Q & A: Sergio Troncoso, Author of “A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant’s Son” on Reading as If Your Life Depended on It, Emily Dickenson, the Digital Revolution, and the Texas Institute of Letters

By C.M. Mayo www.cmmayo.com

This blog posts on Mondays. This year the fourth Monday of the month is devoted to a Q & A with a fellow writer.

>> CONTINUE READING THIS POST ON THE NEW PLATFORM AT WWW.MADAM-MAYO.COM

Texas Institute of Letters

I am honored to announce that I have been elected to the Texas Institute of Letters. Herewith the announcement on the TIL website—new members for 2017 include a batch of very accomplished writers. On the website, whoo hoo, there's my name next to Larry McMurtry's! And there are Cormac McCarthy, Naomi Shihab Nye, Sergio Troncoso... it's a long list. 

Funny, Larry McMurtry has been on my mind of late because first, after I caught the bug for an Hermes 3000 typewriter,  I found out that he used (uses?) one; second, for an essay I'm writing about books I read his memoir, Books— an experience I would liken to the perfect BLT on the perfect afternoon. 

What's my connection with Texas? I was born in El Paso, and I am writing about that in a book in-progress on Far West Texas. Culturally I would describe myself as pre-Silicon Valley (I grew up there, but left before it became what it is today) and with the overlay of Chilangolandia, that is, Mexico City, where I have lived for most of my life. 

>> About that book in-progress on Far West Texas: Listen in any time to the podcasts apropos of this project here. Twenty podcasts have been posted to date; I will do 4 more to round it off at 24 podcasts. Stay tuned. The ridiculously delayed podcast about my visit to Bracketville is taking shape....

In case you missed them, here are a few of my Far West Texas podcasts:

PITMASTER ISRAEL CAMPOS IN PECOS
Listen here.

LISA FERNANDES, BARREL RACER AT THE PECOS RODEO
Listen here.

TREMENDOUS FORMS: 
PAUL CHAPLO ON FINDING COMPOSITION IN THE LANDSCAPE
Listen here.

GREG WILLIAMS ON THE ROCK ART OF THE LOWER PECOS CANYONLANDS
Listen here.



And a few of my recent book reviews on Texas topics:

The Comanche Empire
by Pekka Hämäläinen
Reviewed for Madam Mayo blog

Nut Country: Right-wing Dallas and the Birth of the Southern Strategy
by Edward H. Miller
Reviewed for Washington Independent Review of Books

The Pecan: A History of America's Native Nut 
by James McWilliams
Reviewed for Madam Mayo blog

Lone Star Nation: How Texas Will Transform America
by Richard Parker
For Madam Mayo blog

> All book reviews here.


P.S. If you're in the Washington DC area and find this of interest, I will be teaching a one day only workshop on literary travel writing at the Writer's Center on Saturday April 22 10 AM to 1 PM in Bethesda. More info about that workshop here.

>> Your comments are always welcome. Write to me here.

GIFs of Far West Texas: 

Santa Elena Canyon, Pecos High Bridge, 

Big Bend Ranch State Park, Guadalupe Mountains

A Conversation with M.M. McAllen about Maximilian and Carlota

Blood and Salt in Borderlands Texas:

Q & A with Paul Cool about Salt Warriors 

"From Mexico to Miramar or, Across the Lake of Oblivion"

My essay about a visit to Maximilian's castle in Trieste, recently published in the Massachusetts Review, has been named a finalist for the O. Henry Award for Best Work of Magazine Journalism, 2006 by the Texas Institute of Letters. Click on the Texas Institute of Letters--- see a very curious squirrel photo. And speaking of people who got completely wrapped around the axle with debt, seems we have more every day here in the USA. Last night I went to see James Scurlock's new documentary Maxed Out. It's jaw-dropping. More anon.