The women behind a great man
By Emily Hamilton January 16, 2009 San Miguel de Allende

PEN Winter Lecture Series
Joseph Persico
The Women in FDR’s Life
Tue, Jan 20, 6pm
Bellas Artes
Hernández Macías 75
50 pesos

Joseph Persico, world-renowned biographer, will discuss his latest work, Franklin & Lucy: President Roosevelt, Mrs. Rutherfurd, and the Other Remarkable Women in His Life, in this second talk in the Winter Lecture Series sponsored by the San Miguel Chapter of International PEN.

If behind every great man there is a great woman, then US President Franklin D. Roosevelt had several. Though FDR is often remembered for his New Deal policy, 12-year term, leadership during Pearl Harbor and partnership with Eleanor, Persico’s latest historical biography uncovers the hidden life of America’s 32nd president—which included a 30-year romantic affair with Eleanor’s personal secretary Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd. They documented their relationship in letters, love letters which Eleanor discovered in Franklin’s luggage early in the affair. With his mother’s threat to disown him should he divorce his wife, Franklin remained in his marriage to Eleanor. But despite his public façade, he could never sever his relationship with Lucy. In fact, Persico illustrates that Franklin’s marriage to Eleanor was much more complicated than perceived to be. The book poignantly illustrates the great mystery that can exist even behind one of the world’s most public figures.

The many women who surrounded FDR throughout his life all became major influences on the president. Franklin & Lucy provides an in-depth account of the many close female figures in Roosevelt’s life: his wife; his lover; his favorite child, Anna; his mother, Sara; his cousin, Daisy; and his secretary, Missy LeHand. The biography explores how each of these relationships shaped and changed President Roosevelt, and gives previously unheard-of insight into his psyche. Thanks to Rutherfurd’s granddaughters, Persico received copies of the original love letters between Franklin and Lucy. Excerpts of these letters are featured in the book, giving it a timeless authenticity. Through his research, Persico is able to provide other evidence of the ongoing liaison between the president and his mistress. This evidence includes one of the president’s few published writings, the remembrance Lucy wrote when FDR died, Lucy’s account of her conversation with him the day he died and several photos.

Published in April 2008, Franklin & Lucy has received a positive appraisal all around. Publishers Weekly called it “intriguing,” saying that, “Persico engagingly and eloquently narrates the tangled relationships between Franklin and the various women to whom he became close… Persico offers what will prove an important, lasting addition to the literature of the Roosevelts.”

Joseph Persico is a member of San Miguel PEN. Though he primarily lives in upstate New York, he visits San Miguel frequently and is an active member in the community. Before becoming a historian and a well-known biographer, Persico was a speechwriter for New York governor and later US Vice President Nelson Rockefeller. His books include The New York Times bestseller Roosevelt’s Secret War: FDR and World War II Espionage; Edward R. Murrow: An American Original; Nuremburg: Infamy on Trial and My American Journey which he co-authored with Colin Powell. Persico is also a frequent reviewer for The New York Times Book Review. 

The San Miguel Chapter of International PEN sponsors local and statewide literary programs and scholarships. San Miguel PEN also participates in major Mexican and regional literary events, such as the enormous Feria Internacional del Libro (the FIL) in Guadalajara. San Miguel PEN members travel at their own expense to the United Nations and many International PEN conferences. Proceeds from the Winter Lecture Series fund local activities, interventions on behalf of writers around the world who are in trouble for what they have written and help support the international organization. For more information, contact Lucina Kathmann: lucina.kathmann@gmail.com  or 152-0614. 

Emily Hamilton is the 17-year-old editor of Palo Alto High School’s Verde Magazine in California.

Workshops get writers’ work into the marketplace
By Cynthia Simmons

4th Annual Writer’s Conference & Literary Festival
February 20-24 
Featuring Erica Jong & Todd Gitlin
Teatro Ángela Peralta & Biblioteca Pública
US$195
www.sanmiguelwritersconference.com 

You’ve spent hours alone with your laptop, drinking too much—either coffee or alcohol—over-snacking for months, chain smoking, if you still have that habit. Finally your manuscript is complete! Now…what the hell do you do with it? This year’s San Miguel Writers’ Conference and Literary Festival offers workshops at the Biblioteca Pública that provide several answers to this question. Whether you’re writing fiction or non-fiction, books, short stories, essays, or poetry, workshops offered at this year’s Conference will help you learn how to get your work into the marketplace.

Who could give you better advise about Creating a Winning Book Proposal (Saturday, Feb 21, 10:15-11:15am) than forty-year publishing veteran Fred Hills, former Editor-in-Chief of McGraw-Hill's General Book Division followed by Vice President and Senior Editor at Simon and Schuster. The book proposal is the writer’s chance to entice an editor to publish his work. Hills believes that in an increasingly difficult marketplace, an effective proposal will be more important than ever to a writer’s success in finding a publisher for their work. In addition to teaching this workshop, Hills will be one of the panelist discussing How Changes In The Publishing Industry Affect You (Saturday, Feb 21, 11:45am-12:45pm). When asked about recent changes in industry, Hills had this to say, “For the past few decades, we have seen enormous changes in book publishing… But in the last dozen years the most revolutionary change has been the advent of the internet,… and even more important, the effort by publishers to meet the challenge of the digital age…” 

Finding a publisher doesn’t mean your book will sell—many great titles languish on bookstore shelves or in the warehouses of internet booksellers. Sandra Gulland, author of four historical novels, believes, “the promotion of a book is a responsibility shared between the publisher and the author.” In the current marketplace, increasing it’s the internet that delivers books and information about new titles to consumers. Ms. Gulland’s workshop, Online Promotions the Basics, provides authors with ways to use the internet to get their title into the hands of readers. “Increasingly, the author is key,” states Gulland. “On-line promotion is only one aspect of book promotion, but as print media declines, it is becoming more and more important. Happily, it is one area an author can, in fact, do quite a bit to further the success of a book.”

For authors considering self-publication, Sally Shields’ workshop, How to Become an Amazon.com Bestseller (Saturday, Feb 21, 11:30am-12:30pm) will be invaluable. Shields was determined to publish the old-fashioned way, through a publishing house. But after numerous rejections she decided to self-publish her manuscript. Initially this felt like failure but she now feels, “I was so lucky that my manuscript was rejected by over 15 publishers.” Her book, The Daughter-In-Law Rules: 101 Surefire Ways to Manage (and Make Friends With) Your Mother-in-Law, became an Amazon.com bestseller. When Sally made the decision to self-publish, she had no idea of its benefits—retaining creative control over your work, choosing your own cover, retaining most of the royalties and going after special sales and corporate sponsorships. Many self-published titles are reaching larger readerships. Ms. Shields’ workshop can provide you with techniques to promote and market your self-published book. 

Major publisher are less and less interested in noncommercial titles by unknown authors; but not everyone’s manuscript has the potential to be a bestseller. This is where literary journals play an absolutely crucial role in publishing, according to author Paul Headrick. Headrick, whose new collection of stories, The Doctrine of Affections, will be published by Freehand Books in 2010, says, “They [literary journals] provide an important outlet for unknown writers working in noncommercial genres. Writers of poetry or literary fiction at the beginning of their careers can establish their credibility by publishing in journals …” There are hundreds of literary journals and Publishing in Literary Journals (Sunday, Feb 24, 10:15-11:15am) will help writers sort through this chaos so that they can discover which journals might be interested in their manuscript.

If self publishing is not your thing and all you’re collecting from publishers is rejection slips, author Sue McKinney de Ortega can help you Launch Your Publishing Career (Sunday, Feb 22, 11:30am-12:30pm). In this workshop, writers will discover how to narrow the search for where to publish, how to get attention as a writer, how to toot their own horn and will also obtain an abundance of ideas about where to place their essays, articles, short stories and novel excerpts.

A total of 20 workshops will be offered at this year’s conference. Sally Shields will provide more in-depth information on their topics during her 2-day intensive workshop February 23 and 24, and Fred Hills is the prize for one of the writing contest—6 contest winners will have the opportunity to meet with him. The complete schedule for the Conference and Literary Festival is posted on its website, www.sanmiguelwritersconference.com. 

Cynthia Simmons is a writer and arts development consultant living in San Miguel de Allende.