A retired UNM president is coming back to the University - to sign books.
Richard Peck, president of UNM from 1990 to 1998, is an author who retired from UNM in 2000.
Peck and Judith Van Gieson, fiction writers who focus on crime and mystery, will attend UNM Press's annual Faculty and Staff Appreciation Day to sign copies of their books.
Peck said he began writing because he has always been a storyteller. Of his 10 books, six are in print.
He is also working on several upcoming books. One is a sequel to Dead Pawn, a book about an Albuquerque man wrongly accused and punished for a crime.
Peck has also written books on travel, sports biography and history. He said many authors write only one certain type of book so readers know what to expect, but his novels are all different, making it hard to build readership.
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"You can't pick up a Richard Peck and know what you're getting," Peck said.
Judith Van Gieson will also sign books. She taught in the English Department, but her strongest tie to the University is one of her main characters, Claire Reynier, who works in the Southwest Center for Research.
Van Gieson said she began writing when she took a creative writing course as an English major in college. She said she would write stories about the girls in her dorm, and every week her class would wait to hear her new story. But her inspiration for mystery writing came from famous detective writer Raymond Chandler.
Van Gieson has two series, one about Reynier and another about Neil Hamel, an attorney and investigator in New Mexico. In The Shadow of Venus, her latest book, Reynier investigates the suspicious death of a homeless woman.
So far Van Gieson has written 15 books, most of them mysteries. UNM Press has published seven books by Van Gieson. She is currently working on a travel memoir, which she said is "something completely different."
At the annual appreciation day, employees of the University can purchase anything in the store with a 25 percent discount, as well as a 50 percent discount on holiday items.
Amanda Sutton, UNM Press spokeswoman, said they are using the event to celebrate the Press's 75th anniversary. Cake will be served during the book signing. Other authors include Lucian Niemeyer and V.B. Price.
COMING ATTRACTION
Faculty and Staff Appreciation Day and 75th anniversary of UNM Press
UNM Bookstore
Tomorrow at 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
