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A journey to New Mexico leads to an award-winning book collection

An east coast author’s interest in New Mexico books and culture has developed over the years into a collection that has gained notable recognition. 

Maida Tilchen, who resides in Sommerville, Massachusetts said that it was during her first trip to New Mexico in 1993 when her interest first began. She says many trips over the years to used bookstores around the state helped develop her New Mexico book collection. Tilchen says her favorite books are nonfiction, like memoirs or biographies.

“I love reading the ones about women who ran trading posts with their husbands usually and they made friends with their Navajo neighbors.”

Maida Tilchen’s collection “In Celebration of New Mexico Books and Book People” was awarded the 2020 George and Anna Eliot Ticknor Book and Book Culture Collecting Prize.

Traveling to New Mexico also motivated Tilchen to write her own books.

“I decided that if I wrote books about New Mexico, the trip would never end,” Tilchen said.

Tilchen has published two historical novels set in the 1920’s in New Mexico “Land Beyond Maps” (2009) and “She’s Gone Santa Fe” (2013).

Nearly thirty years later, Maida Tilchen is still reading many historical books about New Mexico. The oldest book in her collection was published in 1866 and features a civil war soldier describing his travels across New Mexico. It’s an experience that Tilchen says is very different from her travels to the state, but with some similarities that she notices as a tourist today.

Anthony Moreno serves as the Director of Content at KRWG Public Media. He also is host and executive producer for "Fronteras-A Changing America" and "Your Legislators" on KRWG-TV.