, A memoir by Patricia Pollard. 260 pp., Nighthawk Press, $17.95. Mary, Gaia and other representations of woman as maternal goddess have long had a hold on our culture. So much so that women who choose not to have children or to give up custody of their children for any number of reasons are often shamed and stigmatized as selfish.

'No More Bingo, Comadre!' is more than just a good-humored anthology. An important underlining theme to these tales is about younger generations of Hispanic New Mexicans losing touch with their culture, particularly in cities. In the story, 'Hey, Sis,' Nemesia Domínguez moves from a rural village into a city where the children tease her for wearing old-fashioned clothes and not speaking any English.”.

Author John Biscello plans to read and sign copies of 'Nocturne Variations' at SOMOS. John Biscello's newest novel, Nocturne Variations, is exactly what the title promises, a dreamy narrative landscape bursting with a lyrical kaleidoscope of sights, sounds and perspectives. The reader is given the pleasurable task of piecing together a puzzle from found ephemera of one young woman's attempt to escape, not just a crime boss, but memories, adulthood, loneliness and herself.

Journalist and photographer's new book takes him to the Himalayas. HIMALAYA BOUND, An American Journey with Nomads in North India, By Michael Benanav, 224pp., Pegasus Books, $16.95. Can man and nature live in harmony? These days with the growing research on climate change, it's hard to imagine such a possibility.

Author Michael McGarrity discusses newest New Mexico crime novel. I didn't want to write crime novels. That just happens to be one of the categories most of my books fall into. I'm a writer in search of a genre. Actually, I've been writing about one man and his family in all 16 novels.”. New Mexico author Michael McGarrity's newest crime novel, "Residue," is scheduled to be released today (Nov. 8).

Who are you? It seems like a simple question, but it's much more complex than at first it appears. Perhaps you answer with your name, age and occupation. Perhaps you point out your hometown, culture, sexual orientation, political leaning or family relations.

While people have always been curious about their family's past, it is only recently with the popularity of genealogical DNA testing that most have been able trace their ancestors back multiple generations. A family's story might be lost for many reasons, such as adoption or migration. The popular PBS show, "Finding Your Roots," uses a variety of resources to track famous people's roots, helping them to find answers to their familial mysteries.

Jeanne Winer's 'Her Kind of Case' is a legal drama that takes on social issues. If you're looking for a heroine you can get behind, you might find her in Lee Isaacs, the protagonist of local author Jeanne Winer's newest legal drama, "Her Kind of Case," out this month. She's not Wonder Woman; you won't discover any bullet-deflecting cuffs or truth-inducing lassos in her briefcase.