Cyberflanerie: Fun in Mexico, Literary Edition

News from Oaxaca, Mexico City, San Miguel de Allende, and Tepoztlan. 

U.S. Poets in Mexico is holding what looks like an outstanding and very intriguing conference in Oaxaca this fall. Founded by poet Sheila Lanham in 2008, they are all about connecting U.S. and Mexican poets for translation projects.  Thanks, Clare Sullivan, for the tip.

Only a measy-weasly itsy-bitsy and jaw-droppingly ridiculous 3% of literature published in the U.S. is translated. Anna Clark illuminates.

(P.S. Speaking of Mexico and translation, grab your copy of my anthology of 24 Mexican writers, Mexico: A Traveler's Literary Companion. Big stories, bodacious translation, small package. Translation: Yes, it fits in your backpack.)

Not for the squeamish: my amigo metaphysical author John Kachuba on Mexico's Santa Muerte Cult. Take note: Kachuba is leading a Day of the Dead Cultural Tour in Oaxaca, check it out.

Artist and travel writer Jim Johnston, whose blog is Mexico City: An Opinionated Guide (same name of his book) says "buy this book"-- so I shall-- Miscelánea: Guía del comercio popular y traditional del Centro Histórico de la Ciudad de Mexico by Marie-Aimée Montalembert and Ángeles Reunes. 

More coming up in February 2015. My Tepoztlan amiga, childrens' author Mary Lynn Patton, reports on last year's San Miguel Writers Conference:

Mary Lynn Patton
author of SOUNDS OF MEXICO
and other childrens books

I drove to San Miguel (about 4.5 hours) from Tepoztlan with Sheila Urquidi for the 9^th annual San Miguel Writers’ Conference in a state of high anticipation and the event did not disappoint. Calvin Trillin opened the conference to an audience estimated to be 900 listeners with 90 minutes of laughter that probably generated a room full of healthier people. I bought all his books for sale in the bookstore. 

There were 7 keynote speakers that spoke either in the evening or after lunch and the next up was the poet, David Whyte, my favorite speaker of the conference. His poetry readings were outstanding and I can highly recommend his "Midlife and the Great Unknown: Finding Courage and Clarity Through Poetry.” 

All keynotes were worthwhile to attend but I wanted to particularly note the talk given by Benjamin Alire Sáenz who received the PEN Faulkner award for his short stories in Everything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club. Sáenz brought down the house with a standing ovation from this crowd who so poignantly felt his message that on the border he is both Mexican and a native born American yet neither. The book is a read that will be of interest to all who stand with a foot in each of two cultures, as does Benjamin Sáenz, and the many readers of Madam Mayo’s blog.

As in previous years there were workshops of a very practical nature to encourage anything you might want to write: food writing, screen plays, children’s books, memoirs, novals, fiction and non-fiction, travel, really so much was available. Additionally, there were agents and publishers to listen to query letters. 

There were simultanious translations and a few great presentations I missed (in particular the Co-cultural panel with Yann Martel, Benjamin Sáenz, and Alberto Ruy-Sánchez). This is an event well worth attending with a community of writers that whole heartedly work to make it give value. For example, not knowing who the poet David Whyte was before hearing him speak, I wanted to go to his presentation for which I had not signed up so the registrar suggested I stand outside to see if there were any empty chairs when the presentation started and happily, there were added chairs for the additional attendees like me. Every effort was made to make conference goers happy.

>More information and to register for the 2015 San Miguel Writers Conference.

Mary Lynn Patton also reports on the 2014 Tepoztlan’s Magical Cultural Festival. Mark your calendars for this winter 2015!

The 4^th annual Mexico Canadian Cultural Festival was held in Tepoztlan, Morelos with the theme of “Magic as Inspiration” February 14-23, 2014. The plan in years past has been for this festival to follow the one in San Miguel intentionally to allow book lovers to attend both events. However, the theater events, art presentation and workshop conducted by Juanita Pérez and Márgara Graf at La Turbina Gallery, and children’s community art show required an early start date to manage it all.

The Canadian moderator, Hal Wake, organizer of the Vancouver International Writer’s Festival, returned to applause and brought the following prize winning Canadians to present their works in the context of magic as inspiration: Lorna Crozier, a poet and author of many works, Steven Galloway, author of “The Cellist of Sarajevo,” Michael Crummey, Newfoundland poet and author of “Galore” an epic novel.  

Canadian Doug Gibson, editor, publisher and friend of Alice Munro gave a presentation on his experience of accepting the Nobel Prize for literature on her behalf this year with the Canadian Ambassador to Mexico in attendance.The Mexican side of the writers included Ekiwah Adler-Beléndez, our loved local Tepoztlan poet who has previously presented at the Vancouver festival, Alberto Ruy-Sánchez, author of the Mogador trilogy which is available in English, and many other books, Verónica Murguía, prize winning author of young adult (YA) books, and José N. Iturriaga, a prolific writer on Mexico and the subjects of food, travel, eroticism and rituals. His latest book is Linaje de Brujos.

And the talented moderador for the Mexican authors is herself a writer, radio host, blogger, Mónica Lavín. 

A special treat of the panel discussions was the number of Mexican and Canadian authors that had worked together previously at the Banff Center for creative writing in Canada. Simultaneous translations were available throughout and La Sombra del Sabino book store reached a new level of excellence in this 4th year of festivities. Classical guitarists Avin Tung and Morgan Szymanski performed a concert at La Buena Vibra Hotel, Janet Dawson held a meal to celebrate gastronomy, and Stuart Cox performed Shakespeare. There was culture for all. 

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SURF ON 
>Adventures in Mexican Rare Book Collecting
>National Public Radio All Things Considered on Mexico: A Traveler's Literary Companion
>Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution: Francisco I. Madero and His Secret Book, Spiritist Manual
>Miraculous Air: Journey of a Thousand Miles through Baja California, the Other Mexico
>Frequently Updated List of Recommended Books on Mexico
>Mary Lynn Patton's previous guest-blog for Madam Mayo: Cyberflanerie: Kid Lit Edition
>Ye Very Olde Interview: C.M. Mayo on Rolph Potts' Vagabonding
>Isabella Tree's 5 Favorite Books About Mexico

Cyberflanerie: Kid Lit Edition by Mary Lynn Patton

Mary Lynn Patton

My Tepoztlan amiga Mary Lynn Patton offers another guest-blog, this one her report on the recent Kid-Lit jamboree in Austin, Texas:

The Kid’s Lit Conference was held in Austin, Texas on November 8 & 9, 2013 with keynote speaker Cynthia Leitich Smith of the blog Cynsations noting aspects of a great blog. Her first recommendation is to have a central mission or philosophy to your blog. Hers is “diversity” which ties to her YA books on native Americans and other culturally diverse characters. Cynthia woke me up to the theme that runs through my writing of “believing in Mexico” and wanting to share the passion I have for my adopted country. This is what keeps me motivated and brings me energy and rewards for making stuff up for a living.

Pam Coughlin, conference organizer, contributor to the Cybils, and KidLit blogger at Mother Reader also did a session on blogs that reminds us to have our names clearly stated at the blog site no matter what our blog tag may be, like Madam Mayo (...don’t miss her November 11 post on self-publishing at the Writer’s Center).  Additionally, a reader should be able to find what books the blogger has written. And finally, post dates on blogs to give the reader an idea of how current is the writing. The rule for posting is “better to be regular than frequent”. Don’t miss Pam’s wonderful book giving ideas for the holidays on her website.

Biggest take away from attending a conference of bloggers in my writing genre was real connections with new friends. Exposure to a picture book reviewer like Rosemond Cates at Big Hair and Books  provided a wealth of new children’s books with excellent reviews.

My website blog at http://www.marylynnpattonbooks.com will see revisions that reflect these new ideas shared at the conference. I highly recommend attending a bloggers’ conference, especially in your writing area of interest.

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>Check out Mary Lynn Patton's previous guest-blog, iWorld is Upon Us.

>Complete archive of Madam Mayo guest-bloggers, including Lisa Carter, Joanna Hershon, David Lida, and many more, here.

COMMENTS

Self-Publishing for all the Right Reasons (Reporting on The Writer's Center's "Publish Now!" Seminar)

Last month I gave a talk for the Writer's Center's "Publish Now! digital publishing seminar-- such a hoppin' topic that it sold out before I could even alert my own writer friends and workshop students. Unlike how-to-get-published conferences of yore, which inevitably featured the panels of nose-in-the-air agents and the other panel of nose-in-the-air editors, all trying to out-groan the others about their Himalayan "slush piles," this one had, among the attendees, a number of previously well-published authors-- and by well-published I mean, you know, the big famous NY agent, the big famous NY publishing house, reviews in the New York Times, and so on and so forth. (Wannabes might imagine glowing reviews and invitations to glamorous parties falling like little showers of lotus petals upon said authors' heads... Uyy! That's another blog post.)

One of the speakers at "Publish Now!" was my fellow Writers Center board member, historical biographer Ken Ackerman, who found that his big NY publisher wasn't interested in reprinting his Young J. Edgar Hoover-- even though the Leonardo DiCaprio movie was about to come out (!) In the seminar, Ackerman talked about how he then plunged into self-publishing and, step by step, put together the paperback POD (print on demand) editions of Young J. Edgar Hoover-- and his other biographies, all then languishing in publisher's warehouses or effectively out-of-print-- through CreateSpace and Lightning Source, plus ebooks for Kindle, iTunes and Nook. He held up the four self-published new paperback editions of his books and my, they did look beautifully designed. Seriously, Ken, you are an inspiration.

As another well-published writer friend of mine put it, we authors are suffering from "an erosion of support" from our publishing houses. Well, in my own case, this is indeed the case with some of my publishers, but certainly not all. Over the years I've had several books placed with an array of publishers, from international corporate behemoths (Planeta and Random House Mondadori) to university presses (Georgia and Utah), small presses (Milkweed Editions, Unbridled Books, Whereabouts Press) and.. drum roll... yes, I have self-published.

It used to be that self-publishing was for those whose work was not up-to-snuff or who were too naive or lazy or easily intimidated by the traditional publishing process. Yes, there has always been some work of great but not commercial value, but in a word, "self-published" was not a label anyone with a shred of ambition would want-- unless they were Walt Whitman, but that's another blog post. And today self-publishing is wide open-- it doesn't even require money to do a Kindle, and compared to the past, very little to do a paperback, so just about anyone can publish just about anything. And therefore, we have an unimaginably vast and exponentially growing mountain of... well, let's just say I do not know how to appreciate most of it.

But I did self-publish back in the Crustaceous, I mean, 2002, with The Visitors / Los visitantes, which is the second chapter of my memoir, Miraculous Air: Journey of a Thousand Miles through Baja California, the Other Mexico, a book that was published by the University of Utah Press in 2002 and Milkweed Editions paperback in 2007. (And much later, the ebook of Los visitantes, pictured left, by Yours Truly.) It was both time consuming and expensive-- back then POD wasn't really done, that I know of, so I had a professionally designed cover and interior and the whole thing was offset printed in Canada. (And not to mention the design and printing, boy howdy was shipping expensive.) But I was able to sell a few of the books and give away more, and no doubt this helped more readers find Miraculous Air. In all, a learning experience. I was not eager to repeat it, however. But ebooks, that is another story. Yes, some headaches with formatting and figuring out to work with the iBooks Author app and Kindle. But in all, compared to the past, it is jump-up-and-down cheap and easy. I love it! Why?

(1) No cash.
(2) No expensive designers.
(3) No printing.
(4) No shipping.
(5) No having to give up space in the garage. And best of all,
(6) NO PAPERWORK HEADACHES DEALING WITH FULFILLMENT.

In other words, when someone orders one of my ebooks on amazon.com or iTunes, all I have to do is wait... I will get paid. I don't have to provide an invoice to individual customers, I don't have to ship anything. Oh, wonderful, wonderful.

Basically, once you get your ebook up there on amazon.com or iTunes, what you have is a variable rate annuity. Probably with a very low yield-- indeed, for most authors, a Kindle edition of their book won't earn back the cost of their time and trouble. But should things change, the upside is the moon. What's interesting-- to say the same thing a little differently-- is that the marginal cost of increasing supply to meet any increase in demand is essentially zero. Whether one person or 100,000 people download your ebook, it doesn't matter; they click, they get.

Another speaker at Publish Now!, also a fellow Writer's Center board member (bless his heart), was novelist Neal Gillen, author of the memoir 1954 Adventures in New York. He gave us an overview of his experience and the various pros and cons of the the various self-publishing services. (Takeaway: you're probably going to be happiest with amazon.com's Createspace.)

Barbara Esstman

Of course the importance of editing-- that step so disdained, and to their detriment, by most self-publishers-- was underscored by novelist and freelance editor Barbara Esstmann.

For last year's "Publish Now!" seminar I gave the talk-- her title-- "The Manuscript is Ready -- or Is It?-- What's Next?".

My own talk focused on travel writing and interactive books. I mentioned my own ebooks, Podcasting for Writers, From Mexico to Miramar or Across the Lake of Oblivion, and others, and for examples from the cutting edge, Mary Lynn Patton's children's iBooks with sounds, including Sounds of Mexican Beaches, and Rich Shapero's Too Far.

P.S. I lifted that title, "self-publishing for all the right reasons," from Kevin Kelly. Check out all he has to say about his latest nondigital self-publishing venture here.

More anon. Much more.

COMMENTS

Publish Now! One Day Seminar at the Writer's Center

Before I had a chance to even mention it, the October 26 one day seminar "Publish Now!" at the Writer's Center in Bethesda MD (near Washington DC) has sold out. Sincere apologies to my workshop students... all I can say is, do sign up for the Writer's Center's newsletter because obviously I am not so on-the-ball in the blogging and newsletter department. On my Resources for Writers page, I will be sure to post some of the material for my talk, a break-out session on traveling writing and interactive ebooks, so stay tuned.

One of the speakers this Saturday will be my fellow Writer's Center board member, Wilson Wyatt, editor of the Delmarva Review, who shares this article (PDF download) in the Maryland Writers Association Pen in Hand, "Publishing in the Digital Age".

My own adventures in self-publishing ebooks continue-- rather intensive this very morning as a matter of fact, because I just uploaded to Kindle my translation of Francisco I. Madero's Spiritist Manual of 1911 with the all-new title, Metaphysical Odyssey Into the Mexican Revolution: Francisco I. Madero's Spiritist Manual Introduced and Translated. This required more Advils than I would like to admit. (Don't get me started about iTunes' iBookstore.)

A few of the interactive books I'll be mentioning in the seminar

Mary Lynn Patton's Sounds of Mexico / Sonidos de México

Rick Shapero's Too Far

My own "The Building of Quality"-- the iTunes (iBook) edition includes a video and an audio Q & A.

My own Los visitantes iTunes (iBook) edition, also made with the iBook author app.

My own Podcasting for Writers, both iTunes (iBook) and Kindle editions.

And of course, my own Metaphysical Odyssey Into the Mexican Revolution.

And I'll also be talking about publishing travel writing and podcasts. My main experience here is with the "Marfa Mondays Podcasting Project: Exploring Marfa, TX & the Big Bend in 24 Podcasts"-- listen in anytime.

A few preliminary thoughts:

1. The whole experience of self-publishing ebooks is not so much something you can figure out once-and-for-all, but a wriggling target (just when you've got it figured out, they update the software!!)

2. Design matters (and it's expensive, sometimes)

3. Marketing digital books to customers via amazon.com is a very different enterprise than trying to sell books in bookstores (uyy there is a reason why publishers keep such a big slice of the pie)

4. The bar to publication is so rockbottom low now...and it is terribly tempting to skimp on or even skip the editorial process. 

5. Now what I really want to talk about is rare books. In other words, enough with the candy store, let's get back to the chocolate factory!

Much more anon, and especially about rare books.

COMMENTS

Guest-blogger Children's Author Mary Lynn Patton with 5 Links on Mexico and E-Publishing

Mary Lynn Patton

Delighted to see Mary Lynn Patton's first two children's books, Sounds of Mexico and Sounds of Mexico Maya, up in the iBookstore with links from www.MaryLynnPattonBooks.com. As Mary Lynn writes:

"These two bilingual books star my canary, Pavarotti, who loves to sing along with the sounds of Mexico. He takes the reader on adventures set in the magical mountains of Tepoztlan in the first book and the sacred land of the Maya people in the second. I recall with a chuckle my first plea for your help in finding a publisher for these books and your suggestion to self-publish as an iBook (books with sound require a connection to iTunes so the Amazon/Kindle combination was not possible). My collaborators, illustrator Margarita Sada from Mexico City, Salvador Espinosa, sound engineer, and Judith Segura, translator, and I (all from Tepoztlan, Morelos home to the Canadian Mexican Literary Festival), worked together to publish. It was thrilling. By the second book we were becoming increasingly interactive in our presentation and for the third book we are considering the Read Aloud feature available in iBooks. I want a hard copy published book to hold in addition to these e-books but as the Madam herself asserts (Seven Reasons Why E-Books Will Be Big in Mexico) this works to reach readers here and now. A bit of research revealed the phenomenal escalating sales for e-books, $1.3 billion in 2012 (No, E-book Sales Are Not Declining). Mexico City has a new eBook publishing company called editorial-ink for digital books (www.editorial-ink.com) and a new digital library (http://goodereader.com/blog/most-popular-news/largest-childrens-library-in-mexico-opens-and-uses-3000-ebooks/). Children the world over from middle and upper class homes are receiving iPad minis in child-proof cases as their birthday surprise to download interactive books."

> Recent guest-bloggers here at Madam Mayo include novelists Victoria Wilcox, Amy Kwei, and Joanna Hershon. 
> Check out the complete archive of guest-blogs here.
P.S. My embryonic and to-be-frequently-updated list of recommended reading on Mexico is here.