The novel... drafting the penultimate chapter... Maximilian goes to Orizaba and the question is, To go or not to go? To abdicate or not to abdicate? And these are not the same question because one could go and not abdicate... leaving a regency in place... There was a memento mori as well... not a skull, but a flintlock that had belonged to a conspirator who'd planned to assassinate him in Tlalpan. So, I was rereading Dr Basch's memoir about all of that when, lo, I came home, opened my e-mail and found a message from my long-lost very first editor, at Mexico City's El Inversionista magazine, newspaperman turned Mexico's Shakespeare expert, Martin Casillas de Alba. He's got a blog, too: Juego de espejos.Judy Tolbert at Baja Books & Maps has the link up for the 2nd Annual Baja Book Event-- this is a big reading--- I go on at 12--- in their all new showroom in San Jose del Cabo, Baja California Sur. Here's a photo of Bruce Berger, Jim "Jaime" Tolbert, and Yours Truly at last year's reading.
Maribeth Fischer has announced the upcoming Writers at the Beach: Pure Sea Glass at Rehoboth Beach, Delware March 16-17th. I'll be on a couple of panels, giving a travel writing workshop, and a reading from Miraculous Air and Mexico: A Traveler's Literary Companion. This is a most unusual conference: it's got a great line-up of authors, including poet John Hoppenthaler, essayist Lisa Couturier, novelists Carolyn Parkhurst, and Leslie Pietrzyk, literary agent Candace Furman and the editor of Tin House magazine --- and it all benefits the United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation.
BOMB: "The Americas Issue Border Crossing: Mexico & the US" winter 07, includes an interview w Margo Glantz in Mexico City by Alvaro Enrigue; poetry by Monica de la Torre, Coral Bracho, & many others. Plus photographs by Juan Rulfo. Wow.
