Guest-blogger Peter Behrens on 4 Canadian and 1 Irish Writers You Must Read

St Patrick's Day edition! My guest-blogger today is my Yaddo and VCCA amigo, Peter Behrens, whose most recent novel is The O'Briens (Pantheon, March 2012), which has been garnering glowing reviews as he takes it on a coast-to-coast tour. Behrens is also the author of the historical novel The Law of Dreams, and he blogs about trucks, cars, highways, aesthetics, and good writing at autoliterate. Where does he get his inspiration? Maybe it's from hanging out part of the year under the starry skies of Marfa, Texas. The New York Times recently profiled Behrens and his family in A Moth to Marfa's Flame: At Home with Peter Behrens by Penelope Green, along with a slide show, A Winter Home in the West Texas Desert. That said, the best novelists always draw inspiration from other novelists; here are five Behrens recommends.

Four Canadian and 1 Irish Writers You Must Read
By Peter Behrens

Alistair Macleod. His novel No Great Mischief won the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award in 1999. The novel is superb but the best of his short stories are transcendant. They were originally published in 2 collections: The Lost Salt Gift of Blood and As Birds Bring Forth the Sun. (The 2 volumes were collected and published in the United States as ISLAND in 2000. There are any number of Checkhov-calibre Macleod stories: two of my favorites are "Vision", and "The Closing Down of Summer". "The Tuning of Perfection" belongs right up there as well. Macleod was born in Saskatchewan, into a family of expatriate Nova Scotians. They soon returned to NS, and MacLeod grew up in Inverness County, on Nova Scotia's Cape Breton Island. The culture he grew up within was shaped by Catholic Highlanders and Islandmen who emigrated from Scotland in the middle of the 19th century. It's a world much involved with the sea, and with fishing and coal mining; where Scottish Gaelic is still a common language (more common on Cape Breton than in Scotland, in fact.) The ancient world infuses Macleod's stories, but they are anything but quaint, sentimental, or bucolic. The stories operate like novels: they contain worlds; they are often open-ended. They resonate.


Joseph Boyden so far has published two remarkable novels, Three Day Road and Through Black Spruce. Three Day Road is about Cree solidiers serving in the Canadian Army during WWI. Through Black Spruce which won the Scotiabank Giller Prize in 2008. It's protagonst is a legendary bush pilot, son of one of the characters in the first novel. Boyden has Mètis heritage and his characters come out of that rich, impoverished, complex northern world of mixed race and mixed identity. Sometimes they choose between the northern world and the world "away"; sometimes the choice is made for them. They engage with the history of their time. This guy knows how to write. Beautiful sharp sentences.

Alice Munro. Why hasn't this writer won the Nobel Prize? Call me paranoid, but could it be because she's Canadian? Canada is too safe, white, and familiar to be exotic, but does not have the heft and presence on the international literary stage that say the US, Britain, and France do. There has been a spectacular "naissance" (as opposed to renaissance) of Canadian literature in English over the last twenty-five years, and I believe that the clear, weird, dangerous, beautifully constructed, and deceptively simple Munro stories that over the last four decades have been appearing in The New Yorker and in collections like Lives of Girls and Women, The Moons of Jupiter, and The Progress of Love are part of the reason why. The best Munro stories operate as very dense, very rich, compact novels. Nothing gets tied up neatly. Try her story "The Albanian Virgin", for example. Nobel judges please sit up and take notice: there are few writers who have created such a brilliant body of work over a long career. The title of her 2001 collection was Hateship Courtship Friendship Loveship Marriage but Munro's no miniaturist: her themes are the major ones.

Clark Blaise Blaise is finally getting (overdue) attention this year, thanks to the success of his recent story collection, The Meagre Tarmac. I'm happy to consider Blaise a Canadian writer even though he was born in North Dakota, attended the Iowa Writers' Workshop (during the illustrious Ray Carver era), and has lived and taught in the United States for most of his life. His parents were both Canadians, from opposite sides of the cultural divide (English/French; Western/Quebecois; middle class/not middle class). Blaise grew up mostly in the Deep South, and in the Midwest, where his French Canadian father, Leo Blais, recreated himself as Lee Blaise, furniture salesman extraordinaire. Clark Blaise lived and taught in Montreal for a ten-year period, and that era produced some of his most remarkable fictions: (the stories in Tribal Justice, for example) I think Blaise found the city a perfect setting for stories that sift through the complexities of identity, heritage, the immigration experience, and the power and style of family myth. I wrote an introduction to his collection Montreal Stories. Blaise is married to the American novelist Bharati Mukherjee and has long been familiar with Indian expatriate culture in North America: the world of middle class Indian professionals is the universe he explores with deftness and panache in The Meagre Tarmac.

John McGahern Okay here's the Irish corner of my post. For me, McGahern's novel Amongst Women is about as perfect as a novel gets. McGahern is mostly known as a short story writer, and the stories are brilliant, but Amongst Women seems to draw deeply from the well of family background, and it is perfectly constructed and intense. A slender volume, it makes a reader realize that other novelists--particularly contemporary American male novelists--ought to think about leaving a lot more out of their tomes. McGahern's Irish men and women, in the hinterlands of Counties Monaghan and Roscommon, usually in the 1950s, live with ghosts and echoes and silences. His portrait of the father in Amongst Women--a bitter old man, once a rebel and a gunman--is stinging and humane. I haven't read his memoir, All Will be Well, but I'm going to.

-- Peter Behrens

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---> For the complete archive of Madam Mayo guest-blog posts, click here.
Recent posts include translator Harry Morales on Gregory Rabassa's 90th Birthday; Steve Sando on 5 Beans You're Not Eating; and novelist Andrew Dayton on 5 Books to Get Your Head Inside Iran. Last year's St Patrick's Day edition was Michael Hogan on the Irish soldiers of Mexico.

Mysterious Trousers, Future of the iPad, iBook Author App, La Tregua, Brian O'Leary, Feral Hog Plague, Marfa Mondays

Yay! Mysterious Trousers: I don't know these guys but I think the spirit of and products on their website are the future. Via Swiss Miss.

Is this the future of the iPad? Probably.

I am so totally psyched about the iBooks Author app and yes, I am turning my e-books into iBooks. More news about this soon.

My amigo Harry Morales is publishing his translation of Mario Benedetti's La Tregua in the Brooklyn Rail.

Speaking of the future and of on-line publications, Brian O'Leary offers his thoughts on the book as context, not container.

I say it's a mandala of consciousness. Ommmm.

On a completely different subject: Because I'm writing a book about West Texas, I've been following the feral hogs story. It's wild. Thousands have crossed the border into Mexico. Old Jules, a Hill Country Texan (a little east of my bailiwick) has this to say about the feral hog plague. Now if you really feel the need to blast a few of them to beyond bacon, you could sign up for a weekend at Dos Plumas outside of Abilene. There are a bunch of hunting ranches in the Marfa-Alpine-Fort Davis area. But I would think the ranchers would pay you to get rid of the feral hogs, not the other way around. (OK, OK, I know you gotta feed 'em and house 'em.) Where to git yer gun? Why, Walmart!

Stay tuned for the next Marfa Monday podcast on Monday March 19th. I'm interviewing Mary Bones, curator of the Museum of the Big Bend, on the lost art colony. (Listen to my previous podcast, a bit about Cabeza de Vaca and an interview with Charles Angell, owner of Angell Expeditions, about the Big Bend, here.

Guest-blogger Harry Morales Celebrates (As Should We All) Literary Translator Gregory Rabassa on His 90th Birthday

If you're picking up this blog on RSS feed, facebook, or amazon.com, please note that this (below) is the correct text for Harry Morales' guest-blog post. (I mistakenly posted a basic bio a few hours ago. -- C.M.)

Friday March 9, 2012 is the 90th birthday of literary treasure, translator extraordinaire, Gregory Rabassa. In honor of his birthday, my amigo and fellow Spanish translator, Harry Morales, contributes this guest-blog post about his mentor.

IN CELEBRATION OF GREGORY RABASSA

By Harry Morales

"Since Kindness be the Venus-star of Friendship and that Bright Star doth Light the Lowest Hill, May Praise be Worthy of the Highest Good.” -Jack Kerouac, November 18, 1949

Today, Friday, March 9th, is the 90th birthday of my mentor, friend, surrogate padrino, and cronopio de primera clase, Gregory Rabassa. Greg, the modest dedicatee of this celebratory post, is the venerated Spanish and Portuguese literary translator of the finest Latin American authors in the world, including Julio Cortázar-- with whom he formed a deep and special friendship-- Mario Vargas Llosa, Gabriel García Márquez, Miguel Angel Asturias, these three winning the Nobel Prize for Literature, Jorge Amado, J.M. Machado de Assis, José María Eça de Queirós, António Lobo Antunes, José Lezama Lima, and Clarice Lispector, among many others.

In my estimation, he is the finest Spanish literary translator in the world, whose art is rivaled only by his enduring and unburdened skills as an educator. He is the recipient of numerous awards for his work, including the National Medal of Arts-- which “is the highest honor conferred to an individual artist on behalf of the people,” and presented by the President of the U.S. to only a dozen or so individuals per year across the country-- and most recently, the inaugural Thornton Wilder Prize for Translation from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Order of Prince Henry the Navigator from Portugal. He has translated over 50 books from the Spanish and Portuguese, starting in 1966 with Rayuela (Hopscotch) written by his beloved friend, Julio Cortázar.

I salute you Greg, on bent knee and enduring love and respect for your guidance and unconditional friendship in this work of ours. I would not be the translator I am by a shaky third if I had not attended-- by conscious design-- your Literary Translation Course at the New York State Summer Writer’s Institute at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs. Since those two weeks, soon approaching 22 years ago, I have attempted to live up to your ideals and everlasting respect for the written word. Perhaps this post appears a little too formal and calculated, but alas, the sentiments herein indeed drop many miles away from what I dearly mean. In the end, I happily acknowledge the following poem, “Das Lied um die Guten Leute” (“The Song About the Good People”) by Bertolt Brecht, the subject of which can justifiably and easily be you, Greg, perhaps multiplied:

“One knows the good people by the fact that they get
better when one knows them.
The good people invite one to improve them - for
how does anyone get wiser?
By listening and by being told something.
At the same time, however, they improve anybody
who looks at them and anybody they look at.”

-- Harry Morales

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>> See Harry Morales' previous guest-blog post for Madam Mayo, on translating Mario Benedetti.

>>Morales' translation of an essay by Alberto Ruy Sánchez appears in my anthology, Mexico: A Traveler's Literary Companion (Whereabouts Press, 2006).

>>Listen to the podcast of the PEN Conversation with Gregory Rabassa, Edith Grossman and Michael F. Moore in which they discuss magical realism and the problem with “isms” the overwhelming influence of Cervantes; President Clinton’s favorite book; disastrous moments in translation; getting lost as a translator; the instinct of choosing the right words.

>> See the NYT article about Rabassa, "A Translator's Long Journey," May 25, 2004.

>> For the complete archive of Madam Mayo guest-blog posts, click here.

A Conversation with Artist and Writer Edward Swift

So why, when, where, and how am I podcasting? Read all about my Conversations with Other Writers podcasting series here.

New podcasts:

Edward Swift, artist and writer based in San Miguel de Allende, on the Orphic journey, Marguerite Young, the Big Thicket, the wonders of the Sierra Gorda, My Grandfather's Finger, The Daughter of the Doctor and the Saint, on being an ABT flower man, his house designed by Jesus Zarate, among a whole bunch of other things! This one hour plus interview with one of my very favorite writers was splendid fun.

>>Listen in right here.

>>Previous conversations with other writers: Sara Mansfield Taber, Solveig Eggerz, and Rosemary Sullivan.

Also new:

Abbreviated podcast-- just Yours Truly talking about my translation of Francisco I. Madero's secret book of 1911-- of the PEN / SOL Literary Magazine Reading Series event, February 22, 2012 in San Miguel de Allende is now on-line.

>> Listen here.

Podcast: PEN / Sol Literary Magazine Reading Series, San Miguel de Allende, Mexico: Stone of Kings, Spiritist Manual

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN to the new podcast:

Gerard Helferich, author of Stone of Kings: In Search of the Lost Jade of the Maya, and C.M. Mayo (Yours Truly), translator of Francisco I. Madero's secret book of 1911, Spiritist Manual. Introduced by Eva Hunter, editor of Sol Literary Magazine. Recorded on February 22, 2012 in the café of Biblioteca Pública, San Miguel de Allende. *57 minutes.

(My talk starts at 26:36. You'll notice background noise throughout; the café had a burpy-slurpy cappuccino maker and, next door, a well-attended kindergarten. But the microphone for the readers seemed loud enough.)

More podcasts:

>All C.M. Mayo podcasts (master list)

>Conversations with Other Writers, an occasional series
So far: Sara Mansfield Taber, Solveig Eggerz, Rosemary Sullivan

>Podcasts for Writers (tips and more)

>Marfa Mondays Project 2012-2013: Exploring Marfa, Texas & Environs in 24 Podcasts
One podcast per month until the end of 2013. The most recent: Charles Angell in the Big Bend. Up next: Mary Bones on the Lost Art Colony.

>The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire
Includes my lecture at the Library of Congress and the Historical Society of Washington

>Miraculous Air: Journey of a Thousand Miles through Baja California, the Other Mexico
Some excerpts about Bob van Wormer and the Jesuits in San Ignacio

>Mexico: A Literary Traveler's Companion
A reading of the prologue (a good basic introduction, if I do say myself, to contemporary Mexican writing)

So, yeah, I am totally into podcasts! I'll be offering a workshop on podcasting for writers at the Writer's Center, near Washington DC, this summer (details to be announced), and meanwhile, after our chat in San Miguel de Allende last week, novelist Sandra Gulland spilled the beans over at her blog. Merci beaucoup, amiga!

Writing Loglines and the Concept of the "Eyespan"

I resisted writing loglines for a long time, for I was of the school of Flannery O'Connor's famous saying (as I recall it), "if you want to know what the story is about, read the story." In other words, I believed in the mysterious resonance of literary profundity-- and, oh yeah, I still do-- but I have come to appreciate the focusing power, both for the writer herself and for her sales team (agent, editor, marketing staff, booksellers, etc, etc) of packing the whole enchilada into one super-yummy bite-- because, otherwise, you and your readers will be left vaguely wondering, um, what might it be? "A good meal?" Well, that could anything from a chunk of cheese to a 5 star foie gras extravanganza. Specificity entices.

I just wrapped up a few days of giving writing workshops in San Miguel de Allende, and on the last day, I evangelized about loglines which I would have done anyway but it so happened that I had just, the night before, finished reading Blake Snyder's Save the Cat! a both amusing and practical guide to writing screenplays which, by the way, offers a slew of examples of great loglines. I don't write screenplays (yet) but the basic principles of storytelling are the same, whether for the screen or the stage, the page, or lo! ye olde campfire. Seriously, if you're writing any kind of story, read Save the Cat!, have a chuckle or nine, and save yourself a heap of headaches.

Snyder writes, "If you can't tell me about it in one quick line, well, buddy, I'm on to something else."

(Does this guy snazz around Malibu in a little red convertible, or what?)

Well, Yours Truly defines the so-called logline as a one to two sentence description of the book that (a) tells the reader what to expect and (b) entices.
Here are some examples that work for me-- not all official, by the way, but plucked from longer descriptions on the book's jacket; others are simply subtitles; others were cooked up not by the author but by the editor and/or marketing staff:

This ultimate insider's guide reveals the secrets that none dare admit, told by a show biz veteran who's proven that you can sell your script if you can save the cat.
Save the Cat! by Blake Snyder

From literary journalist Sara Mansfield Taber comes a deep and wondrous memoir of her exotic childhood as the daughter of a covert CIA operative.
Born Under an Assumed Name by Sara Mansfield Taber

How what we hear transforms our brains and our lives, from music to silence and everything in between
Healing at the Speed of Sound by Don Campbell and Alex Doman

An epic novel about a family torn apart in the struggle-to-the-death over the destiny of Mexico
The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire by Yours Truly

Alexander von Humboldt and the Latin American journey that changed the way we see the world
Humboldt's Cosmos by Gerard Helferich

Not long ago the Big Thicket of East Texas was still one of those places singular in its southernness, like the Mississippi Delta or the Carolina Low Country; now its old-timers and their ways are nearly gone. They will not be forgotten, though, for in My Grandfather's Finger, Edward Swift recalls a Big Thicket populated by family and friends as gloriously vibrant and enigmatic as the land itself.
My Grandfather's Finger by Edward Swift

War and Peace broadly focuses on Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812 and follows three of the most well-known characters in literature: Pierre Bezukhov, the illegitimate son of a count who is fighting for his inheritance and yearning for spiritual fulfillment; Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, who leaves his family behind to fight in the war against Napoleon; and Natasha Rostov, the beautiful young daughter of a nobleman who intrigues both men. [Hey! That was one sentence!]
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

All of these fall into what I think of an an "eyespan"-- an amount of text the reader's eye can take in in a "gulp." If you google around, you will find a multitude of webpages with advice, and schoolmarmy formulas, for writing log lines. Such rigidity might be apt for certain industries (TV pilots?) but for books, we have a scootch more wiggle room. But not past the eyespan.

What you might also notice is that in these examples-- just pulled from the books I happened to have at hand-- the (very few) adjectives and verbs have verve:


ADJECTIVES
ultimate
singular
gloriously
vibrant
enigmatic
deep
wondrous
exotic
covert
illegitimate
beautiful


VERBS
reveals
dare
admit
prove
sell
save
hear
transform
to be (forgotten)
follows
fighting
yearning
leaves
fights (again!)
intrigues

So.... if you're working on a log line, why not make a list of vervy verbs and such from the books you have at hand? Recycling a few of them (covertly fighting! deeply yearning! wondrously transforming!) can be a felicitous endeavor...


P.S. I offer several detailed reading lists for writers here.

When will I be teaching another workshop? Probably in the summer, details to be announced. Visit my workshop schedule or, for updates, sign up for my newsletter here.

Marfa Mondays: Charles Angell in the Big Bend

Now live: The Marfa Mondays podcast, this month, an interview with Big Bend expert Charles Angell, which took place at the Hoodoos in Big Bend State Park, right on the Rio Grande, and in Fort Leaton, near Presidio, Texas. Listen in at www.cmmayo.com/marfa or directly at podomatic.com.

The Marfa Mondays Podcasting Project is a monthly podcast about Marfa, Texas and environs. It began last month (listen to the introduction here), and will run through the end of 2013.

Here's a mini-clip (a brief, edited video) about the Hoodoos:



>More mini-clips about Marfa and the Big Bend.

San Miguel Writers Conference with Margaret Atwood, Elena Poniatowska, et al

Writers conference in San Miguel de Allende this weekend with (yeah!) Margaret Atwood, Elena Poniatowska, and many more outstanding writers from Canada, the U.S., and Mexico. I'll be giving a one hour "Techniques of Fiction" workshop during the conference on Saturday, a brief reading from my novel The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire on Sunday, and, following the conference, a two day "Techniques of Fiction" intensive (4 hours each day). The whole enchilada of info + online registration is here.

Texans to Land on Planet Arizona

Imagine if the law dictated that the public schools of the state of Maryland ban from the reading lists Frederick Douglass's autobiography, or if California's eliminated Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior, or for that matter, if the city of Dublin, Ireland tossed away James Joyce's "The Dead." This is about the scale of things in Arizona when it comes to anything Hispanic. I really don't know what they all're smokin' in that thar legishlature. (Or perhaps I should ask, what planet do they imagine they are living on?)

I was heartened to see this pop into my e-mail inbox this morning:


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
Tony Diaz
AztecMuse@aol.com
(713) 867-8943

LIBROTRAFICANTE CARAVAN SMUGGLING BANNED BOOKS BACK TO ARIZONA
SPARKS NATIONAL MOVEMENT

HOUSTON (February 13, 2012) - The Librotraficante Caravan will travel from Houston, Texas, to Tucson, Ariz., carrying a payload of contraband books, creating networks of Underground Libraries and leaving community resources in its wake. One of many responses to Arizona’s unconstitutional laws prohibiting Mexican-American Studies, the Librotraficante Caravan has captured the imagination and hearts of activists, writers, educators, and students from all walks of life who want to preserve freedom of speech.

The Librotraficante Caravan launches in Houston at 10 a.m. on Monday, March 12, from Casa Ramirez Folk Art Gallery (241 West 19th Street, Houston, Texas 77008.) It will stop in San Antonio and El Paso, Texas; Mesilla and Albuquerque, N.M., and culminate in Tucson, Ariz., on Friday, March 16. On St. Patrick’s Day, Saturday, March 17, we’ll host a huge literary celebration of El Batallion San Patricio at 6 p.m., celebrating Irish and Mexican collaboration of the past. The caravan celebrates Quantum Demographics, or multifaceted cultural unity, throughout its tour also highlighting African-American and Native American literary contributions along the route. The entire schedule is available online at www.Librotraficante.com.

“Every great movement is sparked by outrage at a deep cultural offense,” said Tony Diaz, founder of Nuestra Palabra: Latino Writers Having Their Say, which has led the charge, “When we heard that Tucson Unified School District administrators not only prohibited Mexican-American Studies, but then walked into classrooms, and in front of young Latino students, during class time, removed and boxed up books by our most beloved authors - that was too much. This offended us down to our soul. We had to respond.”

Diaz added, “With their record of anti-immigrant legislation, politicians in Arizona have become experts in making humans illegal. We did not do enough to stop that, thus that anti-immigrant legislation spread to other states such as Alabama and Georgia. Now, these same legislators want to make thoughts illegal. If we allow this to happen, these laws, too, will spread. Other branches of ethnic studies will be prohibited, and other states will follow suit.”

With its radio program and blockbuster literary showcases, Nuestra Palabra: Latino Writers Having Their Say has 13 years of experience promoting Latino literature and literacy with authors and thinkers from across the country. This once informal alliance of artists, activists, educators, and professionals has galvanized to create cornerstone structures for a network that will remain in place for future causes as well.

The full spectrum of this network links the talents of such people as Genius Mac Arthur Grant recipient Sandra Cisneros, whose beloved novel HOUSE ON MANGO STREET is prohibited in Tucson High School classrooms; Southwest Organizing Project, contributing extensive experience organizing national caravans and publisher of banned book 500 YEARS OF CHICANO HISTORY IN PICTURES; to Unidos, the student group in Tucson that is organizing teach-ins, while still attending classes and pursuing their education.

Banned writers have embraced the caravan and those that will participate along the route include Sandra Cisneros, who kicked off our fundraising efforts by making a generous donation; Guggenheim Fellow Dagoberto Gilb, whose work recently appeared in the New Yorker and Harpers simultaneously; and best selling author Luis Alberto Urrea, with multiple titles found on the banned book list was the first to enthusiastically support the project through Twitter. Other literary giants participating in the Librotraficante Caravan include Rudolfo Anaya, whose seminal novel BLESS ME ULTIMA is banned; Denise Chavez, FACE OF AN ANGEL, who is hosting the caravan in Mesilla, N.M., and who organizes the Annual Border Book Festival; Lalo Alcaraz, creator of the syndicated comic LA CUCARACHA and who coined the phrase “Self Deport”; and Rene Alegria, founder of Boxing Badger Media and www.mamiverse.com, who attended one of the impacted high schools in Tucson. Institutions that have already confirmed to host the caravan include the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center in San Antonio, Texas, and the National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque, N.M.

The caravan is intended to:

1. Raise awareness of the prohibition of the Mexican-American Studies Program and the removal of books from classrooms.
2. Promote banned authors and their contributions to American Literature.
3. Celebrate diversity. Children of the American Dream must unite to preserve the civil rights of all Americans.
4. Create a network of resources for art, literature and activism.

Specific outcomes:

1. Underground Libraries: Librotraficantes will donate copies of the banned books a local nonprofit in Houston, San Antonio, Albuquerque and Tucson. These sites will not only be given copies of the banned titles, but from now on, all multicultural authors are encouraged to mail copies of their books to these sites when they are published, so that our community will always have access to our literature.

2. Teach-ins and a Supplanted Book List: Workshops that include free curriculum guides with literary excerpts and lesson plans that can be used in class and immediately applied to other works.

3. Network of Librotraficantes across the country: This is a case of new media saving the classic media of books. Had Arizona done this ten years ago, we most likely would not have heard about it until it had impacted a second generation of youth. However, because of new technologies and the network of writers and activists who are communicating on multimedia platforms, we were not only able to hear about Arizona’s actions, but to also utilize new media tools to organize some classic activist strategies to respond - from now on!


WEBSITES: www.Librotraficante.com and www.NuestraPalabra.org

ORGANIZERS: Tony Diaz, Liana Lopez, Bryan Parras, Lupe Mendez & Laura Acosta

To become a part of history in the making, visit www.Librotraficante.com and click on Donate.

Links Noted: West Texas Mini Clips, Literal, San Miguel, Honey, Glass Future, David Abram, Berlinica, Viral History, Listen Well, Burro Hall

My various mini clips (videos) of West Texas
(several new ones posted, starring Charlie Angell)


For Literal Magazine Blog, Rose Mary Salum interviews Yrs Truly about my translation of Francisco I. Madero's secret book of 1911. I'll be reading from and discussing this book in San Miguel de Allende for PEN / Sol Literary Magazine on February 22nd. More info about that event here.

Speaking of San Miguel de Allende, I'll be at the writer's conference the weekend of February 18 and 19 (with Margaret Atwood, Joy Harjo, Elena Poniatowska, Araceli Ardón, Michael K. Schuessler, and many more) and then teaching a two day Techniques of Fiction workshop February 20 and 21. More info here.

Watch the Future According to Corning Glass, the upstate NY glass co. Bizarrely but crisply narrated by a British actor (uh daye en tha fyu-cha)

Oh, you thought you were eating honey? Think again (ewww).

The Author's Guild Says Publishing's Eco-System on the Brink (Oh well!)

Lyn Buchanan sees a lot, tells a lot (seriously good interview)

Listen in to Margaret Dulaney's Listen Well

Eduardo Jimenez Mayo (are we cousins? could be!) and Chris N. Brown, editors of Three Messages and a Warning guest-blogging at Large-hearted Boy
P.S. My translation of Agustin Cadena's short story "Murrillo Park," in this collection, and I blogged for Large-hearted boy myself back in 2009. It was a most interesting musical exercise.

Texas State Drought Monitor Map
(ouch)


Photos of the Egyptian house on Casa Piedra Road (near Presidio TX)
P.S. You can really surf around in there, quite interesting. I like the star-gazing platform.

Newt Gingrich, Spicey Dude! Courtesy of Ken Ackerman's Viral History blog

David Abram on Storytelling and Wonder: On the Rejuvenation of Oral Culture

The Flower Girls: Mennonites in Mexico

Berlinica is now in the e-book game, check out their latest iBook
P.S. Read founder Eva Schweitzer's guest-blog post for Madam Mayo here.

Burro Halls Posts Even More More Pug Pix!
(It has yet to top this one, however).