Santa Fe-based writer, photographer and filmmaker Debra Denker has been creating media about international environmental, social justice and peace issues since her youth in the late 70s. She is the author of the cli-fi time travel novel Weather Menders, published in 2017 and a novel set in Afghanistan during the 1980s war, Love and War in the Land of Cain, which won first place in the 2022 National Federation of Press Women contest. She has written for diverse publications including National Geographic, the Los Angeles Times and the Guardian. Her films on Afghanistan and Tibet have been exhibited in many film festivals. She is the founder and director of the Global Diversity Film Project (GDFP), an initiative of Perception International. GDFP makes films in association with her production company, Catalyst Artistic Productions. Many of her short films are accessible on YouTube and Vimeo, including Community Garden: New Mexico/South Africa, which screened at the New Mexico Filmmakers Showcase, and a trailer for a film on ancient Hawaiian spirituality, One Breath: One Life. She is a longtime member of the Society of Woman Geographers. Her 2019 Voices for Biodiversity story, “Protecting the Arctic Refuge: Gwich’in People Defend the Sacred,” placed first in the New Mexico Press Women communications contest and earned second place in the National Federation of Press Women contest Green/Environmental Specialty Articles category.
