Authors’ Sala reading series
By Adrienne Atwell, Feb 9, 2007

Susana Valadez & Carol Schmidt

Fri, Feb 9, 5–7pm

Posada de San Francisco

Plaza Principal 2

50 pesos

Since 2004, the Authors’ Sala has promoted literacy and the art of writing through its outstanding literary programs. This month’s presentation will feature two distinguished authors, Susana Valadez and Carol Schmidt, who reside year-round in Mexico. Their readings will inform us about the unique experiences they have had while living in their respective Mexican communities and, how they have become enterprising women in their own right through hard work and diligent writing on the subject. 

Carol Schmidt  Carol Schmidt and her partner of 27 years, Norma Hair, came to San Miguel on vacation in 2002 to escape the Phoenix summer and joined so many who fall in love with SMA instantly.

Their new book is called Falling ... in Love with San Miguel: Retiring to Mexico on Social Security. “Even though people keep telling us it is impossible to live in San Miguel on Social Security, we’re doing it. We know many single people who are living in SMA on average Social Security better than they could in the US,” Schmidt says.

A former newspaper and magazine writer and editor, Schmidt was the public relations director for the research programs at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles. She has published three mystery novels, now out of print: Silverlake 

Heat, Sweet Cherry Wine and Cabin Fever. Her writings are included in seven anthologies and her freelance articles have appeared in hundreds of publications, including the Los Angeles Times, Long Beach Independent-Press Telegram, and National Catholic Reporter. She also has written for Atención. Her blogs, photos, SMA FAQs and forums can be found at the website www.fallinginlovewithsanmiguel.com. 

Excerpt from Falling…in Love with San Miguel: Retiring to Mexico on Social Security, by Carol Schmidt and Norma Hair (Salsa Verde Press, 2006)


Finally, the turnoff from 57: San Miguel one direction, Doctor Mora the other. We wonder who is this Doctor Mora that he should have traffic directed to his office?

Lovely drive through countryside to a town called Los Rodríguez that fits every stereotype I have about Mexican villages. Is this market day, stalls selling fruit and barbeque and fresh whole chickens and gaudy ceramics, or does it always look like this? Still guessing. 

We follow an uncovered semi loaded with broccoli. Spears fall off at every tope, speed bump. Kids appear out of nowhere to scoop up the broccoli in the truck’s wake. 

Farmland. Traffic starts to build. Suddenly we’re on a roundabout, a glorieta, round we go, not sure where to get off. Nobody stops at the Alto signs entering the glorieta unless they’re going to hit something. They miss us. Horns blare. I’m frantically trying to correlate the handwritten directions from the landlady with the landmarks I’m supposed to see. Big red “G.” Okay, turn here, I tell Norma. She swerves. More horns.

Deep breath. Bump, a tope. Bump, another. We’re coming up on a sharp left turn, a big round mirror hanging at the intersection to tell drivers what’s coming around the corner. A bus! It will never make it! All cars stop. The bus doesn’t even slow.

Norma says she’s scared driving through such narrow streets with no traffic lights. But then, Phoenix held the record for number of stoplights run with resulting deaths and injuries. Drivers actually seem polite here.

Another hill. I feel as if I’m on a roller coaster. But on a roller coaster you’re pretty sure you’ll make it. Plodding burros loaded with burlap sacks are led down the same streets as cars. They take precedence. Sidewalks look too narrow even for burros.

The colors are so bright! Norma is jumping up and down in her seat against her seat belt, squealing, “It’s Disneyland! It’s beautiful! I can’t believe it!” Of course she knows it is an insult to call a bustling region that is home to some 130,000 Mexicans a Disneyland, as if it were designed just for tourists, but I admit it, I feel that way, too. There go years of political correctness.

Norma is getting into the rhythm now. Pick and crawl. Traffic signs are suggested retail. The light is so bright! I feel as if we are driving in a kaleidoscope. 

Our homeowners’ association rules declared that the exteriors of all park models had to be shades of white and beige. In retaliation we’d painted one wall of our living room raspberry, the next terra cotta, the next peach, and the fourth lemon, with a teal leather sofa. An abstract rug, a wall quilt made by Norma, and one of my paintings tied the vibrant colors together. 

We made sure to leave our drapes wide open so that golf carts turning the corner past our park model, the retired occupants with too much time on their hands so they spend all day looking for HOA rules violations, would veer in shock at the rainbow. 

Here we’d fit right in. Nothing clashes. Every house is a different color, or two or more colors. Every shade of bougainvillea crawls up and over walls and fences. Homes have plain fronts, but where doors are left ajar we glimpse splendid courtyards with terraces and gardens and patios and fountains and twisting wrought iron stairwells and arches everywhere.

Even seeing these plain facades throughout town, our first glimpse of our apartment for the next three months is devastating—faded wood, locked tight garage doors. What have we done? We have to keep driving around the block until a parking place opens up. Finally we’re stopped. More deep breaths. I hear rustling in the cat carrier. A tentative “Meow?” Our Shih Tzu needs a walk.

Our directions say to call the landlady when we arrive to open the gate. Public phones are disappearing almost as fast in Mexico as in the States, victims of cell phones, and those that remain take phone cards, which I also don’t have. I find one in a beauty shop that takes three one-peso coins. We have no change. No one will change my ten-peso coin, the smallest I have. 

I see a storefront, shelves lined with junk food. In my rush I don’t notice that the stairs go down, that the entrance is sunken below sidewalk level with no warning. I’m falling. I jam my knee. I pay no attention to the sudden pain and manage to keep from catapulting into the store. I remember San Miguel’s nickname: “The city of fallen women.” 

Cowering behind the shelves is a huddled old woman. Maybe she thought I’d fall on her. She’s about 4’6”, in a dark dress almost to the floor, her head and shoulders covered in a navy wool scarf (called a rebozo) even though it’s about 90 degrees. She sells me a lollipop for two pesos. She only has seven pesos change. I have to convince her I’m thrilled to get the seven pesos. 

She seems distressed by the entire encounter, almost as if she thinks I’m going to rob her. What did I do wrong? I must be oozing anxiety. I’m ecstatic to get the small coins in my hand, no matter that the change is one peso short. I head back to the beauty shop phone. My aching knee makes me remember my twisted descent into the store. The red lollipop is mango with chile. I was expecting strawberry.

Answering machine message. Damn! We sit in the hot car in our desirable parking place and wait for the landlady and reassure the cats and Lacey that we are home.

Jim Johnston presents Mexico City guidebook

San Miguel PEN Lecture Jim Johnston Tue, Feb 13, 6pm Bellas Artes, Hernández Macías 75 50 pesos

On Tuesday, February 13, Jim Johnston will present his new book, Mexico City: An Opinionated Guide for the Curious Traveler. Johnston, a former New Yorker and a resident of San Miguel for 10 years, now calls Mexico City his home. Inspired by a love of this giant metropolis, and exasperated by people who react in horror whenever Mexico City is mentioned, he decided to write this book.

The capital of Mexico is a complex and constantly changing place; even its name varies from La Ciudad de Mexico, el Distrito Federal (or “el D.F.” for short) or just plain “Mexico.” 

Fascinated since his initial visit in 1989, Johnston can remember when he used to feel afraid of the city. “I just saw it through all the headlines and rumors, expecting thieves at every corner. It took a while to realize that I was not responding to reality,” he said. Years of exploring and getting to know many parts of the city uncovered the wealth of cultural riches this world capital has to offer. This book selects the best of these explorations and makes them accessible to the reader. Part essay, part practical guide, this book offers a fresh perspective on one of the world’s largest cities. 

The author lived in suburban Long Island, the woods of New Hampshire and a small town in Virginia before moving to New York City when he was 19 years old. After a few unsatisfying office jobs he began working with clay, which led to a 10-year career as a potter. After more than 25 years in New York City, working as an artist and designer, Johnston moved to San Miguel de Allende in 1997 with his partner, artist Nicholas Gilman, where he worked as a printmaker and teacher.

“When we decided to move to the city full-time, I was inspired to begin writing. For years I had collected notes about places I found around the city: odd little museums, great food spots, new neighborhoods. I decided to make a book out of it. San Miguel had something to do with it, too. I’m not sure I would have imagined writing a book without the experience of being in a place where re-inventing yourself is a preferred pastime.”

“My book is based on the idea that most people will visit from two to seven days—not enough time to see everything. Other guidebooks on the market are more comprehensive, but who really needs to know where to play golf in Mexico City? The “Best of Mexico City” type of guidebooks tend to focus on museums and “sights,” rather than seeing the city as a whole, the daily life in the streets and markets, that makes this place unique.

That’s the ‘other’ Mexico City I hope people get to know. In a lot of ways you can find the life of a Mexican village here, enlarged to urban proportions and multiplied many times over.”

Johnston’s book has suggested walking tours of the most interesting parts of town, with tips about where to eat or find a clean bathroom, and practical information on how to get around this most confusing place. Short essays separate the chapters with observations on culture, customs and food that bring the city to life. 

“I chose the word ‘opinionated’ partly because it sounded a bit funny, but mostly because I was frustrated with guides that just listed the facts, and I felt that the good news about Mexico City should be expressed a bit forcefully to balance all of the bad news. I use ‘curious traveler’ as opposed to ‘tourist,’ since the book is aimed at people who really want to find out about a place, not just those seeking some fun sights and good shopping. I hope that it will inspire people to study more about the city.”

Johnston’s talk is part of the series of talks sponsored by San Miguel PEN, the worldwide organization of writers. Contribution of 50 pesos helps writers all over the world in trouble for what they have written. Signed copies of the book will be on sale for 150 pesos. For more information write lucina@unisono.net.mx  or call 152-0614.

Innovative presenters at Writers’ Conference

San Miguel Writers’ Conference

Sat & Sun, Feb 24 & 25

Hotel Real de Minas, Ancha de San Antonio & Stirling Dickinson

US$225

What does it take to write something for the big screen and to have Hollywood notice it? A panel of film experts will answer these and other questions at the 2007 San Miguel Writers’ Conference. This panel includes three screenwriters and a local woman who almost single-handedly has put San Miguel on the map as a center for Mexican film. 

Screenwriter Karl Schiffman has written feature and television films, including Dead End starring Eric Roberts and Jacob Tierney, Riddler’s Moon with Corbin Bernsen and Danny Newman and, recently, Android Apocalypse. 

Screenwriter Ozzie Cheek currently has a film in preproduction in Spain. He has been a staff writer for a TV series and written TV movies for HBO, Showtime, ABC, CBS and Fox.

Harry Burrus has written more than 12 screenplays, including the feature film Marrakech (www.bandanaentertainment.com), which he also produced and directed.

Sarah Hoch deLong is the founder and director of the state of Guanajuato’s Film Commission and the International Film Festival Expresión en Corto, which is held every summer in San Miguel de Allende and Guanajuato. It is the largest film festival in Mexico, and one of the most prestigious in Latin America. Hoch has also organized the First Women in Films and Television International in Mexico. 

The panel will be moderated by Beverly Donofrio, whose bestselling memoir Riding in Cars with Boys was made into a film starring Drew Barrymore, Steve Zahn and Brittany Murphy.

Screenwriter Karl Schiffman, in addition to participating in the screenwriters panel, will give a screenplay writing breakout session during the conference, and during the week following the conference he will give a five-day screenwriters intensive course in San Miguel from 10am to 1:30pm. The workshop is entitled “Screenwriting: Make an Interesting Promise to the Audience—Then Keep It.” 

Beverly Donofrio will give a five-day workshop on memoir writing in San Miguel following the Writers’ Conference. She will help students in the weeklong workshop find their voices to tell their unique stories. Students will work on breaking down resistance to writing one’s own story and on scene writing and narrative technique. The workshops include a private consultation for each student. 

Sarah Lovett and Janice Macdonald are two other inspiring writing instructors who will give informative breakout sessions during the weekend Writers’ Conference as well as weeklong workshops in San Miguel the week following. 

Sarah Lovett’s conference session, “Tips from a Professional Writing Coach: How to Be Your Own Best Creative Coach,” teaches powerful coaching techniques and gives industry-insider tips and practical tools that enable you to chart your own course while honoring your integrity, authenticity and your true voice. In her memoir/fiction writing workshop, held Monday–Friday, February 26–March 2, 10am to 1:30pm. Lovett teaches the formal elements of writing and serves as a student’s personal writing coach, supporting the creative process. “Together we explore voice, point of view, character, dynamic detail and setting, story structure and narrative drive—the vital elements of powerful storytelling that can be applied to both fiction as well as memoir,” Lovett promises.

Janice Macdonald’s Writers’ Conference session is entitled “Storyboarding: The Key to Shapely Fiction.” Macdonald is a travel writer and novelist currently working on her ninth novel for Harelquin’s SuperRomance line. Her novels for Harlequin, which include, The Doctor Delivers, The Man on the Cliff, and Keeping Faith, have been translated into many languages and have earned critical acclaim for their distinctive contemporary voice. During her weeklong session February 26 through March 2, Macdonald helps students focus on structuring a novel or story, using the storyboarding technique she developed and now uses for all of her own novels. 

More information on the post-conference workshops is found at www.sanmiguelworkshops.com. For more information on the 2007 San Miguel Writers’ Conference, see www.sanmiguelwritersconference.com. You can register through the web page or by purchasing a ticket at La Conexión (US$225) with either a US check or cash (exact change required in either dollars or peso equivalent) and a receipt will be emailed.