Welcome to the Blog: Resistance is futile, you will be assimilated
By Kimberly Kinser July 11, 2008 San Miguel de Allende

Authors’ Sala
Ron Hogan & Kathleen Hudson
Fri, July 11, 5–7pm
St. Paul’s Church
Cardo 6
50 pesos

Ron Hogan has something very important to teach us about writing and publishing in 2008 and beyond: The Blog. Probably only a few in the audience will not have read a blog and many have their own blogs online. A Google search of “blogs San Miguel de Allende” shows 286,000 choices. Try “blogs writers” and begin sorting through 13,600,000 options. Don’t forget about Facebook and MySpace and other social networking sites. Wikipedia lists 125 different sites as “well known.” Search “writers” on MySpace and receive 207 choices. Someone excited and motivated to become an active member of this culture still may not know where to start.

Maybe it would be more comforting to just go down to the Biblioteca and check out a copy of Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style. That book is something we can all understand.

Do not fear. If Hogan can translate the Tao Te Ching in straightforward language, the blog and the social network will be a piece of cake.

In 1995 Hogan created Beatrice.com, one of the longest running literary websites. The site introduces its readers to authors through interviews.

“For the last decade, I’ve been sharing my passion for books and writers as a bookseller, a book reviewer and review editor, and as an independent observer of the publishing scene. At the end of the day, if I’ve gotten you interested enough to pick up a book and start reading, my goal’s been met, Hogan says. “And hopefully, in the near future, more of those books will be mine!”

Hogan is the author of The Stewardess Is Flying the Plane: American Films in the 1970s. A review by Publishers Weekly reports “While the text is engrossing and written with verve, the photos are the real delight. Some are candid shots from the set, others promotional stills, and a few—enough, perhaps—are favorite scenes from favorite films (like M*A*S*H’s version of The Last Supper). As coffee-table books go, this is one of the year’s most fun.”

After 10 years at Beatrice.com, Hogan decided to move into the blog format with GalleyCat. Here he explores ways that authors can take greater control over their literary careers.

The feel of GalleyCat is very different from Beatrice. GalleyCat is more personal—more photos of people in social settings, YouTube videos and links to other sites of interest to writers and about writers.

Hogan will have much to offer us from his experience with his websites and blogs. Perhaps the most enlightening portion of his time with us will be to get us ready for social networking. On his LinkedIn profile (one of those 125 well-known social networking sites), Bella Stander, proprietor of Book Promotion 101 who worked with Ron at mediabistro.com, shared this: “Ron is the ultimate GalleyCat: He seems to go everywhere and know everyone in the publishing business. He’s a gentleman, a scholar and an excellent writer. And above all, he’s a joy to be around.”

Join the Authors’ Sala for an entertaining introduction to the hippest happenings in networking. Bring your camera and maybe this event will be the first entry on your new blog.

Kimberly Kinser is the creator of Pizarra Blanca Writers, an Amherst Writers & Artists workshop offered in San Miguel.

Book Fever
By Marcia Loy

Checking in with Ann Patchett

Ann Patchett is unique: a generous, fearless, and startlingly wise young writer.

—New York Times Book Review



The Patron Saint of Liars, 1992. Patchett’s debut novel, a New York Times Notable Book, is the story of an enigmatic woman named Rose who shows up at a home for unwed mothers in Kentucky in the sixties.

Excerpt: I was somewhere outside of Ludlow, California, headed due east toward Kentucky, when I realized that I would be a liar for the rest of my life. There was plenty of time to think about things like that, headed into the desert alone, windows down, radio up. I imagined that it was possible for people to have talents, great talents, that they never stumbled across in the course of their lives. Somewhere out there, maybe in one of those African countries where all people have time to do is starve to death, was a painter who had never seen a canvas. Maybe he scratched simple pictures into the dirt with a stick, and it felt right to him even if he didn’t know what it meant. So maybe I was born to lie, and it just took me twenty-three years to find the reason to do it. I started out with a lie of omission, which some people might see as easier, but I think is actually more complex. I left my husband with only a note.

The Magician’s Assistant, 1997. This was Patchett’s third novel and her development as a writer is evident. Like Rose in The Patron Saint of Liars, Parsifal the magician has a secret. This novel is set in Los Angeles in the nineties and Sabine, the wife of the magician as well as his assistant, discovers the family he told her was dead is very much alive and living in Nebraska.

Excerpt: Trial lawyers wait for their first murder case, painters for a show at the LA Contemporary. Actresses wait for feature films, weekly sitcoms, cat food commercials, or a well-attended party. Magicians waited for Carson. There was very little justice. If Carson went down to the Magic Castle after The Tonight Show, had a couple of drinks, there was no telling what assistant-sawing, half-rate would be invited back to national television. Still, who could complain? If it weren’t for Carson, the only magician America would have access to would have been Doug Henning, his big-toothed grin floating through the occasional special.

Bel Canto, 2001. In an unnamed South American country, opera soprano Roxanne Coss has agreed to sing at the birthday party of a Japanese businessman. The entire party is taken hostage by a group of terrorists. Patchett won the Orange Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award for this, her fourth novel.

Excerpt: When the lights went off, the accompanist kissed her. Maybe he had been turning towards her just before it was completely dark, maybe he was lifting his hands. There must have been some movement, a gesture, because every person in the living room would later remember a kiss. They did not see a kiss, they claimed they could identify the type of kiss: it was strong and passionate, and it took her by surprise. They were all looking right at her when the lights went out. They were still applauding, each on his or her feet, still in the fullest throes of hands slapping together, elbows up. Not one person had come anywhere close to tiring. The Italians and the French were yelling, “Brava! Brava!” and the Japanese turned away from them. Would he have kissed her like that had the room been lit? Was his mind so full of her that in the very instant of darkness he reached for her, did he think so quickly?

Check out her second novel, Taft, which is in the Gloria Grant room. It’s a lovely book. I haven’t read her latest, but the library has it.

Next week, Book Fever looks at three disparate modern novels.

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.