Garcia Street Books is hosting a birthday party benefit for Margaret Atwood at 5:30 p.m. before she and her life partner, Graeme Gibson, discuss their new books at the Lensic Theater at 7 p.m. Nov. 17. Atwood, who will spend most of her 70th birthday on Nov. 18 heading back to her Toronto residence, agreed to include Santa Fe in her 40-city, five-country tour to promote her New York Times bestseller, The Year of the Flood, after she heard that all proceeds from the event will go to WildEarth Guardians and Wild Watershed. For more information contact Garcia Street Books, 986 0151, and for tickets, ($10 to $125) the Lensic Box Office, 988-1234, or www.ticketssantafe.org.

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Emmy award-wining actor Susan Saint James stopped by Back at the Ranch last Sunday, on the hunt for vintage cowboy shirts. She was the "wife" in that classic TV show, McMillan and Wife with Rock Hudson and the "Allie" from comedy Kate and Allie with Jane Curtin. Saint James also is married to Dick Ebersol, former Saturday Night Live executive producer and current chair of NBC television sports.

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Back at the border: Las Vegas, N.M., that frequent location for movies shooting in New Mexico, is once again doubling for the Mexican border. A traveler through Vegas earlier this week writes about seeing signs for "Ciudad Juárez" on the second exit off Interstate 25. That same bridge also served as the crossing to Mexico in the Oscar-winner, No Country For Old Men.

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A news service from WeddingChannel.com puts together celeb weddings from this week in history: And who remembers that on Nov. 9, 1935, Jane Wyatt (Magnificent Obession) and Edgar Bethune Ward married in Santa Fe, with the Archbishop Rudolph Gerken performing the ceremony at his home. Wyatt wore, according to the item, her "great-great-grandmother's (Mary Alsop King) dress worn when she and her husband, Rufus King, U.S. minister to Great Britain, were presented to the Court of St. James in 1800." The couple honeymooned for two weeks in New Mexico and Arizona and went on to have three children together.

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Writer Anne Hillerman and photographer husband, Don Strel, had a great time last week in Scottsdale, promoting their new book Tony Hillerman's Landscape: On the Road with Chee and Leaphorn. Today, find the duo from 4-6 p.m. at the Santa Fe Convention and Visitors Bureau for a benefit for the Friends of the Santa Fe Library. Tickets are $25 at the door. They'll be signing copies of the book as well as discussing how the landscapes shown shaped Hillerman's beloved mysteries.

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