Living under a wide sky, turquoise bright, in a land where crinkled mountains rise purple and brown behind stretches of grass or cacti, some write of their days. Living in that crease where the past and present meet, where English and Spanish and languages of the indigenous meld, some write of their encounters. The Festival celebrates those who write in or about the Southwest, and brings together their readers to touch the rough and smooth of their words, to taste the fire and cool of our written life.--Tom Hester