Selling Simon J. Ortiz Books in Albuquerque
The 1976 Harper & Row Going for the Rain. The 1981 Thunder's Mouth From Sand Creek. The 1980 INAD Fight Back. The 1992 Arizona Woven Stone omnibus. Signature authentication. Honest next steps — from a book buyer who has been looking at Ortiz shelves in ABQ estate libraries for a decade.
Last verified May 2026 · Original research by Josh Eldred
Why this page exists
I'm Josh Eldred. I've been buying used books from Albuquerque homes for a decade, and Simon J. Ortiz — Acoma Pueblo poet, IAIA-connected teacher, unofficial poet laureate of Native American Literature's breakthrough generation — shows up in a specific kind of ABQ shelf. Hillerman and Anaya are in almost every home. Ortiz is in fewer homes, but when an Ortiz collection appears, it is usually paired with Momaday, Silko, Welch, and Louise Erdrich — the Native American Renaissance reading cohort — and often runs from the 1976 Harper & Row Going for the Rain forward through the University of Arizona Sun Tracks series and into the current decade.
Ortiz is also a living working poet. He has taught at UNM, Sinte Gleska University, the University of Toronto, and Arizona State, and he still reads and signs at events across New Mexico and Arizona. That changes how signed copies move: there is a steady supply of newly signed copies each year, which keeps the floor where it is, and a 1976 inscribed Harper first has to do something more than "signed" to stand out.
How to use this page: scroll to the book or era you have, read the identification notes, photograph the cover and copyright page (and, if signed, the title page), and text them to 702-496-4214. I will tell you honestly whether the photos are enough, whether it is worth a house call, or whether the free donation pickup is the cleaner path.
Why you won't find dollar figures on this page
Indigenous-poetry collecting is a thinner, more academic-driven market than regional fiction. A 1976 Harper & Row Going for the Rain that moves quickly this spring can sit for six months when the semester ends. A new Arizona Press reissue, a university adopting From Sand Creek for a Native-literature syllabus, a commemoration year around the 160th anniversary of the Sand Creek Massacre (1864) or the 345th anniversary of the Pueblo Revolt (1680) — any of those can move the market. Any number I posted today could be stale by autumn.
The identification work on this page, though, doesn't change. A 1976 Harper & Row Going for the Rain is the same book it was in 1976. Whether that book is worth mid-range prices or mid-range collectible prices to a given buyer on a given day is a market question. Whether it is the Harper 1976 first rather than the 1992 Arizona reissue (as part of Woven Stone) or a later standalone reprint is a bibliographic question with a clean answer.
So I focus on what's stable: how to identify what you have. The dollar conversation happens with the book in front of me.
The biography that shapes the books
Simon J. Ortiz was born in 1941 at Acoma Pueblo — in Deetseyamah (McCartys), the small Acoma village sixty miles west of Albuquerque along the I-40 corridor. Keres is his first language. He grew up in the BIA (Bureau of Indian Affairs) school system and at St. Catherine Indian School in Santa Fe, attended Fort Lewis College in Durango on a scholarship, served in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War era, and then went to the University of New Mexico before completing an MFA at the University of Iowa in 1969.
He began publishing in literary journals in the late 1960s and through the early 1970s, as the Native American Literature cohort that would define the decade — N. Scott Momaday (House Made of Dawn, 1968), James Welch, Leslie Marmon Silko, Gerald Vizenor — was coming into public print. Ortiz's first full-length hardcover, Going for the Rain, came out from Harper & Row in 1976. He became one of the defining voices of that generation, distinctive for the sustained, walked-through, narrative-and-landscape register of his poems and for the deliberate use of oral-tradition cadences in English.
Over the next fifty years he published more than a dozen books of poetry, prose, short fiction, essays, and writing for children, edited two defining anthologies of Native American writing, served as Lieutenant Governor of Acoma Pueblo, and taught writing at UNM, Sinte Gleska University (on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation in South Dakota), the University of Toronto, Arizona State, and IAIA. He is named the first Poet Laureate of Acoma Pueblo. He continues to publish — Light as Light appeared from University of New Mexico Press in 2023.
Why this matters for collectors: Ortiz is simultaneously (a) a Native American Renaissance first-generation poet whose early books are approaching fiftieth-anniversary scarcity, (b) a living signing author whose recent books are readily available new and signed, and (c) a writer whose first-edition publisher map is unusually scattered — Harper & Row in 1976, Turtle Island in 1977, INAD/UNM in 1980, Thunder's Mouth in 1981, Children's Press in 1977, and then a long consolidation with University of Arizona Press from 1992 onward. That scatter means most Ortiz firsts came from small or specialized presses with modest runs, which means clean first-edition copies of the early books are genuinely scarce fifty years later.
The 1976 Harper & Row Going for the Rain — Ortiz's trade-hardcover debut
Going for the Rain was published in 1976 by Harper & Row, Publishers in New York, as part of Harper's Native American Publishing Program — the short-lived trade-house imprint Harper launched in the mid-1970s to bring Native American writing into general-reader circulation. It is Ortiz's first full-length trade hardcover. The book travels a ceremonial arc — preparation, leaving, returning, a cycle rooted in Acoma rain-seeking cosmology — through poems that read as if they were written walking.
Harper & Row is the single most important publisher for the collectible first-edition Ortiz. Harper & Row also published the first trade editions of Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony (1977) and James Welch's early work in the same period — the 1976–1978 Harper Native American Publishing Program hardcovers are the three-book canonical set that marks the trade-publishing entry of the Native American Renaissance. Collectors who care about that moment chase all three.
Four things to check, in order:
- Publisher on the title page and spine. "Harper & Row, Publishers" — with the Harper & Row torch colophon. If the spine says University of Arizona Press, you have the 1992 Woven Stone omnibus reissue (see section 7), not the 1976 Harper first.
- Copyright page. "Copyright © 1976 by Simon J. Ortiz." "Harper & Row, Publishers, New York." The first printing typically carries "FIRST EDITION" or equivalent language; later printings are indicated by a shortened number line or by explicit "Second Printing" notations.
- Format. The 1976 first edition is a cloth-bound hardcover with dust jacket. A paperback with a 1976 copyright and Harper spine exists as a simultaneous paperback printing. If your copy is a trade paperback with University of Arizona Press on the spine, you have either the 1992 Woven Stone (which contains Going for the Rain inside a longer volume) or a later Arizona Sun Tracks reissue of the standalone.
- Dust jacket. The Harper hardcover dust jacket features a southwestern photographic or illustrated cover — typically an Acoma/Laguna landscape motif — with Ortiz's author photo and biographical note on the back flap. The jacket is not reprinted on the Arizona editions.
The 1977 Turtle Island A Good Journey
A Good Journey was published in 1977 by Turtle Island Foundation in Berkeley, California. Turtle Island Foundation was a small literary press run out of the Netzahualcoyotl Historical Society, with a list that included poetry, Native American writing, and California ethnographic material. Turtle Island print runs were modest and the press's distribution was primarily regional; clean first-edition copies in their original wrappers are scarce forty-nine years later.
The book is a set of interlinked narrative and lyric poems — story-poems rooted in Acoma tradition, written for Ortiz's daughter, Rainy Dawn. Ortiz has spoken in interviews about A Good Journey as the book that developed the voice of Going for the Rain into a sustained storytelling register. It is also the book that most clearly signals his engagement with oral tradition as a written form.
Identification:
- Publisher. Turtle Island / Turtle Island Foundation, Berkeley. Not to be confused with Turtle Island Press (a separate imprint).
- Year. 1977 on the title page and copyright page.
- Format. Paperback trade-size first edition. A hardcover first from Turtle Island is not the primary format — if you have a hardcover A Good Journey, photograph the title page and copyright page carefully before assuming it is the 1977 original.
- Content included in Woven Stone. The full text of A Good Journey is reprinted inside the 1992 University of Arizona Press Woven Stone omnibus. The omnibus is a first edition of the collective volume, not a first edition of A Good Journey itself.
Howbah Indians (1978) and The People Shall Continue (1977)
Two short books appeared alongside the early poetry collections — a short-story collection and a children's book — and each has its own collecting profile.
Ortiz's first short-story collection, published in a small edition by Blue Moon Press, an independent literary press in Tucson. Short prose pieces rooted in Acoma and in the highway-stop, mining-town, off-reservation geography Ortiz has written from throughout his career. Print run was small and the press no longer operates, so the 1978 first is a scarce item. Stories were later collected into 1999's Men on the Moon, but the 1978 Blue Moon first is a different bibliographic item.
Ortiz's most-taught children's book — a compact history of Indigenous peoples of the Americas told for young readers, illustrated by Sharol Graves (originally) and reprinted multiple times across the next four decades. The true first edition is the 1977 Children's Book Press publication; later reprints, revised editions with updated illustrations, and bilingual English/Spanish editions all exist. For collectors, the 1977 first edition in original wrappers is the collectible item. Classroom copies and reissued paperbacks are reading copies. A signed 1977 first edition is a scarce and meaningful item because the book has been used in APS Title I and IAIA education programs for decades.
Short-story volume published by Thunder's Mouth Press, expanding on the material in Howbah Indians with additional stories from the early 1980s. Thunder's Mouth first-edition paperback. Later collected into Men on the Moon (1999, Arizona).
The 1980 INAD Fight Back: For the Sake of the People, For the Sake of the Land
Fight Back was published in 1980 by the Institute for Native American Development (INAD), a program at the University of New Mexico. The book was commissioned for the 300th anniversary of the 1680 Pueblo Revolt — the tricentennial year — and combines poems and prose on the uranium mining industry in the Grants Mineral Belt (sixty miles west of Albuquerque, in the shadow of Mount Taylor), the exploitation of Pueblo labor in those mines, and the longer arc of Pueblo sovereignty from 1680 through the present.
Because Fight Back was a single-run UNM-program publication rather than a commercial trade book, the 1980 first edition is genuinely scarce. INAD printed the book as a softcover trade-paperback volume with university-program design — restrained typography, plain wrappers, no dust jacket. The book was not widely distributed through national channels; most 1980 copies moved through UNM bookstore channels, through academic conferences, through community groups in the Grants Mineral Belt, and through Indigenous-organization networks.
Identification:
- Publisher. Institute for Native American Development, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. (Or the slightly varied "Institute for Native American Development and the University of New Mexico Native American Studies.")
- Year. 1980 on the title page and copyright page.
- Format. Softcover / trade paperback. The cover is typographic rather than illustrated, in the Institute's standard program-publication design.
- Pueblo Revolt tricentennial context. The front matter or introduction references the 300th anniversary of the 1680 Revolt, which dates the commission clearly.
- Content later collected into Woven Stone. The full text of Fight Back is reprinted inside the 1992 University of Arizona Press Woven Stone omnibus. The 1980 INAD standalone is a separate and scarcer bibliographic item.
The 1981 Thunder's Mouth From Sand Creek — Pushcart Prize book
From Sand Creek: Rising in This Heart Which Is My America was published in 1981 by Thunder's Mouth Press in New York. It is a book-length poem sequence that takes on the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre — the U.S. Army attack on Cheyenne and Arapaho peoples along Sand Creek in southeastern Colorado — and locates it inside a longer reckoning with what Ortiz calls "this heart which is my America." The poems were composed during Ortiz's time working at the Fort Lyon Veterans Administration Hospital in Colorado, a site near the 1864 massacre ground.
The book won the 1982 Pushcart Prize Book Award — the Pushcart recognition for best book-length work from a small independent press. That recognition brought From Sand Creek broader visibility than the Thunder's Mouth print run alone would have produced, but Thunder's Mouth in 1981 was a small independent literary press (later absorbed into Avalon Publishing Group, which itself was later absorbed into Perseus). The 1981 first-edition print run was small by any trade-publishing standard.
Identification:
- Publisher. Thunder's Mouth Press, New York — on the spine and title page.
- Year. 1981 on the title page and copyright page.
- Format. Trade paperback first edition. A separate hardcover state from Thunder's Mouth in 1981 is not the standard format — if you have one, photograph it carefully before assuming first-edition-hardcover status.
- Title format. The full 1981 title on the title page is From Sand Creek: Rising in This Heart Which Is My America. Later editions sometimes truncate to just From Sand Creek.
The 1992 Arizona Woven Stone omnibus — the keystone volume
Woven Stone was published in 1992 by the University of Arizona Press as volume 21 of their Sun Tracks Native American literary series. It is an omnibus: it collects Going for the Rain (1976), A Good Journey (1977), and Fight Back (1980) into a single volume, with a substantial new autobiographical introduction by Ortiz that runs nearly fifty pages and functions as a mid-career memoir. It is one of the most-read single Ortiz volumes and is often the entry point for readers encountering his work for the first time.
Bibliographically, the key distinction is this:
- Woven Stone is a first edition of the omnibus. Meaning: first edition of the 1992 collected volume, first edition of the new autobiographical introduction, first edition of this specific presentation of the three books together.
- Woven Stone is not a first edition of the three books it contains. Going for the Rain's first edition is the 1976 Harper & Row hardcover. A Good Journey's first edition is the 1977 Turtle Island paperback. Fight Back's first edition is the 1980 INAD softcover. Woven Stone reprints their texts but is a separate bibliographic item.
The 1992 Arizona Woven Stone was issued in hardcover with dust jacket and in trade paperback, both from University of Arizona Press, both 1992 first printings. The hardcover is the scarcer item and the more collectible first; the paperback is the one more commonly encountered in ABQ estates because it was the version distributed widely to university courses and reading programs.
The University of Arizona Press era (1992–present)
From 1992 forward, University of Arizona Press — through their Sun Tracks series, edited across the decades by Ofelia Zepeda and others — has been Ortiz's primary trade publisher. Arizona first editions are usually issued in both hardcover and trade paperback, with modest print runs by trade-press standards. Signed firsts are meaningful, especially from Sun Tracks launches and Arizona State University readings.
Detailed in section 7 above. The omnibus that became the entry point for most readers. Hardcover first in dust jacket is the scarcer tier; paperback first is more commonly encountered. Sun Tracks series volume 21.
Poetry and prose written during Ortiz's time teaching at Sinte Gleska University on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation in South Dakota — a winter book set in the open prairie. Arizona Sun Tracks series. Hardcover with dust jacket and trade paperback. Hardcover first is the collectible state.
Anthology edited by Ortiz, gathering essays from contemporary Native writers (Leslie Marmon Silko, Gloria Bird, Elizabeth Woody, and others) on the practice and politics of Indigenous writing. Arizona Sun Tracks series, volume 35. Hardcover and paperback first. A defining reference volume in Native American literature pedagogy.
Complete collected short stories, gathering the material from Howbah Indians (1978) and Fightin' (1983) with additional prose. Arizona Sun Tracks series. Hardcover first with dust jacket is the collectible state. For completists who want Ortiz's prose in a single volume, this is the book — but first-edition readers should chase the 1978 Blue Moon Howbah and 1983 Thunder's Mouth Fightin' separately.
Arizona Sun Tracks reissue of the 1981 Thunder's Mouth book with a new preface by Ortiz. First-edition Arizona reissue but not the 1981 Thunder's Mouth first edition of the text itself. (See section 6.)
New poetry collection. Arizona Sun Tracks series. Hardcover first with dust jacket.
Bilingual children's book in Keresan (Acoma dialect) and English, with Spanish translation also present, illustrated by Michael Lacapa. The Keresan text is significant — publication of an Acoma-dialect Keres-language children's book through a university press is a scarce event and makes this an unusual collectible beyond its children's-book category.
Edited collection in which Native writers respond to the 1898 Rinehart photographs taken at the Trans-Mississippi Exposition in Omaha. Arizona first-edition hardcover. Less widely known than the Sun Tracks poetry volumes but a significant reference item for Indigenous photography and literature collectors.
Recent poetry collection. Note the publisher change — this is University of New Mexico Press, not Arizona — which marks a return home for a book rooted in later-life Acoma reflection. First-edition paperback, still in print. Signed copies from 2023–2024 ABQ readings are available in local circulation.
Authenticating a Simon J. Ortiz signature
Ortiz has signed generously across New Mexico and Arizona for over fifty years — at UNM, at IAIA in Santa Fe, at Arizona State, at Bookworks on Rio Grande Boulevard, at the National Hispanic Cultural Center, at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center on 12th Street NW, at Collected Works in Santa Fe, at Acoma community events, at Sun Tracks launches in Tucson, and at Returning the Gift festivals and other Indigenous literary gatherings. That generosity means real signatures are relatively common. It also means attention to detail matters.
Here is what a real one looks like:
- Location. Title page or half-title. Occasionally the front free endpaper on books with heavy title-page artwork like the children's books.
- Ink. Blue or black ballpoint is most common. Ortiz is consistent about ink choice — bright-colored inks or unusual felt-tips are not his style and should be treated skeptically.
- Form. "Simon J. Ortiz" or simply "Simon Ortiz," in a controlled hand that is more written-out than initialed. His signature has stayed consistent across the decades, with the "S" of "Simon" a recognizable opening stroke.
- Inscriptions. Frequent. Typical phrasings include Keres-language greetings ("Guwaadzi," "Dawaa'eh"), short English dedications ("for [Name], with good journeys"), dates, and occasionally an Acoma seasonal reference ("rain season") tied to when the book was signed.
- Dates and places. Some inscriptions carry a date and city (ABQ, Santa Fe, Tucson). These are notable because they tie a signed copy to a specific event.
- Stamped signatures. Ortiz does not routinely use rubber-stamped signatures. A stamped signature on an Ortiz book is worth scrutiny.
The reprint and edition traps
Ortiz's publishing arc — Harper & Row 1976, small presses through the 1980s, consolidation with Arizona from 1992 forward — produces a handful of common confusions that sellers regularly encounter. Here they are:
- Going for the Rain — 1976 Harper hardcover vs. 1992 Arizona Woven Stone omnibus vs. later standalone paperback reissues. The Harper first is the original 1976 hardcover in dust jacket. Woven Stone reprints the text inside a larger omnibus. University of Arizona Press has also issued paperback-only standalone reissues. If the spine says "Harper & Row," you have the 1976 first. Anything else is a later edition.
- From Sand Creek — 1981 Thunder's Mouth vs. 2000 Arizona reissue. Thunder's Mouth 1981 is the first. Arizona 2000 is a later reissue with a new preface. Both are complete texts; only Thunder's Mouth is the first edition.
- Fight Back — 1980 INAD standalone vs. 1992 Woven Stone inclusion. The 1980 INAD softcover is the first edition of the standalone book. Woven Stone reprints the full text inside the omnibus — not a first edition of Fight Back.
- The People Shall Continue — 1977 first vs. later reprints. The 1977 Children's Book Press first is the collectible. Later revised, bilingual, and re-illustrated editions are reading copies. Check the title page year and the publisher imprint carefully — Children's Book Press reissued the book multiple times and the copyright page dates often get misread.
- Anthologized vs. first-edition poems. Many of Ortiz's most-cited poems appear in anthologies — The Remembered Earth (1979), Harper's Anthology of 20th Century Native American Poetry (1988), university-course readers. An anthology containing Ortiz poems is not a first edition of any of his books; it is an anthology with prior-published work inside.
Where Ortiz has signed in New Mexico
Knowing where a book was likely signed helps authentication and context. Ortiz's signing footprint in New Mexico is dense — Acoma is home, UNM is where the early books had their home institution, and Santa Fe's IAIA is the institution that defines the later pedagogical arc. Here are the main channels:
- UNM English Department and UNM Bookstore. Ortiz has read, taught, and signed at UNM since the late 1960s. UNM Taos, UNM Gallup, and UNM-Valencia campus events also appear in the signing record. UNM Press has published later-career work. Inscriptions with UNM-event dates are common.
- Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA), Santa Fe. IAIA is the defining Indigenous arts institution in the region; Ortiz has been a visiting writer, mentor, and commencement speaker there over the decades. IAIA-event inscriptions are a strong context marker.
- Bookworks, Rio Grande Blvd NW. Regular signing venue for Ortiz's Arizona Press releases and for anthology launches. "Signed at Bookworks" sticker authentication is plausible for Arizona-era volumes.
- National Hispanic Cultural Center and Indian Pueblo Cultural Center. The two major Indigenous and cross-cultural institutional venues in Albuquerque. The Indian Pueblo Cultural Center (12th Street NW) has hosted Ortiz for readings and Pueblo-cultural programming; inscriptions tied to IPCC events are notable.
- Collected Works Bookstore, Santa Fe. The primary Santa Fe signing venue. Santa Fe signings are less common than ABQ but do happen, particularly around IAIA events.
- Acoma and community events. Ortiz has signed at community events at Acoma Pueblo, at cultural festivals, and at Returning the Gift Native American literary festivals. Inscriptions to named Acoma community members, or inscriptions with Keres-language phrases, are especially authentic and meaningful.
- Page One, Juan Tabo & Montgomery (closed 2014). The Heights signing venue through the 1990s and 2000s. Page One's signed Ortiz stock entered ABQ estate-book circulation after the store closed.
- University and college events statewide. Ortiz has visited UNM-affiliated and CNM-affiliated campuses across New Mexico, as well as New Mexico Highlands University in Las Vegas, NM. Inscriptions to named students or faculty are authentic and warm, if less commercially valuable than collector-targeted signings.
If your signed Ortiz has a bookseller sticker, a program, a receipt tucked inside, a classroom inscription, or an inscription that references one of these venues — save those materials. They add context and authentication weight.
Have an Ortiz collection? Here's how this works.
Text photos of (1) the cover, (2) the title page and copyright page, and (3) the signature (if signed) to 702-496-4214. I'll look at each image and tell you, straight: 1976 Harper & Row Going for the Rain or 1992 Arizona Woven Stone reprint, 1981 Thunder's Mouth From Sand Creek or 2000 Arizona reissue, 1980 INAD Fight Back or later reprint, real signature or not, worth a house call or worth photographing, worth a cash offer or worth a donation pickup.
For larger collections — the Harper hardcover, the Turtle Island A Good Journey, the INAD Fight Back, the Thunder's Mouth From Sand Creek, the Arizona Sun Tracks run, signed copies — I come to your Albuquerque-area home, look at each copy, and make a cash offer on the spot. Same trip, I can take anything you don't want to sell for donation through New Mexico Literacy Project. You don't sort, you don't box, you don't do anything but say yes or no. Cash, no multi-day appointments, no "I'll get back to you."
Frequently Asked
Which Ortiz book is the most collectible? ▾
Two share the top. Going for the Rain (Harper & Row, 1976) is the trade-hardcover debut and sits in the three-book set with Silko's Ceremony (1977) and Welch's early Harper work that marks the Native American Renaissance's trade-publishing arrival. From Sand Creek (Thunder's Mouth Press, 1981) is the Pushcart Prize–winning book-length poem on the 1864 massacre, scarcer because of small-press print runs. Hardcover first of Going for the Rain in original dust jacket, or first-edition paperback of From Sand Creek — signed examples of either are the strongest items.
My Woven Stone is an Arizona first. Is it valuable? ▾
Yes, in hardcover. The 1992 University of Arizona Press Woven Stone hardcover first edition with original dust jacket is a collectible, especially signed — the book is the most-read single Ortiz volume and its fifty-page autobiographical introduction is first-edition material. The paperback first is a reading copy with a first-edition marker, but the hardcover is the scarcer and more collectible state.
I have a UNM-stamped Fight Back. Does that kill the value? ▾
Reduces the tier, doesn't kill the value. The 1980 INAD softcover is the first edition regardless of stamps — bibliographic identity is fixed by publisher and year. A stamped copy is a reading copy at a reduced tier; a clean unstamped 1980 first is the collectible. Both are worth photographing and texting, because Fight Back standalones from 1980 are scarce either way.
How do I tell if an Ortiz signature is real? ▾
Real Ortiz signatures are usually on the title page or half-title, in blue or black ballpoint, written out as "Simon J. Ortiz" or "Simon Ortiz" in a controlled hand. Inscriptions with Keres-language greetings ("Guwaadzi," "Dawaa'eh"), named recipients, or dates strengthen authentication. Text me a photo.
I have a 1977 People Shall Continue. Is it the first? ▾
Check the title page and copyright page. The 1977 Children's Book Press first edition has "Copyright © 1977" and Children's Book Press as the publisher. Later reissues sometimes use a 1977 original copyright line but carry a secondary "printed" date or an updated illustrator credit. If the illustrator credit says Sharol Graves and the publisher line is just "Children's Book Press" without additional imprint identifiers, photograph the title page and I can usually tell you which printing you have.
Will you quote a price over the phone? ▾
No — and not as a sales dodge. The Indigenous-poetry market swings enough that any number I quoted before seeing the book would either be too high (unhappy-making when the offer comes) or too low (you'd walk away from a conversation you should have had). I'll tell you on the phone whether a photo review or a house call is the right move. The actual dollar conversation happens with books in front of me.
What happens to the Ortiz books I don't sell? ▾
They go through New Mexico Literacy Project's distribution network — Little Free Libraries across the metro, La Vida Llena holiday boxes, and the APS Title I / McKinney-Vento program for families experiencing homelessness. Ortiz is actively read in ABQ — paperback copies of Woven Stone, Men on the Moon, and The People Shall Continue go back into Albuquerque homes and classrooms quickly. Damaged copies go to proper paper recycling — never landfill.
Related Pillar Guides
Selling Leslie Marmon Silko Books
The 1977 Viking Ceremony, Storyteller, Almanac of the Dead. The Laguna novelist paired with Ortiz on every Native-literature syllabus in New Mexico.
Selling N. Scott Momaday Books
The 1968 Harper House Made of Dawn Pulitzer, The Way to Rainy Mountain, signed editions. The Kiowa writer whose 1969 Pulitzer opened the door Ortiz walked through.
Selling Arthur Sze Books
Compass Rose, Sight Lines — the MacArthur/IAIA poet whose Chinese-American lineage sits alongside Ortiz's Acoma Pueblo voice in Santa Fe poetry collections.