ROOTED AND ROAMING: TOWARD THE WINGED ROCK

One of our favorite rituals begins with a simple sentence.

"Let's go exploring!"

Into the car we go, just the two of us, music curated by Michael, and the camera in my hands. No itinerary. No checklist. Just the road unspooling into this incredible Northern New Mexico landscape and the shared understanding that something is waiting to be seen.

You can be rooted and still roam. Rooted in the stories that shaped us. Rooted in the long memory of place. Rooted in the art of noticing. And still roam toward whatever horizon is glowing on any given day.

Our latest roaming carried us north to Shiprock, where the land rises suddenly into mystery and myth. It rises from the land, a sentence carved into the sky.

Yes, there is beauty, stunning beauty in this place. But also something watchful and ancient.

Sometimes I think about my camera less like a tool and more like a special listening device that captures the conversation between wind, stone, distance, and time.

Shiprock is known within the Navajo Nation as Tsé Bitʼaʼí, the Winged Rock. In the Navajo tradition it is a sacred place. A place of that remembers.

You get the feeling when you stand on this land that the land is older than explanation and it has no desire to be explained.

There is mystery here, and it does not belong to us. It belongs to the stories rooted to the land itself and the Diné.

These are a few of the moments that we captured on our roam. They are not conclusions just fragments of our encounter. Small attempts to honor what can be seen and leaving what cannot.

WHY PUBLISH WITH A SMALL PRESS LIKE AUXARCZEN?

Some books don't want to be rushed through corporate corridors or flattened into market categories. They need care, attention, and craft. They need someone to draw out what they want to become.

That is where a small press steps in.

At Auxarczen, publishing isn't a pipeline. It's a collaboration studio where we believe in conversation and good coffee.

Matt with 1971

Your book becomes a shared work of art

When you work with a small press, your manuscript does not disappear into a system.

We become partners and treat your art as if it was ours.

We start by asking questions like:

• What atmosphere does this book live inside?

• What is the rhythm that we want the reader feel as they move through the book?

• Where should the silence remain untouched?

• What is visual language belongs to this story?

We don't want to reshape your voice, we want to help you form it into a beautiful book. A book should always sound like it's author as it walks into the world.

Editing happens at all stages

Editing that listens before it speaks

At Auxarczen, editing isn't about correction alone. It is about recognition.

We look for:

• the emotional spine of the manuscript

• the hidden structure that is innately there

• the tone that needs protecting instead of polishing

• the places where the work asks for courage instead of revision

We feel that this type of editing feels less like dissection and more like tuning an instrument until it resonates perfectly.

Design that belongs to the story

Because Auxarczen is both a press and a studio, design is never an afterthought.

Typography, imagery, and cover concept are developed with the manuscript at the forefront of thought. The book becomes an object with every part speaking to the whole rather than a container with a label.

Sometimes that includes original photography.

Sometimes that includes unconventional layouts.

Sometimes it includes a stark and spare design.

It always includes listening to what the work is asking for.

Example of one of our covers

Real collaboration with the author

Large publishing systems are built for movement and scale.

Small presses are built for relationship.

When you work with Auxarczen you remain part of the decisions about:

• visual identity

• tone and presentation

• sequencing and pacing

• audience experience

• how the book enters the world

  
  

Publishing becomes something you do with us, not something that happens to you.

A book is only the beginning

We don't think that publication is the finish line.

Because Auxarczen lives at the intersection of photography, story, and design, a book can expand outward into:

• visual companion work

• exhibitions or readings

• collaborative storytelling projects

• future volumes that grow from the same creative root system

  
  

Many of our authors discover they are not making a book. They are building a body of work.

Auxarczen is the kind of press that stays in conversation

We exist for writers whose work carries atmosphere, memory, landscape, risk, or quiet intensity. We do not limit ourselves to one genre. We want to feel inspired by the work. We have published poetry, novels of many genres, memoirs, and even a book of interviews because we loved the content. At the moment, we are working on three books that fall into the Science Fiction category which is new to us, but we are enjoying the work. We think that if we are interested in the subject it will find an audience.

Because the right book deserves more than publication. It deserves partnership.

If you are working on something quiet, strange, luminous, or hard to categorize, we would love to hear about it.

Contact Us

Auxarczen believes that you can be rooted and still roam

It seems we left our hometown to find ourselves.

And here we are

somewhere older than our history

but still possessed by our Ozark Zen.

In Taos, roaming isn't about running away.

It's about listening for the deeper story already lived in the dust under our boots.

In the desert you must wear boots.

Just one of the lessons Taos has taught us.

The land here is an archive

& the buildings keep secrets.

The wind carries stories that we haven't heard.

Sangre de Cristo mountains captured at speed

The Ozarks hold our history,

our original identity,

our roots and footprints,

but not our whole story.

Mt. Nebo in the Ozarks

Here in this beautiful and magical place

we began to recognize pieces of ourselves

we didn't know were missing.

Reminders Dot The Landscape

Auxarczen is wandering with intention

documenting what we find,

honoring those that came before us;

adding our own small thread to this vast

and fascinating tapestry of history and art.

Collecting stories, images, and ghosts

along the roads

not always mapped.

Right where we belong.

Readying for Decent Outside of Mora, NM

San José de Gracia Church, Las Trampas New Mexico

Adobe wall Taos Pueblo

Kit Carson road hanging pepper ristras

Taos Pueblo

Kiva at Jemez historic site

Wandering with Guidance

Taos Welcome Tree

The Texture of the Sand Dunes

Water is Life

Exploring

Wandering, but in no way lost.

-Michael & Jen

Auxarczen