Do not despair, says editor Alan Rinzler
By Alice Sperling and Susan Page August 8, 2008 San Miguel de Allende 

Summer Literary Festival
Authors’ Sala
Tom Robbins, Alan Rinzler
Tue–Thu, Aug 19–21
Hotel Real de Minas
Ancha de San Antonio and Stirling Dickinson
US$30–250

Alan Rinzler, famed editor for some of this country’s most celebrated writers, will appear with Tom Robbins at the Summer Literary Festival sponsored by the San Miguel Authors’ Sala.

Rinzler will be featured in two solo programs, “Weird and Wonderful Writers I Have Published” (keynote address, August 20, 6pm) and “Rinzler’s Rules for Getting Published: A Veteran Insider’s Secrets to Success in the Digital Age” (workshop, August 20, 3pm). A partial list of authors/books Rinzler has edited include Clive Cussler (Night Probe); Hunter S. Thomson (Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail); Toni Morrison (The Bluest Eye); Shirley MacLaine (Out on a Limb); Robert Ludlum (Scarlatti Inheritance); Dee Brown (Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee); and Tom Robbins (Jitterbug Perfume).

Here is part of what Rinzler had to say about working with Robbins: “As a successful writer with a large and steady following, Robbins had the leverage to stipulate in his contract the unusual provision that his editor would accompany him on three holidays to resorts of his choice in order to discuss and edit the work in progress, which turned out to be Jitterbug Perfume.

“Tom would read out loud from his work in progress—just a few pages at a time—and I would comment. He was a real southern gentleman and welcomed intellectual discourse about his theme, characters and intentions, from the inside. He took the process of conception, research, trial and error, moving things around, changing voices and pitch very seriously, wrote slowly and carefully, revised constantly, developing, refining and evolving this novel over the course of about two years.”

Rinzler has been a key figure in New York publishing for decades. Currently the senior editor at Jossey-Bass Publishers, he has served as an editor at Simon and Schuster, Macmillan and Grove Press. He was director of trade publishing at Bantam Books and before that was associate editor of Rolling Stone magazine.

This great wealth of experience in publishing qualifies Rinzler to answer the questions that plague writers: What’s the secret to getting a great agent? How can I give my work commercial potential and still be true to my art? What are publishers looking for and how can I fit in? What can I expect to gain by working with a publisher? 

The publishing industry has changed dramatically in recent decades, making it harder than ever for writers to get the attention of New York editors. While there used to be more than 30 major publishing houses in New York, now, after years of corporate mergers and acquisitions, virtually all the big-name imprints are owned by just three major corporations. Many times final decisions are made, not by literary staff, but by financial departments who most adore books by people who are already famous! But do not despair!

Rinzler says, “Many writers think it’s practically impossible for a first-time author to get published, that publishers dwell in an impenetrable fortress, that editors don’t want to hear from anyone who isn’t famous or hasn’t already written a successful book.

“The truth is, book editors are desperate to find new writers. They have a list to fill, literally a quota, a specific number of titles and an increasingly large net revenue goal they are required to achieve each fiscal year. It’s a never-ending assembly line, a machine that has to be fed, season after season. Book editors are working in a for-profit capitalist enterprise, so they have to deliver! They must satisfy the continuing demand for growth in sales in order to achieve professional goals and to advance their careers. Book editors working for major publishing companies simply must acquire and develop books that sell.” 

In his workshop on August 20, Rinzler will tell writers how to become one of the authors who help feed the hungry publishing beast.

Alice Sperling and Susan Page are co-coordinators of the Summer Literary Festival and members of the Authors’ Sala.

T-shirt and poster by Anado McLauchlin

As a part of the festival, San Miguel artist Anado McLauchlin has created a dazzling T-shirt and poster. His inspiration for the design was the élan vital (his words) that Robbins so vividly celebrates. McLauchlin’s popular “outsider” art is the perfect complement to Robbins, whose extraordinary imagination has captivated generations of readers. 

McLauchlin remembers reading Robbins in a hammock on the beach in southern Thailand, beneath the canopy of a Bodhi tree, as schools of fished jumped hoops through a setting sun. He said, “I will never forget that. I felt he was a kindred spirit on the path.” In his research, McLauchlin found that Tom can usually be found wearing sunglasses and a black T-shirt, hence the image on black.

McLauchlin, a well-recognized Santa-like personage in the streets of San Miguel, is an art school dropout, mainly self-taught. He lived and worked in New York City through most of the early to mid-seventies. In the late seventies, he migrated to India, where he lived for a number of years, washing up on the shores of San Francisco in 1985, where he lived and worked prior to moving to San Miguel in 2001.

McLauchlin’s patrons include artists from the film and music industry of San Francisco and Nashville, including former members of the Grateful Dead. He is collected in Europe, the US and Mexico. You have probably seen his necklaces decorating some of the most beautiful ladies in San Miguel. In addition, his art and decorative skills are evident in many homes, secret splendors behind the doors of this fair city.

Festival participants are invited to view the impact and diversity of McLauchlin’s work up close and personal at a coffee reception at his home, Casa Las Ranas, on Thursday, August 21, 10am.

T-shirts (200 pesos) and posters (100 pesos) may be purchased at La Tienda in the Biblioteca, Insurgentes 25, or at Mail Boxes, Etc., Reloj 26, where tickets for the festival may also be purchased. Tickets also may be purchased online, where the full schedule of the festival also appears: www.sanmiguelauthors.com. 

Presentation of new San Miguel photo book and video
By Lulu Torbet

Book Presentation
alTirado
Fri, Aug 15, 7pm
William Martin Gallery
Fábrica la Aurora

Photographer and filmmaker alTirado presents his new book, San Miguel de Allende: A Pictorial Story along with his 32-minute documentary, Dia de Muertos, also shot here in San Miguel, at William Martin Gallery in Fábrica la Aurora.

Born and raised in Mexico, and having traveled extensively in Mexico (and around the world) as a photojournalist, alTirado recently returned to live in San Miguel, after twenty years in New York. What he encountered was culture shock. In his earlier travels through Mexico, he had enjoyed every step along the roads, every corner of the villages and towns, every stone of the archeological sites. So his culture shock wasn’t because he was new to the traditions and lifestyle of this country he intimately knows and loves.

Thirty years ago alTirado came to San Miguel to write an article for one of his clients, and was asked to show his photographs and documentary videos at El Centro Cultural de Nigromante. His particular culture shock arises from finding his city of so many fond memories profoundly changed.

“San Miguel is one of several places around the world fighting to preserve its original character,” he says. “Even with the new UNESCO World Heritage City designation, it seems to be losing the war, little by little. This is my big concern. Every day we are losing an old door to a termite attack, or a beautiful niche carved in stone is on its way to a lavish private garden, or an historic façade is giving up its natural beauty to wear a sign advertising a foreign commercial product or service.”

With this pictorial homage to San Miguel, alTirado hopes to preserve “at least un poquito” of its tremendous cultural assets.

Being back in San Miguel also lured him back into making documentary films. Living here full time, with his video equipment gathering dust on the shelf, he couldn’t ignore the many unique, vivid and meaningful festivities that are part of everyday life here. 

“These events can only be captured as moving images, to do them justice” he claims, “as living documents with color, sound, music and narration.” Dia de Muertos takes the viewer through the profound, deeply rooted Mexican tradition of honoring the dead with special tributes each year. 

Refreshments will be served. There is a book signing after the presentation.

Bilingual fiction, bilingual poetry
By Kimberly Kinser

Authors’ Sala
Mercedes Arteaga Tovar & Marie Delgado Travis
Fri, Aug 15, 5–7pm
St. Paul’s Church
Cardo 6
50 pesos

On August 15, St. Paul’s Church sings with poetry and fiction read in Spanish and English. Here is an opportunity to let your ears take in the Spanish, knowing that translation will follow.

Mercedes Arteaga Tovar reads from her novel, Perfume de la Polvera. Laura Josephs will read her translation, The Scent of Gunpowder.

Arteaga was drawn to tell the story of a woman, Cayetana, living through war and political upheaval throughout twentieth-century Mexico. Unlike Frida Kahlo or Antonieta Rivas Mercado, Cayetana lives a very different story of a woman without the advantages of wealth and education. It is the story of millions of Mexican women during the Revolution.

Twentieth-century Mexican history is dominated by traición. Everyone was susceptible to treason. Pancho Villa died by the hand of a “friend” as did many other revolutionary figures. Arteaga’s book shows us how a woman negotiated these treacherous times.

“I love Cayetana,” Arteaga says. There must be love between author and protagonist who spend years together. Arteaga wrote as Cayetana moved from San Miguel to Mexico City, because her family sold her as a servant. Arteaga wrote as Cayetana escaped to Zacatecas, only to have to return to Mexico City to exist, this time as a prostitute. Cayatena does return to San Miguel decades later to fulfill her dream of owning a home. “The ending was the hardest part. But all stories must end.” Arteaga recalls.

Mercedes Arteaga is well known in our community as the owner of the Restaurant Bugambilia and she is writing a book that tells the history of the restaurant and includes recipes. She has decided to have this book translated into English for the benefit of her patrons not raised on chiles en nogada and enchiladas verdes.

Marie Delgado Travis reads from her wide collection of poetry in both English and Spanish. A native of New York City, a “Nuyorican,” Travis spent 20 years living on her parents’ farm in Puerto Rico. As was the tradition of the time, many Puerto Ricans who had come to the States to offer their children a brighter future, dreamed of returning to their homeland. Though the decision to leave the US and New York was difficult for Travis, raising her son in the rich bilingual culture of her heritage proved to be a good one.

Her career as a poet did not begin until soon after 9/11. The events of the World Trade Center attack affected Travis dramatically. She tells a story of the beginning: “One day, I met someone who changed my life. He was a poet and I asked him what that meant. He stated simply, ‘I write sentiments.’ It was at a particularly sad time in my life—following 9/11—and I thought to myself, ‘Why, I have sentiments, too!’ Apparently, I had a lot of them, because what followed was sentiment after sentiment, poem after poem.”

Travis’s poetry is a balance of bittersweet and humor. At first she was disturbed by the fact that on the heels of a sad or tragic piece would come a giddy, childlike work. Like many of those who write, the idea of what the writing should look like is often challenged by the writing itself. Travis has come to appreciate the special way that her God works through her poetry.

Marie Travis is involved with two literary e-zines as poetry editor. Long Short Story is listed by Writers Digest as one of the to 101 best websites for writers. As a contributor to the journal, she was honored to help after the death of their longtime poetry editor due to complications from diabetes.

At LanguageandCulture.net, readers have an opportunity to see poetry in its original language next to the English translation. As poetry editor, she reads the original Spanish and then the translation, ensuring that the spirit of the piece is maintained. Travis translates her own work, having found that professional translations are often accurate but lack the poetic voice that she intended. At LanguageandCulture.net she is determined to let the readers hear the poetry through the translation.

Both Arteaga and Travis are working on new fiction. Arteaga writes a modern story, this time, of a woman born in Northern Mexico, educated in the United States and her journey back to her native country. Travis is exploring the boundaries between memoir and fiction, magical realism and poetry and looking forward to continuing her career as a writer in a low residency MFA program.

Please join the Sala in welcoming two talented women. It promises to be an evening of cross-cultural magic for the ear and heart.

Kimberly Kinser leads creative writing workshops at LifePath Center each fall.

Roland Salazar Rose interviewed
By Bill Pearlman

Book Presentation
Twenty: A Magical Number
Fri, Aug 15, 3–4:30pm
Sala Quetzal
Biblioteca Pública
Insurgentes 25

We’re sitting in Café Santa Ana discussing Roland’s newest art book, Twenty: A Magical Number. Next Friday, we discuss our collaboration and display the books that are available as free downloads on the internet. The printed books are for sale at La Tienda in the Biblioteca.

Bill Pearlman: How did you first get to San Miguel?

Roland Salazar Rose: By chance! We visited a friend, loved the place and decided that it would be an ideal home for my aging father.

BP: What has Mexico given you in terms of ideas for your work?

RSR: Everything. The land, the people and the “gods” came to me; I did not seek them. Somehow Mexico was in my blood.  BP: Would you call yourself a Mexican artist? RSR: Some say you can’t unless you are born so, but the Querétaro chapter of the Sociedad Mexicana de Autores de las Artes Plasticas voted me in as a member in 1988.

BP: How has painting become the leading force in your life?

RSR: I grew up with the fear the Depression instilled in me. When I got together enough willpower, I gave up trying to live a middle class life. 

BP: I know you have developed a way to work with chapapote, or tar. How did that come about?

RSR: Later this year I am devoting an entire e-art book to chapapote. Contractors apply “chap” to unglazed tiles; they also use it on pine beams. Spanish fishermen made chapapote a household word after the oil tanker Prestige sank off the Galician coast in 2002. That reinforced my need to do paintings with chapapote.

BP: I know you lived in Maine; how did your work there differ from your Mexican work?

RSR: Light is less intense in Maine; colors tend to be gray, blue and green. I feel more at home in the strong, bright color palette. 

BP: How do divisions in your work relate to the virtual gallery?

RSR: I divided the site into Gallery Rooms, the Maine Years and the Mexico Years. It has been a way to communicate with a wider audience.

BP: What is possible for artists on the internet? 

RSR: The internet is a work in progress. No slides, no lengthy portfolios. No longer do you travel to a museum; click and you are there.

BP: How do you see art today? 

RSR: The Philharmonic went to South Korea and played to a packed house. Installation art is breaking barriers, enabling a worldwide understanding of what it is to share a common humanity. 

Book Bargain at La Tienda

Discover a San Miguel from years past with Robert Somerlott’s book, San Miguel de Allende. This book, a classic on the history of local celebrations and important buildings, is essential reading for tourists and residents alike.

“Filled with original photos by philanthropist Stirling Dickinson with intriguing little-known details about the city, this book gives a surprising view of San Miguel history,” says Emma Salazar, La Tienda manager. The book is available for 175 pesos.

Book Fever
By Marcia Loy

Three favorite classics 

You can assume that if a writer’s work has survived for centuries, there are reasons why this is so, explanations that have nothing to do with a conspiracy of academics plotting to resuscitate a zombie army of dead white males. —Francine Prose

When I got out of college I took a year or so and read 305 of the world’s best novels. I read the English classics, the Russians, the French. There were only two books I loved: The Brothers Karamazov and Moby Dick. Later I learned to love Jane Austen. A year ago I suggested to my former book club members that we read The Brothers Karamazov. They agreed to try it. Portia read 100 pages; Francesca got to page 50. I made it all the way to page four. We agreed to try it some other time. I recently read Two Guys Read Moby Dick and between that book and my experience with the Karamazovs, I’m afraid to try that one.

I do however, have some favorite classics. Here are three.

Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë, 1847. I’ve often wondered, as have many others, how Brontë, raised in an isolated Yorkshire village, could have written a book as powerful as this one. She was 30 years old when she died and this novel was published a year before her death. Her Heathcliff is one of literature’s great creations.

First paragraph: 1801—I have just returned from a visit to my landlord—the solitary neighbour that I shall be troubled with. This is certainly a beautiful county! In all England, I do not believe that I could have fixed on a situation so completely removed from the stir of society. A perfect misanthropist’s Heaven: and Mr. Heathcliff and I are such a suitable pair to divide the desolation between us. A capital fellow! He little imagined how my heart warmed towards him when I beheld his black eyes withdraw so suspiciously under their brows, as I rode up, and when his fingers sheltered themselves, with a jealous resolution, still further in his waistcoat, as I announced my name.

The Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens, 1837. This has always been my favorite Dickens. It was written when the author was 25 and it’s a more lighthearted book than poor little Oliver Twist and than poor old Miss Haversham in Great Expectations. It doesn’t require a sacrifice of a far, far better thing than anyone had done before. It’s full of engaging characters and adventures.

Excerpt: Mr. Peter Magnus was naturally of a very communicative disposition, and the brandy and water operated with wonderful effect in warming into life the deepest hidden secrets of his bosom. After sundry accounts of himself, his family, his connexions, his friends, his jokes, his business, and his brothers (most talkative men have a great deal to say about their brothers), Mr. Peter Magnus took a blue view of Mr. Pickwick through his coloured spectacles for several minutes, and then said, with an air of modesty:

‘And what do you think—what do you think, Mr. Pickwick—I have come down here for?’

What Maisie Knew, Henry James, 1897. I wouldn’t call myself a fan of James. I find a lot of his work tedious. But this is a charming little novel about a young girl near the turn of the twentieth century, who at the age of three finds her parents divorcing. She’s torn between them, forced to live six months with one and six with the other. Adding to the difficulties, at each establishment she has a governess who doesn’t care for the one in her other parent’s home. Soon both parents remarry, complicating matters even further. Maisie is one of my favorite characters in literature, an unreliable narrator. 

First paragraph: The litigation had seemed interminable and had in fact been complicated; but by the decision on the appeal the judgement of the divorce-court was confirmed as to the assignment of the child. The father, who, though bespattered from head to foot, had made good his case, was, in pursuance of this triumph, appointed to keep her: it was not so much that the mother’s character had been more absolutely damaged as that the brilliancy of a lady’s complexion (and this lady’s, in court, was immensely remarked) might be more regarded as showing the spots. Attached, however, to the second pronouncement was condition that detracted, for Beale Farange, from its sweetness—an order that he should refund to his late wife the twenty-six hundred pounds put down by her, as it was called, some three years before, in the interest of the child’s maintenance and precisely on a proved understanding that he would take no proceedings: a sum of which he had had the administration and of which he could render not the least amount. The obligation thus attributed to her adversary was no small balm to Ida’s resentment; it drew a part of the sting from her defeat and compelled Mr Farange perceptibly to lower his crest. He was unable to produce the money or to raise it in any way; so that after a squabble scarcely less public and scarcely more decent than the original shock of battle his only issue from his predicament was a compromise proposed by his legal advisers and finally accepted by hers.

Next week: Book Fever takes the pulse of Jane Austen.

Marcia Loy is a member of the steering committee of the Authors’ Sala and a volunteer at the Biblioteca Pública. She can be contacted at marciabookfever@hotmail.com.