ln a brightly lit classroom at Salazar Elementary School, two dozen 9- and 10-year-olds wield knives, have direct access to large amounts of flour and crowd in tight groups around three small tables, vying for a turn to take part in a single activity. The weird thing is, they’re all perfectly well-behaved.

Physician Gregory Schneider, a professor at St. John’s College, has traveled with St. John’s students to Haiti on spring break trips since 2007. Last year he founded Project Treehouse, a nonprofit that aims to provide health care and political support in Haiti.

In 1998, Eve Ensler published The Vagina Monologues, and suddenly a word that many viewed as vulgar became a powerful—and positive—force. This year’s V-Day performance in Santa Fe—a performance of Ensler’s new collection of monologues, I am an Emotional Creature: The Secret Life of Girls Around the World—benefits the Santa Fe Mountain Center.

This week's worth of what to do and how to do it for the lonesome, the love-addled and everyone in between.

Each house is divided into a grid according to feng shui, with nine general sections that correspond to various areas of life, such as family, wealth, career and creativity. Each section has a corresponding element (wood, fire, water, metal), color and shape. The love corner of every house is in its far right corner when one stands facing in the front door.

Love and sex are fun, but there are always possible consequences and bigger issues at stake. Local author Kate Buckley recognizes this and, with her 2009 young-adult novel Choices brings one of the most heated and emotional debates in America and the world to the forefront: abortion.

Tesuque resident James McGrath Morris’ 576-page biography of Joseph Pulitzer, Pulitzer: A Life in Politics, Print, and Power, reveals new information and insights about the life of the man with one of America’s most recognized names. Morris gives a reading and book signing this week to coincide with the book’s publication.

The American West is more than a geographical location. It’s an idea that encompasses certain traits, such as freedom, adventurousness and courage. Corinne Platt and Meredith Ogilby spent four years traveling the Rocky Mountain West, clocking thousands of highway miles and interviewing dozens of the West’s “heavy lifters.” SFR excerpts Voices of the American West.

Native American literature would not be what it is today without the works of N Scott Momaday. The Kiowa author’s first novel, House Made of Dawn, won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1969. It is an unflinching examination of Native Americans’ alienation and sadness, as unapologetic in its honesty as it is unconventional in its literary format. This week, SFR talks to the author about Native American culture, his career as a writer and what comes next.

Artist Issa Nyaphaga is a native of Cameroon, a central African country where electricity, sufficient food and health care are scarce and polio runs rampant.  After an artist residency at the Santa Fe Art Institute, Nyaphaga ran a supply drive with the help of Jenny Sanborn, a volunteer for Santa Fe-based humanitarian nonprofit Soulful Presence.