San Miguel de Allende is a magical place that inspires painters, musicians and writers. Every year in May, thanks to the Literary Sala, a handful of talented authors come together to read from their “Works in Progress.” This year, on May 9, the Sala is proud to present an evening of authors reading their newest works.

Literature
San Miguel Literary Sala presents:
“Works in Progress”
Twelve writers read from their current work
Thu, May 9, 5-7:30pm
Hotel Aldea
Ancha de San Antonio 15
70 pesos (50 pesos for Literary Sala members)
Includes wine reception

Frank Thoms will be reading Bystander, a nonfictional philosophical work about the power of stillness, which emerged from Thoms’ discovery as a teacher that doing, doing, doing often leads simply to more doing, rather than reflecting and contemplating, and invoking wu wei, doing without doing. Thoms’ piece Bystander is from Teaching That Matters: Engaging Minds, which is seeking a publisher.

Jim Knoch, a native of Missouri and retired antiques dealer from Colorado, is writing his first novel. He will be reading a selection from his historical fiction work, The Last Waltz, in which Henry Wilkins, a six-foot-seven medic, dejected after being wounded in the Civil War, travels west and settles on the Santa Fe Trial in Council Grove, Kansas.

Mark Johaningsmeir grew up in a small city north of Chicago, once the home of Jack Benny and Ray Bradbury. Johaningsmeir was a United Methodist minister and worked with congregations in Minnesota and Colorado. He will be reading from his memoir, Scenes from Life with My Father, an autobiographical collection of vignettes revealing parts of his father’s character that Johaningsmeir can see more clearly now than when they were unfolding.

Judith Jenya is a visual artist, painter and photographer. After a career as an art therapist and psychotherapist, she studied law and practiced for 12 years, becoming a peace activist. She founded Global Children’s Organization and was honored as International Humanist of the Year in Europe in 2002. She will be reading from a collection of her poetry entitled Life, Loss, Love. One poem deals with the sadness and renewal of war-ravaged Bosnian children, while other poems describe her joy in finding love and marriage in San Miguel.

Evie (E.E.) King also is connected to Ray Bradbury, who calls her stories “marvelously inventive, wildly funny and deeply thought provoking. I cannot recommend them highly enough.” King has worked with children in Korea, California and Bosnia, crocodiles in Mexico, frogs in Puerto Rico, egrets in Bali, mushrooms in Montana, archaeologists in Spain and butterflies in South Central Los Angeles. She will be reading selections from her anthology, Another Happy Ending, being released by PMM Press in October, 2013, a work of science fiction/fantasy, and so called because there really are no happy endings.

Beldon Butterfield’s latest book, Mexico Behind The Mask, was published in January 2013. Beldon, who came to Mexico in 1962 with Time Life International, calls himself an “Anglo-Argentine,” born and raised in Buenos Aires to British parents. He will be reading from his memoir, Once Upon a Time, a narrative historical work which tells of the time Argentina was a British colony. As Beldon says of the British influence in Argentina “un argentino habla español con acento italiano, se viste de francés y quiere ser inglés.” (An Argentine speaks Spanish with an Italian accent, dresses like the French, and wants to be English.)

Lee Bellavance’s articles, poems and short stories have appeared in dozens of publications, including the Atencion. Before discovering San Miguel in 2009, she was a producer, a publicist, an events coordinator and a journalist. On May 9 she’ll be reading from DogVille, a novella set in San Miguel that may morph into a novel.

Cynthia Huntington grew up in Yorkshire, England. After becoming a registered nurse, she joined Pan American World Airlines, flying to Europe, Mid-East, Africa and Hong-Kong. She is the author of Through Her Eyes – An Infidel’s Perspective, a book about her life in Muslim Turkey. Her reading will be an accounting of a memorable event entitled, “Jet Flight to Karachi 1962: The man in the bathroom.”

Grover Ellis has written articles, poems and short stories for the Washington Post, Houston Chronicle, Texas Monthly, Sierra Club Bulletin, True and other literary publications. He will be reading a short chapter taken from his novel, An American In Texas, a coming of age story centered on a difficult and troubled father-son relationship.

Sara Fasy arrived in San Miguel in 1977 with savings from her year on the Alaska Pipeline to study drawing and printmaking at the Instituto Allende. Fasy will be reading “Yellow,” a chapter from her memoir A San Miguel Story, a tale of the clash of cultures, the exploration of the other, and the love-hate that characterized her romance with both Mexico and the tall, curly-haired future husband from Xalapa, Veracruz. It’s a tale of births and deaths and all the glorious and aggravating extremes of raising children in a foreign land.

Matthew Carroll, once a San Miguel restaurateur, will read from his yet-untitled autobiography in which he describes the life story of a conflicted orphaned only child trying to understand and live with abandonment. His selection, “Sahara,” describes one of several life events where he has placed himself, with questionable motive, in harm’s way. It is written as he wishes his father had left such a chronicle. Also reading on May 9 will be Cynthia Simmons.

For Judyth Hill and Eva Hunter, writing is a way of life. Hunter knew she wanted to write before she could read. Hill began writing poetry in third grade at PS 166 in New York.

Literature
Judyth Hill and Eva Hunter
SOL literary reading
Thu, Mar 21, 4:30pm
Café Santa Ana
La Biblioteca
Reloj 50A

Poetry and prose are as different as these two literary divas, but each has a unique voice and style.

Hill and Hunter will be reading from their latest works on Thursday, March 21, at Café Santa Ana in the Biblioteca. Hill will be launching her seventh book of poetry, Dazzling Wobble, and Hunter will be reading from her soon-to-be published memoir, A Little Mormon Girl.

Playful and provocative with a dash of humor, Hill’s poetry begs to be read. “I love to read it…that’s what completes the circle of the creative act.”

Hunter brings her own unique voice and story in A Little Mormon Girl about her life “…growing up in a ‘Temple’ Mormon family, which supposedly is the highest order of Mormonism. In my family that was a façade that was very difficult for a little girl, then young woman to reconcile,” she says. “I reveal some of the most closely guarded secrets of Mormonism—some that many Mormons themselves do not know.”

Hunter emphasizes, however, her memoir is not an “expose.” “It is funny, sad, informative, and tells how one person escaped the physical and mental bonds of a very strong religion. It is also a story about coming to understand, and then forgive, my parents.”

Hill says the biggest influence in her life was attending Sarah Lawrence to study poetry with Galway Kinnell and Jane Cooper. “My most powerful transformers have been the poet Robert Bly, storyteller Gioia Timpanelli, and deep-ecology maestra Dolores LaChapelle, all of whom I was privileged to personally study with over a period of 25 years.”

“My writing, performing and teaching come from my faith in the delicate and intricate connection of our political, emotional, cognitive, spiritual, imaginational bodies, both within the self, and within the social web to each other,” Hill says.

Hunter grew up in a small Nevada town and moved to Portland, Oregon, where she raised her daughter, worked as a journalist and taught writing. She relocated to San Miguel in 1996. “I hated the cold and the rain and wanted to find a warmer place that had the same type of arts culture, and was a beautiful, comfortable place to live.”

Hill relocated from New York City to Santa Fe, where she wrote, raised her children and ran her bakery, “The Chocolate Maven.” She relocated to San Miguel five years ago after falling in love with her partner, Michael Mckenna, on the Internet. “We were way into it when I realized I had just moved my heart to Mexico! My life and furniture followed. It’s a life about passion and choices. And joy. And having fun.”

Both Hill and Hunter have a passion for writing that is clearly evident in their work. Hunter’s first book, The Lord of the Dolls: Voyage to Xochimilco, a literary nonfiction collaboration with arts photographer Jo Brenzo, has received special recognition by being accepted into the prestigious Benson Collection for Latin American Studies, University of Texas Libraries, Austin. “Very few books are placed in this permanent, world-regarded collection,” Hunter says. The book was a limited edition, which now sells for up to US$300 on E-bay, she adds.

Marge Fahey is a retired journalist from Washington, DC and an editor at Sol: English Writing in Mexico

Though she is probably best known in San Miguel de Allende as a photographer and painter, Lulu Torbet has never quit her “day job” as a ghostwriter and developmental editor/consultant. She is the author, ghostwriter or editor of over 30 books. On Tuesday, February 26, at 6pm, she will give the closing lecture of the 2013 PEN Lecture Series at the Teatro Angela Peralta. I talked with Lulu about just what it is she does and what she plans to discuss in her presentation.

Sheridan Sansegundo: First of all, how does one become a ghostwriter?

Lulu Torbert: Well, it’s not as though one grows up dreaming of becoming a ghostwriter. In my case, as has been the pattern of my life, it was an accident. The short version, which I’ll expand on in my talk, is that I got picked up on 6th Avenue in Greenwich Village in 1969 as I was selling my hand-made jewelry by an editor who was looking for someone to write a book on macramé, which was becoming a big craze. I refused, she persisted, I caved. I wrote a few craft books, which led to my getting an agent, which led to my agent having a client who needed a book written. Which led to…. well, you get the picture.

SS: What kind of books do you write? Do you have a particular niche?

LT: That first client was Dr. George Bach, one of the pioneers of the self-help movement. I wrote two books with him. More books with therapists and relationship gurus and related practitioners followed, all nonfiction. I wrote a couple of memoirs. Since the collapse of the traditional publishing business, and especially since moving to San Miguel seven years ago, I’ve worked mostly with private clients, often on shorter pieces, often simply as a consultant and developmental editor, including short stories and the occasional novel. A number of these projects end up being self-published, which no longer carries the stigma of “vanity” publishing.

SS: What are you going to focus on in your talk?

LT: I’ll start by addressing basic issues about what a ghostwriter does, how they find clients (and how an author finds a ghostwriter), how they charge for their work, and whether and how they are credited. But I want to concentrate on three topics. The publishing climate has changed drastically in the past decade, for both author and ghostwriter/consultant, so I want to discuss how that affects their working process and arrangements. I want to talk about the slithery issue of “truth” in memoir and nonfiction. Finally, I want to address the rarely discussed complexity of the relationship that inevitably develops between the client and the ghostwriter over the course of a project, and about the varied and often subtle roles that are part of the job description of the ghostwriter. I’ve got lots of anecdotes and funny stories to illustrate my thesis. I’m just trying to figure out how to “tell all” without naming names.

Your ticket entitles you to a free glass of wine or other beverage if you dine at Vivoli Restaurant after the talk. For more information: lucinakathmann@gmail.com

Literature
PEN presentation by Lulu Torbet
“Ghostwriter Tells All”
Tue, Jan 26, 6pm
Teatro Ángela Peralta
100 pesos

On Thursday, February 21, the Sol Literary Series will present readings by two outstanding San Miguel writers, Sharon Conklin and Sandra Gulland. The readings will take place at the Café Santa Ana in La Biblioteca at 4:30pm. Both writers are longtime San Miguel residents and are active members of the town’s literary community.

SOL Literary Series
Thu, Feb 21, 4:30-5:30pm
Cafe Santa Ana
La Biblioteca
Reloj 50A
80 pesos

While very different in subject matter and focus, Conklin and Gulland share a fascination with worlds beyond their personal experience. Conklin evokes the struggles of a Mexican boy who fights his way out of poverty, while Gulland carries her readers back to the glittering courts of Napoleon Bonaparte and Louis XIV.

Conklin comes to writing from a blend of careers. She is a photographer and has worked in the world of weaving and textiles. She is intrigued by the ways textiles reflect the cultures in which they are created; she wrote her master’s thesis on Bakuba cloth in Zaire. When she moved to San Miguel in 1991, she immersed herself in Mexican culture. She photographed the people and landscape as a way to understand “the depths and intricacies” of the country where she was living.

Back in her college days, Conklin was traumatized by the scathing criticism of a writing professor who gave her D’s and F’s on compositions. Thanks to healing through a series of writers’ workshops, she describes herself today as “a recovering word-a-phobic.” “Working in writing groups in San Miguel has been extremely helpful,” she says. “It keeps me going.” For Conklin, writing and photography work hand-in-hand. “I write because I photograph,” she says.

Conklin will read from her novel in progress. The work draws upon stories of growing up in Mexico, most gathered from her Mexican husband and from a close family friend. An excerpt, The Crossing, appeared in the March 2012 issue of Sol Literary Magazine.

Gulland grew up in Berkeley, California, and emigrated to Canada in 1969. In 1972, while working as an editor with the Canadian publisher Methuen, she happened to read a biography of Empress Josephine. “What a life!” she exclaims. “One of the things that amazed me was that when she was a teen, it was predicted that she would be married, then widowed, and then become ‘more than a queen.’ This prediction is documented.” The more she read, the more fascinated Gulland became. Once she determined to write a historical novel based on Josephine’s life, she embarked upon two decades of meticulous research. She even learned French so she could read primary source material and discuss Josephine and her times with French historians.

Gulland’s first novel, The Many Lives and Secret Sorrows of Josephine Bonaparte, was published in 1995. It was followed by Tales of Passion, Tales of Woe (1998) and The Last Great Dance on Earth (2000), completing a Josephine trilogy,

In the course of her research on Josephine, Gulland read about Louise de la Vallières, mistress to King Louis XIV. Once again, she became enthralled with a fiery, passionate woman of a historic era. Her fourth novel, Mistress of the Sun, was published in 2008

Gulland’s forthcoming novel, In the Service of the Shadow Queen, is scheduled to appear in the spring of 2014. It centers on the life of Claude des Oeillets, handmaid to divas during Louis XIV’s reign. It encompasses the world of the theater, the world of the French court, and, intriguingly, the world of black magic. Currently Gulland is at work on a pair of young-adult novels about Hortense, the daughter of Louise de la Vallières. “I have the feeling I’ll be in the Sun King’s court forever,” Gulland remarks.

When she plans a novel, Gulland constructs a massive timeline. She identifies the main character’s social network — all of the people she knows and the people who they know in turn. She determines where each of these characters is and what he or she is doing at every point in the novel. Layer by layer, she builds the world that the book will bring to life.

Gulland’s years of research have paid off in dazzling literary success. Her novels have sold in 15 countries and have been translated into 13 languages. Her work embodies her motto: “Overnight success takes 25 years.”

Sandra Gulland is a well-established writer; Sharon Conklin is a newcomer to the profession, beginning to emerge with her own distinctive voice. Together they offer a program you won’t want to miss!

Lecture
“Drug Trafficking and Literature: The Seduction of Crime”
Mon, Feb 18, noon
By Dr. Cecilia López Badano
Hotel Real de Minas
Free

Lecture
“Life on the Border — Building Bridges, Not Fences”
Mon, Feb 18, 6pm
By Luis Alberto Urrea
US$25 or 300 pesos
Hotel Real de Minas
Tickets available on line: www.sanmiguelwritersconference.org or at the door

Several of the celebrity authors arriving in town for the Writers’ Conference have agreed to offer extra lectures about current events. These three events are rare opportunities to hear historic figures discuss topics of current importance. They are all open to the public. All three lectures will take place in the Hotel Real de Minas ballroom on Monday, February 18.

“Drug Trafficking and Literature in Latin America: The Seduction of Crime” — Dr. Cecilia López Badano

Dr. López will bring an unusual perspective to our understanding of the drug trafficking that plagues Mexico. She has considerable experience with Latin American literature, and it is through this lens that she will examine the current situation. From fictional accounts of the drug wars to journalist’s reports, she will look at how this literature affects our lives.

Dr. Badano is a professor at the Autonomous University in Querétaro and has received numerous awards and fellowships for her pioneering work. She has presented papers to great acclaim in international congresses in the US, Latin America, and Europe. This lecture will be presented in English and simultaneously translated into Spanish. Admission is free.

“How Ms. Magazine Changed the World — And My Life!” — Suzanne Braun Levine

As the first editor of Ms. Magazine, Suzanne Braun Levine was at the very eye of the feminist hurricane that swept through the world in the ‘70s and permanently changed male/female relationships everywhere, from the bedroom to the boardroom. In this talk, she will give us a feel what it was like to be in the inner circle at that time of tumultuous societal change. We will hear an intimate account of a moment in history that permanently changed the world.

Ms. Levine is a nationally recognized authority on women, family issues and media. In addition to being the first editor of Ms. Magazine, she was the first woman editor of the Columbia Journalism Review. She produced the Peabody Award-winning HBO documentary She’s Nobody’s Baby: American Women in the 20th Century.  She is a blogger on Huffington Post and contributes to many other publications.

“Life on the Border — Building Bridges, Not Fences” — Luis Alberto Urrea

As one who grew up on the border, is both Mexican and American and has been a keen observer of border issues his entire life, Urrea brings much passion to the controversies and stories that hover around the border. While the US government is busy making enemies of Mexicans and pouring billions into keeping them out of the US, we expats are just as busy making close friends with Mexicans and decrying the US laws that devastate the lives of so many people. Does Luis Urrea see a way out?

Luis Alberto Urrea is a prolific and award-winning writer. He is a master of language and a gifted storyteller who uses his dual-culture life experiences to explore greater themes of love, loss and triumph. The author of fourteen books, Urrea has published extensively in many genres and has received many prestigious awards. The Devil’s Highway, his 2004 non-fiction account of a group of Mexican immigrants lost in the Arizona desert, won the Lannan Literary Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. This lecture will be presented in English and simultaneously translated into Spanish. Tickets may be purchased on line at www.sanmiguelwritersconference.org, or at the door. These lectures are not included in any of the Full Conference packages.

February is the ideal time to unleash and unblock your creativity in workshops with art therapist Rebecca Peterson and artists Angelina Pérez Ibargüen and Patricia Mahan. These workshops, designed to explore metaphors in our life, create a path between spirit and body by allowing the imagination to flourish. By exploring your own creativity, the art world that surrounds us in San Miguel de Allende becomes richer and more intimate.

Workshops

The House as Soul
Fri, Feb 8, 1pm-5pm
Visual Journaling & Jung’s Red Book: The Language of Trees
Fri, Feb 15, 1pm-4:30pm
SoulCollage
Fri, Feb 22, 1-4 pm
Windows to the Soul Art Studios
Register: mexrebe@yahoo.com/154-7010
www.windowstothesoulrebeccapeterson.blogspot.mx/

Angelina Pérez Ibargüen: “The House as Soul”

Installation and ceramics artist Angelina is a constant observer of the repetitive nature of everyday life. Her work captures precisely those little acts, gestures and movements that make us all so equally human and yet so unique. This interest in daily, contemporary urban life naturally led to “The House as Soul” workshop.

Participants will explore “house” as a metaphor of our inner world, our first universe, dwelling of fantasies and memories through games, introspective exercises, and art-making (collage, paint, clay). It is a way to gaze inwards and recognize, enjoy and laugh at our contradictions, differences and interconnections.

Rebecca Peterson: “The Language of Trees”

As trees are falling all around us — in Canada, in the Amazon — and the lungs of the planet are being annihilated, it is timely to reflect deeply on our relationship to Mother Nature. Trees are the breath of life for us and by destroying them we destroy our own breath.

C.G. Jung saw trees as the “direct embodiments of the incomprehensible meaning of life” and found great solace in Nature. For psychologist James Hillman they are not mere symbols but living entities which speak to us, part of anima mundi, a world ensouled.

Through visual journaling—collage, painting, writing in your personal book—the group will meditate on  the tree and its metaphors of rootedness, connection with earth and sky, and the tree’s particular language.

Patricia Mahan: “SoulCollage”

Mahan leads participants on a journey to ‘discover your wisdom, change your world’ by creating a personal deck of collaged cards which represent different aspects of your personality, community, and archetypal energies. Cards may then be ‘consulted’ for help in answering your life’s questions.

For registration contact Rebecca Peterson at mexrebe@yahoo.com or call 154-7010; for more details and photos go to http://www.windowstothesoulrebeccapeterson.blogspot.mx.

It’s a topic that fascinates gringo residents and tourists alike: what was San Miguel like in the 1950s and ’60s when the first wave of North Americans began arriving here — many to study art at Bellas Artes or the Instituto Allende, fueled by the GI Bill.

San Miguel Literary Sala presents
“San Miguel in the 1950s”
Mary Elmendorf, an early San Miguel ex-pat, presents her memoir
with a panel of North Americans and Canadians who lived here in the 1950s:
Siobhan Bryne, Barbara Dobarganes, Tim Hazell, and Beverly Silverman
Thu, Jul 26, 5-7pm
Posada San Francisco
cnr of Hidalgo and Canal
70 pesos, 50 pesos for Literary Sala members
www.sanmiguelliterarysala.org

Dr. Mary Elmendorf, a close friend of Stirling Dickinson and one of the first Americans to build a home in San Miguel, will appear at the Literary Sala to present her recently published memoir and to regale us with stories of those early days. Her presentation will be followed by a panel of other early American and Canadian ex-pats, including Tim Hazell, Beverly Silverman, Siobhan Bryne, and Barbara Dobarganes. A fascinating picture of post-war San Miguel is sure to emerge from this evening. Other early ex-pats are especially invited to attend to share their own insights.

Elmendorf is more than a person who has fascinating stories to tell about San Miguel. She has had an extraordinary career, and a fascinating life. Among many other interesting positions, she was the Director of CARE of Mexico for seven years, and was a participant in the Noble Peace Prize for refugee work she did in France after World War II. Her observations are informed by her cultural research and studies, culminating in a doctorate in anthropology from the Union Institute in 1972.

Elmendorf’s publishing credits take pages to list and include the groundbreaking work, Mayan Women and Change, which was also published in Spanish by the Mexican Ministry of Education. Her work in anthropology, alone enough to establish her as highly successful, is just one facet of this nonagenarian’s amazing career covering women’s rights, water resources, technology, development and more. She has traveled the world in the course of her many missions.

The participants in the panel that will follow Mary Elmendorf’s presentation have promised to tell little-known stories about those early days of the gringo presence here, to give us a flavor of what life was like then, before Vonage long distance, Internet, all the outer colonias, when burros outnumbered cars, and young men and women walked around the jardin in opposite circles in a kind of socially-approved ritual flirting.

The foibles of naïve gringos who come into the unfamiliar culture of Mexico are often the brunt of light conversation among ex-pats in San Miguel. Now writer Mark Saunders has turned this into an art form in his book Nobody Knows the Spanish I Speak. These are the memoirs of Mark as he and his wife move 3,000 miles from Portland, Oregon, to the middle of Mexico where they knew no one, and could barely speak the language. You don’t have to be totally clueless to be delighted by their familiar real-life adventures and misadventures. You only have to be able to laugh at yourself –something that Mark does with refreshing honesty throughout this book. Here’s an example:

“One day I came home to find Arlene explaining in Spanish to our housekeepers, Ana and María, that we were moving the following week to a new house one street over. When she finished, our two housekeepers jumped up and cried. They hugged us and cried some more. Arlene asked me what she had just said. I told her I believed she said we’d just bought them a new house and they could move in the following week.”

Literature: Book presentation of Nobody knows the Spanish I speak By Mark Saunders. Mon, Feb 27, 12pm. Café Etc. Reloj 37

The Center for Global Justice is presenting a book signing with Mark Saunders on Monday, February 27, at Juan’s Café Etc. He will entertain with stories from Nobody Knows the Spanish I Speak and have for sale autographed copies of the book as well as matted copies of cartoons from the book. It can also be purchased at the Biblioteca or ordered online from www.FUZEpublishing.com, Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, and iPad. It is available in paperback and ebook formats. Once you start reading, you’ll have trouble putting it down.

Shalom San Miguel presents its seventh annual literary program with readings of original fiction and poetry. The presentations from different Jewish perspectives will be tragic and comic in subject and tone and will involve intrigue and truth-telling. All are welcome to attend the reading.

Literature:7^th Annual Shalom San Miguel Literary Reading. Tue, Feb 28, 4pm. TV salon, Hotel Quinta Loreto, Loreto 15. 50 pesos

Sharon Leder, Milton Teichman, Lynda Schor, Judith Jenya, and Honora Simon will read from their writings. The authors will touch on spirituality, family themes across cultures, and the struggles of Jewish students in academia.

Sharon Leder, a former college teacher of literature, women’s studies and Jewish studies, has written on women’s experience of the Holocaust and is close to completion of a novel We All Fall Down from which she will read.

Milton Teichman, a painter and sculptor, is also a former college teacher of literature, writing, and Jewish studies. He edited, with Leder, Stories and Poems on the Holocaust (University of Illinois Press, 1996), which was nominated for the National Jewish Book Award. Teichman now exhibits his own painting and sculpture in the gallery he runs on Cape Cod. He is currently preparing a collection of his stories for publication. He will read from a current story about a graduate student working toward a PhD.

Lynda Schor is the author of five books of short fiction, including, Appetites, and The Body Parts Shop. Her most recent collection is Seduction: Stories of Love & Art, published by Spuyten Duyvil Press. She has had many articles and stories published in magazines such as Ms. Magazine, GQ Magazine, and Mademoiselle. She has been Writer In Residence at a variety of colleges and universities, and has taught fiction writing at The New School for 26 years.

Judith Jenya, resident of San Miguel, has contributed to this community’s cultural life as both artist and writer. Her drawings and color photographs have been exhibited in the Santa Ana Café. As a published writer of fiction, she is affiliated with the Authors’ Sala and has presented in their New Writers series as well as in the Writers’ Workshop. She will read from her poems on her family in Leningrad after their return from the Gulag in Siberia.

Honora Simon, a published poet, began penning poetry ten years ago. Her second cousin, Issac Rosenberg, a member of the World War One group of poets, has deposited a late- blooming poetry gene in her DNA. Her poetry raises themes of spirituality and God awareness. As a holistic interpersonal diplomate in clinical psychology, she finds poetry a great vehicle to express her philosophy of wholeness and peace.

This year Valentine’s Day presents a unique opportunity. You can focus on your own relationship — or lack thereof — or you can join sanmiguelense Austin Briggs, a 50-year professor of English Literature at Hamilton College, as he ponders his lifelong relationship with the poet Ezra Pound.

Lecture: Ezra Pound: My Fascist/Traitor/Lunatic/Anti-Semite/Genius Poet. A San Miguel PEN Lecture by Austin Briggs. Tue, Feb 14, 6pm. Ángela Peralta Theater. 100 pesos

I recently spoke with Austin about his talk.

Glenda Robinson: Austin, in your past five justifiably popular PEN lectures you’ve featured specific works of literature. But this time you’re going to shift gears and discuss Ezra Pound, his life and works, and your ambivalence about him. First of all, why does Pound merit your schizoid title?

Austin Briggs: Ezra Pound was one of the greatest poets of the 20th century. On top of that, he has a brilliant history of supporting other writers. As Hemingway famously said, “He defends (his friends) when they are attacked, he gets them into magazines and out of jail. He loans them money…he gets publishers to take their books. His sits up all night with them when they claim to be dying.” Pound was critical in bringing Hemingway, James Joyce and Robert Frost to prominence.

GR: And on the other side of the ledger?

AB: During World War Two, Pound delivered 120 broadcasts from Italy on behalf of Mussolini, denouncing America’s involvement in the war. After Italy fell, he was imprisoned by the US military and had a mental breakdown. Though charged with treason, he was judged unfit to stand trial and spent 12 years in a psychiatric hospital. And he was virulently anti-Semitic, frequently railing against “yids” and “kikes.”

GR: How did you forge such a personal connection with him?

AB: He was an alumnus of Hamilton, and when I went there to teach in 1957, I tracked down everyone who knew him and extracted their stories about him. Ten years later I had the good luck to spend a weekend with his son, Omar Shakespear Pound, and his wife Dorothy Shakespear. Omar offered me the chance to take scholarly possession of a treasure trove of his father’s papers to catalog and edit. Ultimately I turned him down because I didn’t know if I could ever get inside a mind so saturated with anti-Semitism. Then two years later, Pound arrived as a surprise guest for lunch at my house.

GR: And do you promise to share the story of that lunch with us, along with related stories of your personal interactions with John Updike, James Dickey, and other literary greats?

AB: I do.

GR: And do you think you will ever resolve your ambivalence about Pound? Do you think, as Saul Bellow wrote, that “the poet’s conviction (cannot) be separated from his poetry”?

AB: I don’t know. I’ve spent most of my life on the horns of exactly that dilemma. I look forward to tackling this topic with my PEN lecture audience. Maybe they can help me.

San Miguel PEN is one of 144 chapters of PEN International, the largest and oldest worldwide organization of professional writers. PEN is dedicated to promoting literature, supporting intellectual cooperation among writers, and fighting for freedom of expression. At any time there are about 1,000 writers and journalists on the PEN list who have been jailed, recently murdered, threatened or called to court for something they have written. Your contribution helps San Miguel PEN intervene on behalf of oppressed writers, and also helps fund scholarships for local students. For more information call 152-0614 or write lucina.kathmann@gmail.com.