LOCAL AUTHORS CONTINUE
SAN MIGUEL'S LITERARY HERITAGE

Authors’ Sala Presents – – Our Founder; Susan Page, and Poet Marilene Phipps

July 21
5:00pm - 7:00pm,
San Miguel Authors’ Sala
Posada San Francisco
San Francisco & Hidalgo

Susan Page, author of 5 relationship books and founder of the SMA Authors’ Sala will read from her latest release, When Talking is Not Enough.

Haitian painter, author and poet Marilene Phipps, will read from her new work, God, Love, and the Leap of Frogs.

50 pesos: includes wine reception
 

Authors’ Sala presents - - Crossing the Border with Alma Luz Villanueva, and tales of a NOW Founder and Former Playmate; Alice Denham.

Villanueva will lead us from her youth in San Francisco to her current life in San Miguel along imaginative paths which she considers her “border poems.”

Alice Denham will read from her lusty memoir Sleeping with Bad Boys, in which a 50's Playmate pulls the naughty covers off literary New York.

August 11
5:00pm - 7:00pm,
San Miguel Authors’ Sala
Posada San Francisco
San Francisco & Hidalgo

50 pesos: includes wine reception
 

San Miguel authors' books will be on sale on an ongoing basis. More book signings and author presentations are scheduled for the First Friday Readings held each month, starting in the fall. Twice weekly drop-in gatherings currently provide a place for authors to meet and build community around writing, publishing and marketing their books. All writers are invited to attend. 

San Miguel has been known for more than 50 years for its art schools and serious painters. Its community of professional writers has received less fanfare but has been around for almost as long. One earlier generation of writers included best-selling authors such as 

Vance Packard, "The Hidden Persuaders"; 

Gary Jennings, "Aztec"; and 

novelist Clifford Irving, best known for earning 14 months in prison for faking a biography of Howard Hughes. 

Others were 

Charles Portis, "True Grit"; 

Gerald Green, "The Last Angry Man"; 

Rafael Ramirez Heredia, "Con M De Marilyn"; 

Howard Koch, co-writer of the movie "Casablanca"; and 

Peter Blatty, who put the final touches on his rewrite of "The Exorcist" while living here.

Today, San Miguel is the home of numerous well-known writers, including ...

Joe Persico who, with Colin Powell, wrote "My American Journey";

 Beverly Donofrio, whose "Riding In Cars With Boys" was produced as a film starring Drew Barrymore; 

Susan Page, whose best-seller "If I'm So Wonderful, Why Am I Still Single?" is about to be featured in a Hollywood movie starring Diane Lane;

 Linda Lowery and her husband Richard Keep, who have collaborated on more than 35 children's books; 

 Robert de Gast, "Doors of San Miguel" and other popular photography books on our fair pueblo; 

Susan Evans, whose book "Women Who Broke All the Rules" celebrates women's achievements as cultural change agents;

the Pulitzer Prize winning poet, W. D. Snodgrass;

Tony Cohan, whose travel memoir "On Mexican Time" made San Miguel even more attractive for creative types seeking retirement;

historical novelist Sandra Gulland, author of "The Josephine B. Trilogy"; and

 Masako Takahashi, co-author of "Mexicolor" and "Mexican Tiles". 

There are many more foreign and Mexican writers, poets, translators, journalists and magazine editors and writers who make San Miguel their home and place from which they draw inspiration. 

Susan McKinney is a former television news reporter whose memoirs-in-progress, "Tales of My Disappearance", tell the tale of her romance and subsequent marriage to a considerably younger Mexican man. Her stories of bicultural living have been featured on All Things Considered. 

A former award-winning newspaper reporter and mystery novelist, Carol Schmidt is now a columnist for Mexconnect.com. 

Joseph Dispenza, founder of San Miguel's Lifepath Retreats, is the author of "The Way of the Traveler" and a contributing editor to Beliefnet, the premier Internet spirituality site.

One former independent bookseller and author, Patrice Wynne, owner of Berkeley's iconic GAIA Bookstore and Cultural Center, is currently writing her memoir, "Reborn on Cobblestones" about her career in bookselling and how her life was transformed by the magic of San Miguel. Living among the Mexican people has inspired numerous memoir writers, and many of them have found the traditions, culture and beauty of San Miguel fertile ground for their writing muse.

One tradition today's authors aren't likely to revive is the liquid literary discussions from an earlier day at the Cucaracha Bar, formerly located on Portal Allende. The leading voices and legendary heroes of the Beat Generation--Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Alan Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady--were regular patrons of the Cucaracha when they were in town, causing an Esquire writer to name the Cucaracha one of the world's ten best bars. Authors between royalty checks paid off tabs by teaching creative writing upstairs. Today La Cucharacha on Zacateros is still frequented by aspiring writers, artists, gay and straight, foreign and Mexican, though its patrons tend to be more youthful, though no less bohemian.

Neal Cassady was the only one of the Beats to return here to live, and his sodden death put San Miguel on the writers map. In 1968 his body was found dead one morning after, as one report put it, he left the Cucaracha to count the railroad ties between San Miguel and Celaya. Another story purports that he got deliriously drunk at a wedding, and died of exposure when he sought his muse following the tracks. Today's community of writers is more likely to be found safely drinking cappuchinos at its meeting place, El Arbol Bookstore and Cafe on Aldama 1, as they count down the days to the Inaugural Fiesta on August 6th. They hope you will join them on that day.

For more information about the new SAN MIGUEL AUTHORS SALA AT EL ARBOL, to join the group, or for a schedule of author presentations at the INAUGURAL FIESTA, visit the Sala website: www.sanmiguelauthors.com  
or call Susan Page, founder/director, at 154-9360 or susanvpage@mac.com .

(This article is expanded from an article previously published in the Guadalajara Reporter. Used with permission of author)