cont. from front page,

San Miguel Writers’ Conference and Literary Festival

Fri–Tue, Feb 20–24
Guests: Erica Jong, Todd Gitlin & Josephine Humphreys
Hotel Real de Minas
Ancha de San Antonio & Stirling Dickinson
www.sanmiguelwritersconference.com 


San Miguel Writers’ Conference and Literary Festival
Fri, Feb 20
2pm: Guest speaker, Erica Jong
5pm: On-stage book group with Erica Jong
6:30pm: Wine and botanas

Sat, Feb 21
9:15am: Session 1 
10:30am: Session 2
11:45: Panel Discussion
Fred Hills, C.M. Mayo, Gina Hyams and Susan Page, moderated by Lulu Torbet
4pm: Guest Speaker, Todd Gitlin
5pm: On-stage book group with Todd Gitlin

Sun, Feb 22
9:15am: Session 3
10:30am: Session 4
11:45am: Session 5
2pm: Guest Speaker, Josephine Humphreys
4pm: Poetry reading, Erica Jong
5pm: Book signing, Erica Jong, Todd Gitlin and Josephine Humphreys 

This year, for the first time, the festival presents the Teen Writers’ Workshops, founded by author Dianna Hutts Aston and festival director Jody Feagan. These workshops focus on writing instruction for students, ages 14 to 18. 

The Writers’ Conference

One of the major attractions within the festival is the Writers’ Conference which features renowned writers like John Berendt, author of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and Sena Jeter Naslund, author of Ahab’s Wife, who have appeared at past festivals. This year the keynote speakers are Erica Jong, Todd Gitlin and Josephine Humphreys.

Erica Jong is a novelist, poet and essayist who has published 20 books including eight novels, six volumes of poetry, six nonfiction books and numerous articles for magazines and newspapers.

Jong has been honored with the United Nations Award for Excellence in Literature and with the Deauville Award for Literature in France. Among her books are the novels Fear of Flying, How to Save Your Own Life and Parachutes and Kisses; and books of essays, Seducing the Demon: Writing for My Life and The Devil at Large: Erica Jong on Henry Miller. This year, she will read from her new book of poetry Love Comes First and participate in an on-stage book group about her featured book, Sappho’s Leap, on February 20 at 5pm, and on February 22 at 4pm. Jong will also be signing many of her bestselling books, available for purchase on the premises.

Todd Gittlin is a political activist and author of 12 books, including most recently, The Bulldozer and the Big Tent: Blind Republicans, Lame Democrats, and the Recovery of American Ideals.

He also has written for The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post and dozens of other publications. He holds degrees from Harvard University (mathematics), the University of Michigan (political science) and the University of California (sociology). He will speak on “The Recovery and Revival: Obama and the New Prospects,” and also will appear in an on-stage discussion of his book The Bulldozer and the Big Tent, on February 21 at 4pm. 

Josephine Humphreys was born in Charleston, South Carolina, which is also the setting of her first three novels Dreams of Sleep, Rich in Love and Fireman’s Fair.

While her first three novels are mainly about contemporary family life in the South, her fourth, Nowhere Else on Earth, is an historical novel based on a true story from the American Civil War. It won the Southern Book Award in 2001. Her novel Rich in Love was taken to the screen in 1993, starring Albert Finney and Jill Claybourgh. She will speak at the Writer’s Conference on February 22 at 2pm.


Teen Writers’ Workshops

This year, the festival, along with The Oz Project (a nonprofit organization serving disadvantaged children and young adults) will launch the first San Miguel Teen Writers’ Workshop, which will be free for 30 Mexican children who attend school or live in orphanages in San Miguel. “To select the children who would attend the workshops, we asked the orphanage to nominate children,” said festival director Jody Feagan. “We asked the library, we contacted parents of teens and teachers too. Anyone who knows of a teen who is interested in writing and would like to attend can nominate a teen.”

Feagan said that the workshops are designed and taught by talented, published authors, Betsy James and Sue McKinney de Ortega, who “will introduce teens to the world of writing and offer instruction on ways to better their writing skills.”

“The instructors are all bilingual and have taught workshops in Spanish before. An assistant, Marcela, is bilingual and will handle questions students may have,” she said, and added that all supplies for the children are free. At the end of the course, three participants will receive new laptop computers in a drawing and all works will be published in their writing gallery. The workshops are “Heart, Hand and Eye: Exploring Graphic Novels,” given by James, and “Blogging for Inspiration” by McKinney.




Tourism Council promotes “the good life” in San Miguel
By Jesús Ibarra 

Guillermo González Engelbrecht, head of the Tourism Council, gave his annual report on February 12.

He said that when the council was formed in 2003 it had an annual budget of 890,000 pesos, but in 2008, thanks to support of local, state and federal governments, along with hotel and restaurant owners, its budget was more than 10.5 million pesos. Most of the funds are used to advertise San Miguel in national and foreign media. González Engelbrecht also presented his plans for 2009. 

Distribution of the budget

González Engelbrecht said that during 2008, 53 percent of the budget was spent on a national media campaign. “This plan consisted mainly of selling the image of ‘the good life in San Miguel,’ which is what makes this city different from other cultural tourist destinations in Mexico,” said González Engelbrecht, who added that the national media plan also included offering tourist packages including hotel fees, transportation—and even breakfast in some cases—through Viajes Palacio, the travel agency of the Mexican department store Palacio de Hierro, and the first-class bus line ETN. Cultural festivals were also publicized in the media. “We had a very strong campaign to spread news of San Miguel’s appointment as a UNESCO World Heritage site on local, national and international TV channels such as Travel and Living, Golden Choice, Warner TV and Sony TV,” said Engelbrecht. “On the internet, San Miguel is highlighted on the travel sites travelbymexico.com, meetingsmexico.com and viajespalacio.com.” 

According to González Engelbrecht, San Miguel also participated in tourist-related promotional events such as the “Tianguis Turtístico de Acapulco.” 

Eighteen percent of the budget was set aside for an international media campaign, which consisted mainly of promoting the city on websites such as tripadvisor.com, fromers.com, sidestep.com, fodors.com, dallasnews.com and chron.com, as well as 10 billboards at Dallas–Fort Worth airport and four full-page ads in Virtuoso Life magazine and two more in Virtuoso Insight. “Although the majority of our tourists are Mexican, we are still looking toward international tourism; we recently participated in the 20th Travel Mart and the Aeroméxico Leisure Caravan, giving lectures to travel agencies about San Miguel in cities such as Chicago, Detroit, Houston, Atlanta and New York,” said Engelbrecht. 

Three percent of the Tourism Council’s budget was used to print maps and create cultural agendas, promotional DVDs and brochures promoting San Miguel as a good place to get married. 

Engelbrecht remarked on the importance of public relations. “We have recently signed an agreement between San Miguel de Allende, Pátzcuaro and Ixtapa, and we can now sell to tourist packages including colonial cities and the beach. Tourists arrive in San Miguel and then we take them to Pátzcuaro and Ixtapa, taking advantage of the airports in León and Ixtapa.”

Hotel occupancy remained steady

According to Engelbrecht, the hotel occupancy rate grew by 1 percent in 2008. “We also saw a 15 percent increase in revenue from lodging taxes, up from 2,940,000 pesos in 2007 to 3,384,000 in 2008. This was the result of an increase in the register room availability (we had a campaign to register more hotels) and of an increase in the demand for rooms too. If there had been only an increase in the room availability and not in the demand, the hotel occupation percentage would have been decreased.” 

Goals for 2009 

“Although we are in the midst of an economic crisis, we must continue to show San Miguel as a tourist destination of the highest quality,” said Engelbrecht. “We will keep selling its image with the slogan ‘If you like the good life, come to San Miguel, the heart of Mexico.’” “The heart of Mexico” is a registered name for San Miguel, and no other city or place in Mexico can use it.

Englebrecht added that his 2009 tourism promotion plans include three main points: a heightened campaign to bring more people to San Miguel to get married; advertising the city’s many festivals and promoting business visitors to remedy the lack of visitors from Sunday though Thursday. 

“We will open a new office within the Tourism Council, the Custom Relationship Management Office, a public relations and trade office which will send out press releases for every event in the city, hotel promotions, discounts and tourist packages to travel agencies in Mexico and the US, as well as to the 590 Virtuoso travel agencies in our database.” He added that hotel owners or managers who are members of the Tourism Council will have direct access to this database on CD so that they can promote themselves. “The job of the Tourism Council is to promote the city; but it is the hotel owners and managers who have to sell their services.”

He said that his proposal for disseminating tourist information includes printing maps of the city with every participating business indicated; a newly designed cultural agenda in English and Spanish; and a new design for the website, city guides, restaurant guides and a special guide for the San Miguel–Atotonilco tourist corridor. 

Engelbrecht said that the budget is 10,200,000 pesos for the national media project and 2,400,000 for the international media project. He added that 500,000 pesos will be spent on a stand at Palacio de Hierro in Polanco, one of the richest neighborhoods in Mexico City. 

“This stand will promote San Miguel at the beginning of May, in an attempt to bring in more tourists during that traditionally slow period,” he said.

Distribution of 2008 tourism budget (in pesos)

General expenses 1,284,410 

Tourist information 321,102 

National promotion 214,069 

International promotion 214,069 

National media project 5,672,811 

International media project 1, 926,615 

Public relations 214,068 

Support for cultural events 856,273 

A new US Embassy virtual program for the Bajío
By Jesús Ibarra

On February 11, Chargé d’Affaires Leslie Basset, on behalf the US Embassy, launched a new Virtual Presence Post (VPP) to promote interaction between people of the US and the people of El Bajío, including the states of Guanajuato, Querétaro and the eastern half of Michoacán. The goal is to achieve the benefits of a full-time US physical diplomatic presence to deepen the country’s engagement with these Mexican states. A similar program exists already for Chiapas and Tabasco. El Bajío was chosen for the new VPP because of its strong ties with the US, since thousands of Mexicans from this area live and work throughout the US, and thousands of tourists from the US visit El Bajío every year. 

The VPP’s content includes information about Embassy events and activities in the area, articles about the residents of El Bajío—both Mexicans and Americans—tips for students and businesses, and information about American citizen services, travel and visas. 

At the end of the meeting, State Department security agent Josh McNichols touched on the current security problems in Mexico. Some of the key points he mentioned were: Avoid border areas where violence is “peaking”; avoid political demonstrations; exercise common sense security measures like good locks, bars, dogs, and alarms and become aware of your surroundings

Clean-up project in Arroyo de las Cachinches
By Jesús Ibarra

The 400,000-peso first stage of a clean-up project at Arroyo de las Cachinches began February 12, through Fondo Verde (Green Fund). The fund is designated for the performance of professional studies and works in the 203 micro-basins in San Miguel de Allende, branches of the Lerma-Chapala basin. 

Different local departments, like Public Works, Ecology, Public Services, Civil Protection and SAPASMA, collaborate in these efforts to improve the streambed through machine cleaning in the area between Obraje and Libramiento Manuel Zavala and collecting the garbage and weeds. 

Some sewage leaks from the local slaughterhouse also will be fixed. Run-off will be channeled into the absorption well, which will be maintained weekly to avoid exceeding its capacity. All these actions will be permanent until the opening of the new slaughterhouse. 

The Ecology Department, through different studies, has detected a gas accumulation coming from the Arroyo, in the sector behind Andador Lucas Balderas. SAPASMA will build a collector in March, which will channel the water to the wastewater treatment plant. The project starts February 26, with the installation of five chimneys that let the gas escape. Three of them will be permanent and two will be temporary. A collector budgeted at 1.5 million pesos will be built before the rainy season starts in July.

Lectures of the UNAM (National Autonomous University of Mexico) College of Economy 

All lectures are in Spanish and free. 
Teatro Santa Ana
Reloj 50A


Financial Crisis and Perspectives
Roberto Escalante Semerena
Feb 21, 2pm

Sceneries of climatic changes and environmental risks (within the crisis)
Eduardo Vega
Mar 14, 2pm

Economic crisis in History
Antonio Ibarra
April 25, 2pm

Businesswomen speak about falling peso, economic crisis
By Jesús Ibarra

In the current worldwide financial crisis the Mexican peso has lost value, and the economy is in a recession. Atención asked a group of Mexican businesswomen how the crisis has affected their lives and livelihoods. 

María Ofelia Orozco, beauty clinic owner  Business has slowed down, and clients who used to ask for two or three different services at the same time now ask for only one. This began in September, just after the first devaluation of the peso. My fees are in pesos, not in dollars. I increased them slightly in January. I always base my increases

 on the prices charged by the laboratories that sell the products I use. I have been in this business 22 years, and this is the first time the number of American clients has decreased—and most of my clients are Americans. This crisis is worse than the one in 1994. We are now in high season and people are thinking twice before coming in.

Alejandrina Martínez, accountant I think the peso devaluation is indeed affecting the economy. At the beginning of the year I review my list of clients, and I have found that a lot of businesses have closed.

I have not increased my fees, since that would hurt my clients even more, although this affects me adversely because most prices have increased. However, the government has tried to control the costs of basic goods. For example, they said the price of propane would decrease, and it did. There are many products, though, that we regularly buy that have gone up in price. 

Alejandra García Mendiola, hotel manager Many hotel fees are in dollars, and this has affected tourism in Mexico. I think that all fees should be in pesos, since we are in Mexico.

The cost of some products made from imported materials has gone up, for example furniture, clothing, and chemical products. Mexican-made products have not increased so much during recent months, since that large increase in the cost of tortillas. However, I think we have been in an economic crisis a long time. 

Alejandra García de Zavala, accountant

Besides working at a home security firm I also have private clients, and I have not increased my fees. I have noticed that there is a lot of unemployment and that a lot of people come to the office looking for a job. Regarding the cost of common items, although some staples have decreased in price others have increased, and grocery shopping it is now more expensive than before.

Chelo Agundis, drugstore owner Sales have decreased compared to last year. There is a shortage of some pharmaceuticals; our orders for some products are not being filled, and the ones we do receive are more expensive.

Prices for some goods and services in general have increased, but what is most important is to keep working, no matter what the situation is. 


Yolanda Lacarieri, boutique owner

There has been an impressive decrease in sales, and people do not pay in dollars anymore. In San Miguel, many real estate owners charge rent in dollars. I have noticed that when I go to the supermarket I spend about 40 percent more than before. I think this is an opportunity to become economically independent of our northern neighbor. 


Raquel Trejo, café owner 

Currently, everything is so expensive that we have to buy only the most basic things for our home; it is not like before, when we could buy other things. Sales have decreased. People do not want to spend money on a cup of coffee, and some businesses are almost empty, which may cause more unemployment. Even the flow of foreign residents has decreased in the café.


.