This semester, the University of New Mexico's new Honors College is offering a 300-level course from its past titled “Meet the Authors: Exploring the Creative Process.” As part of the course, well-known New Mexico authors will give talks open to anyone who wants to attend.

Taught by several instructors in recent years, the course was first offered in the early 1980s by UNM Journalism professor and fiction writer Tony Hillerman and quickly became popular among UNM Honors students. With the creation of UNM’s new college, Honors faculty and administrators decided to bring back the course, which has not been offered for several years.

Long-time Honors professor and UNM Presidential Teaching Fellow Leslie Donovan is teaching the newest version of “Meet the Authors.” Donovan, who graduated from UNM’s Honors Program in 1982, took the original course from Professor Hillerman. She said, “Hillerman taught the course on Saturday mornings. The audience was usually packed with people from the community, along with us students. It was incredibly exciting to be in that room listening to real writers, both famous and just starting out, talk about what they did. I wanted to try to recreate a little bit of that excitement with my class for our students today.”

Donovan has scheduled nine New Mexico writers to speak as part of her course, which meets on Mondays from 2 - 4:30 p.m. For the first hour, authors will discuss their work and their writing process in a public talk. Following the public talk, the writers will meet with students enrolled in the class in a closed, private session.

The works by the authors taking part in the course span a wide spectrum of genres and styles from poetry about the Southwest to science fiction novels about the far future. Participating authors include: activist and feminist writer Margaret Randall; Honors graduate and bestselling Hugo award nominee Daniel Abraham; and Anne Hillerman, daughter of Tony Hillerman, whose first book following in the traditions established by her father will be released in October.

The schedule for the authors’ public talks is as follows:

8/26/13: Michael Thomas (fiction)

9/9/13: Steve Brewer (crime fiction)

9/30/13: Melinda Snodgrass (science fiction and fantasy)

10/7/13: Kate Horsley (fiction, drama, and poetry)

10/21/13: V. B. Price (poetry, fiction, and nonfiction)

10/28/13: Daniel Abraham (science fiction and fantasy)

11/4/13: Margaret Randall (nonfiction, poetry, and photography)

11/11/13: Demetria Martinez (fiction and poetry)

11/25/13: Anne Hillerman (mystery fiction)

All author talks will be held in the Honors Forum (ground floor of the Student Health Center building, room 21) from 2 - 3 pm. Sponsored by the UNM Honors College, the talks are free and open to the public.

For more information, contact Leslie Donovan at Ldonovan@unm.edu or (505) 277-4313.