Cuentos del Cañón
Cuentos del Cañón is a series of a dozen stories set in or near the same canyon that is home to her first novel El Hermano. We feel the palpable agony of the parents of an infant victim of the evil eye, the terror of the victims of realistic nightmares, and the wonder of a youth shoved to safety by his cousin who is actually in France. The Devil appears in the middle of a dance, an entire village disappears, Saint Death teaches humans life lessons, and a serpent that nightmares are made of exists in a corner of Sangre de Cristos - these are a few of the stories you’ll find in this collection by award-winning story-teller, Carmen Baca.
Señora Baca gives her own twist to several folk tales and legends told by her elders and ancestors through oral tradition and creates others that are new additions to New Mexico literature. She takes both human and phantasmagorical characters through life’s experiences and emotions in each story and makes their experiences truly credible.
About Carmen Baca (Albuquerque, New Mexico Author)
Carmen Baca taught a variety of English and history courses, mostly at the high school and college levels, over the course of thirty-six years before retiring in 2014. She is a member of the Las Vegas chapter of the New Mexico Association of Educational Retirees. Voted secretary last year, she also runs the association FB page.
Her command of both English and Spanish enables her to write with true story-telling talent. Her knowledge of the New Mexico Hispanic culture, traditions, and folklore enables her to tell the stories of her ancestors while also creating her own phantasmagorical tales. She has 5 books and 38 short works published thus far since 2017. Her first book, El Hermano, earned a finalist award in 2018 from the NM-AZ Book Association. It has earned its place in the Library of Congress as a “valuable contribution to New Mexico literature” and is endorsed by Jimmy Santiago Baca, poet laureate of New Mexico, and the late Rudolfo Anaya, the father of Chicano literature. Living on the land left to her by her father, she and her husband enjoy a peaceful county life in northern New Mexico.
