Friday, January 09, 2015

Celebrating Literary Friends: Leslie Pietrzyk, Michael K. Schuessler, Rose Mary Salum, Araceli Ardón

My amiga and long-time fellow writing group member, Leslie Pietrzyk, has won the Drue Heinz award for short fiction, read all about it over on her blog, Work-in-Progress. Read also her powerful essay, must-reading for any and all aspiring writers, which she posted on her blog shortly before learning that she had won: "The Writing Life: What It Really Takes." 

 Michael K. Schuessler, one of the writers writing on Mexico I most admire, has just brought out what is sure to be rollicking good read: Perdidos en la traducción: Cinco viajeros ilustres en México en el siglo XX. This one definitely needs to come out in English! A literal translation of the title would be Lost in Translation: Five Illustrious Travelers in 20th Century Mexico. Who are those travelers? Howard Hughes, William S. Burroughs, Marilyn Monroe, Edward James, and B. Traven. Here is a photo of me and my writing assistant, Uli Quetzalpugtl, celebrating with Michael at lunch in Mexico City day before yesterday. (What happened to my head? Uyy, seriously bad hair day.)
My writing assistant,
who never has bad hair days,
approves of this book.
And here is Michael showing me the spot where the Madero mansion stood. It was burned down by a mob in the Decena Trágica of 1913, as the little tile plaque explains.


P.S. Listen in to my podcast interview with Michael about his extraordinary biographies of Mexican novelist Elena Poniatowska and poet Pita Amor, and his surreal rescue of the memoir of "La Peregina," Alma Reed, international journalist and fiancée of Yucatan's radical governor Felipe Carrillo Puerto. 

More books by Mexico expert Michael K. Schuessler

Speaking of podcast interviews, I've been editing a wonderful one with Rose Mary Salum, editor of Literal. She's also a writer and the editor of the visionary anthology Delta de arenas, cuentos arabes, cuentos judíos. Stay tuned-- almost done! (Alas, what I needed was a Dead Kitten... that's the term for a muff around the microphone to filter out infelicitous noises. But ex post I am getting it all ironed out.)

Araceli Ardón has just brought out a gorgeous new book of paintings by Restituto Rodríguez, each paired with an original literary work-- including one by Yours Truly. More about this one in the next post-- and Ardón's gorgeous book on the Sierra Gorda.

 Your COMMENTS are always welcome.








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