jennifer rose
Jul 1, 2007, 11:14 AM
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San Miguel Authors Sala Book Fair Aug. 4
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Quirky authors reveal secrets to lure book lovers to San Miguel Authors Sala Book Fair Aug. 4 Why go to a Book Fair when you can order online? What can you really find out about an author in a few minutes, and what can you ask that the writer hasn't been asked a thousand times before? The renowned authors who will take part in the San Miguel Authors Sala Book Fair 5-7 pm Saturday, Aug. 4, will help book lovers make the most of their experience at the fair with their answers to three questions: What you probably don't know about me.
What I want you to know the most about my book.
What you might ask me at the Book Fair. The Fair will be at the Hotel Posada de San Francisco at Plaza Principal 2, right on the Centro Jardin. O Henry Award-winning Janice Eidus is launching her latest novel, The War of the Rosens, this weekend. Other authors include Manja Argue, Charlotte Bell, James Cervantes, Alice Denham, Wayne Greenhaw, Ricky Harris, Gerald Helferich, C.M Mayo, Sharon Solwitz, and Masako Takahashi. What do these authors answer to the three questions? All of the answers will be in a program at the Fair, but here is a sampling of thoughts and the works of each author. Eidus is "a first-time adoptive mother of a little girl who was born in Guatemala, and my husband and I are raising her to be a Jewish, bilingual New Yorker/San Miguelensa. The War of the Rosens portrays the world in which I was raised, the world that shaped who I am and led to my becoming the deeply loving mother of this particular child at this particular point in my life and raising her in this particular way." It is getting excellent prepublication reviews. Ask Manja Argue what a chapbook is, and what is story poetry? She will be selling three bilingual chapbooks--The Wolf Approaches/El Lobo se Acerca; The Slide/El Tobogan; and Passing/Transito--plus her latest, Short Stuff. Charlotte Bell's Tears from the Crown of Thorns is a bilingual photography and historical book about Easter observances in San Miguel. It is filled with full-color photographs capturing the spirit of Semana Santa in Mexico. James Cervantes was a cellist in the USAF Orchestra during the Kennedy and Johnson years and is willing to talk about what he witnessed during his frequent visits to the White House. His current work, Temporary Meaning, took 15 years to write. He will also be signing Changing the Subject, a conversation in poetry co-authored with Halvard Johnson. Alice Denham is the only Playboy Playmate to have had her fiction published in the same issue at her centerfold. The New York Times gave a full-page favorable review to Sleeping with Bad Boys: Literary New York in the '50s and '60s. The subtitle for the book on Amazon is, A 1956 Playboy Bunny model's escapades with James Dean, Hugh Hefner, Norman Mailer and the famous authors of the 1950s Beat Generation. Wayne Greenhaw is writing his 19th book, a political history of Alabama after George Wallace, and he's reworking a screenplay set in San Miguel de Allende in 1949-50 based on his friend Leonard Brook's unpublished memoirs. "My most recent book is Ghosts on the Road: Poems of Alabama and Mexico in which I survey part of my 50-year history of coming to San Miguel first as an art student. There are poems about the greatest bar in the world, La Cucaracha, and about Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady," who both came to San Miguel. Other books he will be signing include The Thunder of Angels: The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the People who Broke the Back of Jim Crow, and My Heart Is in the Earth: True Stories of Alabama and Mexico. Ricky Harris is a skater and choreographer who will be signing Busybody Exercises for Bodies too Busy to Exercise, and Coaches Manual: Choreography and Style for Skaters. What don't you know about her? She got her start in the U.S. Air Force as an instructor in physical training, before going on to obtain her MFA in dance and PhD in choreography. She created a PBS series "Dancethenics," combining exercies and dance, and has choreographed for many Olympic skaters. Some of the exercises in her book are The Goosewalk, The Crotch Crunch, and The Butt Slide--yes, the book is very funny and includes cartoons. Gerard Helferich's first book, Humboldt's Cosmos: Alexander von Humboldt and the Latin American Journey that Changed the Way We See the World," was called by the Los Angeles Times, "A fascinating snapshot of European thought at the cusp of the Romantic era and the uncompromising rationalism of modern science." His latest is High Cotton: Four Seasons in the Mississippi Delta, a year in the life of a modern day cotton farmer in the land that was the driving force behind the Civil War and racial divide, as he struggles to survive against agribusiness. C. M. Mayo is a well respected economist and 20-year resident of Mexico City who has brought lesser known Mexican authors' works into English in her work Mexico: a Traveler's Literary Companion. Her most recent work is Miraculous Air, a memoir of travels through Baja. Sharon Solwitz's short stories have been published in both Mademoiselle and Ploughshares and have won the Pushcart Prize and the Katherine Anne Porter Prize. Her first collection of short stories, Blood and Milk, was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award. She will also be signing her most recent novel, Bloody Mary. Masako Takahashi will have Mexican textiles mostly made in Oaxaca on display that she accumulated as illustrations for her book, Mexican Textiles. Some of the textiles will be for sale--she says many people have asked how they can get the fabrics from her book. She will also be signing her two other books, Mexicolor, and Mexican Tiles. Former Berkeley bookstore owner Patrice Wynne won't be signing her own books but will be promoting Finding Freedom: Writings from Death Row, by Jarvis Masters, and Mexico City, by Jim Johnson. She says she would be willing to answer questions about the time she sold books in the nude at a nudist colony! She suggests only half jokingly that the Book Fair should be titled, "If you are fascinated by things other than real estate, come to the San Miguel Authors Sala Book Fair." The Authors Sala celebrates its fourth year anniversary at the Book Fair, presented hundreds of authors to SMA residents and visitors, including such noted members as Pulitzer Prize winning poet W.D. Snodgrass; Beverly Donofrio, who wrote Riding in Cars with Boys; and Tony Cohan, now living in Guanajuato, who brought San Miguel to the world's attention with his best-selling On Mexican Time, and his latest, Mexican Days.
The Sala presents dozens of programs and workshops each year in San Miguel. Its website is www.http://www.sanmiguelauthors.com, for more information.
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