The Sage June 2026 News
The Annual Contest Ends This Week! Also, Please Think about Meetings, Awards, and Service.
Message from the Prez
Happy June!
Our Book Fiesta is planned for 10/31/26, but we’re still missing one essential ingredient: someone to coordinate our speakers. The job: reach out to people who have already been identified as potential speakers, make sure they know what’s going on and when they need to be there, and identify moderators out of each panel group who can come up with questions for the panel. We’ve already identified many potential speakers. The Fiesta Committee will give the speaker coordinator as much help with the workload as possible.
We also need a new chair for our Collegium. This is the small group that plans out all our meetings and workshops throughout the year. On average three people arrange all our amazing programming. We have a good community of people-who-know-people and an impressive backlog of previous speakers that we can mine, but welcoming someone with a fresh, new perspective would benefit us all.
If you’re interested in helping out with either of these activities, please reach out to me at president@swwriters.com or the office at office@swwriters.com.
And, if you’re reading this before June 8th and haven’t entered anything into the annual writing contest, I’d encourage you to do that as well. It’s a great opportunity to flex your writing muscles and maybe even win some prize money.
Kim
From Our VP (Who Also Co-Chairs Our Writing Contest) Part III
This year’s writing contest ends soon!
If you are like me when it comes to submitting that work to deadline, you may be waiting for the last minute. Well, that minute is upon us.
The 2026 SWW Annual Writing Contest closes its submission period on June 8th at Midnight Mountain Daylight Time. If you have been waiting to polish that gem, do it now and enter your potential winning piece in the nick of time. Follow the link below to submit that entry.
Once again, please click here for a complete list of entry categories.
Allen Herring
Vice-President and Contest Co-Chair
Notes from the Editor
Libros of Enchantment - 2026 Book Fiesta
The Website is Live: Visit this web page to learn more about the 2026 Book Fiesta which will be held on Saturday, October 31, 2026. As we confirm speakers, they’ll be added to our website.
Call for Volunteers: For this event to be a success, we need volunteers. For information on the available roles and to sign up click here.
Call for Sponsors & Supporters: We welcome backers and sponsors. While the committee is actively soliciting sponsors and supporters for the event, they are open to and welcome your suggestions. Please check out this web page or direct any potential sponsors to this site.
Also, if you’d like to serve on either the Parris Award Committee or the Executive Committee, or if you have ideas for nominees for either category, please contact either Kim Rose (swwpresident@SWWriters.com) or the office (Office@SWWriters.com).
For a list of SWW members who have won prizes in the National Federation of Press Women’s At-Large Competition, please click here, (The list of of SWW members who have won awards in the NMPW 2026 Contest are not yet available online. They’ll be linked in The Sage as soon as they’re available.)
Léonie Rosenstiel
Editor, The Sage
Upcoming SWW Events
You can find information about upcoming events on the SWW website here. Here’s what’s on tap this month.
June 13, 2026: Meeting presentation (in-person or Zoom) from 10 a.m. until 11:45 a.m. How to Mine Family History for Literary Gold will be presented by Sherri Burr. More information here.
June 20, 2026: Workshop (Zoom only) from 10:00 a.m. until Noon. How to use modern AI platforms to conduct research for writing fiction and non-fiction will be presented by David F. Menicucci. More information here. You are also welcome to register here to attend.
June 24, 2026: Meeting presentation (in-person or Zoom) from 6:30 until 8:30 p.m. Substack for Authors: A Primer will be presented by Lisa Haneberg. More information here.
Last Month’s Writing Challenge - The Results
For the month of May, we took our inspiration from the Artemis rocket as its intrepid crew raced around the moon and back. Three members submitted pieces in celebration of the event. Click Here to enjoy these authors and their prose/poetry.
Sam Moorman Not Forgetting
Resa Ghadimi What’s Left to Do?
Rose Marie Kern The Gibraltar Assignment
This Month’s Writing Challenge for SWW Members
An opportunity for SouthWest Writers to shine!
One of the many factors involved in becoming a successful author is finding ways to become known. Even before you have a book published, you need to find ways to connect with readers. SouthWest Writers offers members a monthly opportunity to do so, The Sage Challenge. Members are inspired with a prompt designed to exercise their talents. The entries are published on our website to give the authors exposure, and the best are later published in an anthology.
Did you know that according to the Chinese calendar, 2026 is the year of the Horse? This excellent equine has aided man for millennia in so many ways. Heck, many cultures around the world automatically add a horse to any mention of the American West! So rustle up some thoughts and ideas, then arrange your words to tell a story or poem about our magnificent horses.
For added inspiration we’ve included photos from the Enchanted Equine Adventures Riding Center, located in Bernalillo’s South Valley. Owned by SWW member Jacqueline Loring’s daughter, Kendra Loring, Enchanted Equine not only gives classes in horsemanship, but also engages with kids and adults who need therapeutic riding. Surrounded by them daily inspired Kendra to write a book “The Saga of Henri Standing Bear”, based on the rescue of one of her herd.
Gather your own inspiration by going to the Sage Challenge page on the website and looking over the photos and rules!
https://www.southwestwriters.com/sage-challenge
Deadline is June 20, 2026. Send your story or article to: webmaster@swwriters.com.
Regional Literary Happening
ANNOUNCEMENT
Come and Support the Authors of Our SWW Military Anthologies and Online Military Writing Workshop
The final event in a series of five readings and discussions resulting, this year, from SWW’s unique outreach-to-veterans (and their families and caregivers) project, remains. It will be presented by SouthWest Writers and is supported by grants from New Mexico Arts and the Military. Click here for more information on this outreach gathering, scheduled to take place in Belen, NM. The readers will also be discussing how writing their contributions to these projects affected their healing. Attend and support the authors and their work.
Email sage@swwriters.com with links to anything you think we should share with Sage subscribers.
Welcome to SouthWest Writers!
The following writers joined our community last month. We hope to see you at one of our events, in person or online. Write on!
Ken Carpenter, Joe Erickson, Joan Saberhagen, Ashley Wilson, and Ronald Peeler.
If you’re not yet a member, learn more about the benefits here. (Remember, if you’re a member, the Office can let those on our mailing list know about your book launch!)
We have resources for writers across our platforms and additional content on our members-only section of the website. Visit our website, ask to join our Facebook Group, check out our blog, see what we’re saying on X (Twitter), check out the session recordings on our YouTube channel, or find our page on Goodreads.