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.

Visit to Las Pozas, Xilitla

A Conversation with Edward Swift

Top 10 Books Read 2014

Henry R. Magruder's Sketches of the Last Year of the Mexican Empire

Guestblogger Clara Rodriguez on 5 Latino Stars of Early Hollywood

Madero's Commentary on the Bhagavad-Gita

Cyberflanerie: Writerly Edition (Aimee Bender, Claire Cook, Djerassi, Historical Novelists Society, Guadalupe Loaeza, Leslie Pietrzyk & More)

Pictured left, my handsome new writing assistant, Uli Quetzalpugtl. Right now he is specializing in mind-clearing walks. He will be four months old on the 25th. Yes, he is a pug. Yes, those are his real eyebrows. 

Aimee Bender on What Writers Can Learn from Good Night Moon
(Hat tip to @portershreve)

Claire Cook on Why I Left My Mighty Agency and New York Publishers (For Now) on Jane Friedman's Blog (well worth reading, and Yours Truly left a lengthy comment.)

Djerassi Resident Artists Program
> Watch a brief introductory video

Day before yesterday I finally joined the Historical Novelists Society, thanks to fellow members of Women Writing the West suggesting it. Joining Women Writing the West was one of the best things I did last year. I may have been publishing for over 20 years, but everything in publishing has so changed in the past few years… fellow members' advice on the listserv has been invaluable. 

Uli visits the childhood home of Willa Cather,
Red Cloud, Nebraska, June 2014.
What can I say, Uli has good taste in authors.
(He does try to chew my hand, after all.)

Here's what really impressed me about the Historical Novelists Society: their webpage is completely automated. I was able to pay, add my bio, and see my member listing without waiting for anyone to get back to me, bingo. (Such is life in the time of the bots…)

Yesterday I was interviewed for Mexico City's MVN radio live by Mexican writer Guadalupe Loaeza about Mexico's Second Empire / French Intervention and my novel El último príncipe del Imperio Mexicano (Agustín Cadena's translation of my novel, The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire), fue una verdadera delicia. Hope to have that link to the podcast by tomorrow. (P.S. Back in 2006, I translated a bit of Loaeza's hilarious classic on Mexico City's Polanco neighborhood for my anthology Mexico: A Traveler's Literary Companion). By the way, Loaeza's website takes a moment to load because it's got all this flash. Be patient... it's worth taking a look at. 

My amiga novelist Leslie Pietrzyk on the writing life: it really is a bowl of cherries.

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SURF ON, DEAR WRITERLY READER

30 Deadly Effective Ways to Free Up Bits, Drips & Gimungously Vast Swaths of Time for Writing

Giant Golden Buddha & 364 More Free 5 Minute Writing Exercises

Regina Leeds Guest-Blog for Madam Mayo 5 + 1 Resources to Make a Writer Happy in an Organized Space

Conversations with Other Writers podcast series

Cyberflanerie: Writerly Whatnot Edition

Ellen Cassedy's generous & inspired monthly column of writing tips for She Writes
(P.S. Cassedy's guest-blog post for Madam Mayo, 5 Links to Learn Yiddish.)

Hugh Howey's Author Earnings

Jane Friedman shows the changing face of publishing in 5 charts
(This is why so much of my focus these past few years has been on publishing Kindles and making podcasts.)

The last installation of novelist Carmen Amato's Bookstores of the Future series

(P.S. My ancient ode to bookstores over at Red Room.)

Thank you, dear Gregory Gibson, one of my favorite writers and the best rare book dealer blogger, I am honored to find "Madam Mayo" on your blog roll at Bookman's Log.

Lucas Klein on Translation and Translation Studies as a Social Movement

Novelist Leslie Pietrzyk on 10 Works You Must Read (IMHO) and 10 classic works she wishes she'd read

(P.S. My War & Peace blog and recommended reading for writers.)

Ellen Prentiss Campbell reviews Laurie Colwin

Rose Rosetree reads Maya Angelou's awesome aura

Robin Black on 21 Things I Wish I'd Known Before I Started Writing

SURF ON, BODACIOUS READER-WRITER:

Giant Golden Buddha & 364 More Free 5 Minute Writing Exercises

Eight Conclusions After 8 Years of Blogging

That Andrew Wiley interview, again, because it just so totally floats my boat

Conversations with Other Writers Occasional Podcast Series

COMMENTS always welcome.

The Secret Ingredient in My Writing Process

Thanks to my amiga, novelist and blogger Leslie Pietrzyk, I'm posting today as part of a "blog hop" of writers blogging on process. So check out Leslie's post on her process over at her blog, Work-in-Progress. 

Before Leslie, it was Anna Leahy on the Lofty Ambitions Blog; today it's Yours Truly (scroll on down), and apres moi, not the deluge… but my DC writing amiga, editor and writer-for hire, world traveller, and blogger, Judy Leaver.

Question 1: What are you working on?
World Waiting for a Dream: A Turn in Far West Texas-- apropos of which I'm hosting the 24 podcast series, "Marfa Mondays." Listen in anytime. Latest podcast: Looking at Mexico in New Ways: An Interview with John Tutino (and if you think you know anything about Mexico, it'll knock your huaraches off.)

I see this book as a companion to Miraculous Air: Journey of a Thousand Miles through Baja California, the Other Mexico. Baja, Big Bend, they have a surprising amount in common.

Question 2: How does your work differ from others of its genre?
Well, go read my work, you tell me. One thing I will say, however, is that I offer a sharply different take on Mexico than you'll find in most books on that mammoth and cliche-saddled subject.

Question 3: Why do you write what you do?
Because I believe that through narrative we become human; truth is beauty; exploration is infinite. Long story short, I choose the subjects I do because they seem best suited for me to work in these directions.

Question 4: How does your writing process work?
The answer to that would be more than I could cram into a blog post, but I will offer hereby my secret ingredient: Pug. Picadou! Born in 2000, ever since she came to me as a tiny puppy, the minky chica has been my writing assistant, providing a background white noise of puggy snores and, most crucially, frequent walks. Walks, dear readers, refresh and rewire the creative brain. For me, as for many people, however, they just wouldn't happen every day without all that barking.

Picadou

As a puppy, oh, she was a princess-- of the universe and all realms beyond. (She knew she was a pug.) She had such a strong, joyous and silly-willy way. For the first time I felt inspired to write for children-- and a poem in her "voice." One of those poems, "People Who Pat Me" appears in Karen Benke's anthology on creative writing for children, Rip the Page! -- and will appear in Spanish translation by Agustin Cadena in a collection of micro-fiction published in Mexico. (I always say, prose poems and micro-fiction, same thing.)

When she was in her prime, I wrote an essay about our daily walks, "The Essential Francisco Sosa or, Picadou's Mexico City." It was published in Creative Nonfiction magazine, won two prizes (Lowell Thomas Award for Travel Journalism Article, Personal Comment, First Place (Gold), 2005 and Washington Independent Writers Award for Personal Essay, 2005), later appeared in an anthology, Hurricanes and Carnivals: Essays by Chicano, Pochos, Pachucos, Mexicanos and Expatriates, edited by Lee Gutkind, (University of Arizona Press, 2007) and-- this was my first foray into audio-- as a CD.

Audio CD
The Essential Francisco Sosa or,
Picadou's Mexico City
by C.M. Mayo

She was small for a pug, small enough to fit into a Sherpa bag, so she traveled with me oftentimes-- once as far north as Jackson Hole, Wyoming. (But no, I haven't taken Picadou on my forays in the Big Bend-- the desert, with all those coyotes and rattlesnakes, is not Picadou's style.)

Here's a photo of her beneath the lovely green canopy of the Parque Juárez of San Miguel de Allende-- where we went for the writer's conference.

Picadou in the Parque Juárez

Picadou also spent a lot of time in Washington DC, where I lived on and off for a few years. (I still teach once in a while at the Writer's Center, where I serve on the board.) Here's a (very brief) video of her at Rosedale, the historic estate in Cleveland Park (with an attached dog park--yeah!) that features in my novel, The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire. 



Back when I was flogging my novel, The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire, my guest-blog post about Picadou appeared (with more photos) in Marshal Zeringue's #1 author & dog blog, Coffee with a Canine.

And here she is in her fire-engine-red coat on a stormy day visiting Sky Meadows  in Virginia:




Here she models her new spring coat (another one of the results of my learning to make little videos with iMovie):




Dashing back into the office, Mexico City:

Here she is on a visit to California, looking uncharacteristically serious, with her uncle Pabu:

Over the past few years, Picadou was more often than not snoozing on my lap as I wrote… for this blog, for my podcasts (though sometimes the snoring was a problem...) and my latest book, Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution: Francisco I. Madero and His Secret Book, Spiritist Manual.  

Last month, after a long life of 14 years and almost another month, Picadou crossed the Rainbow Bridge.

Rest in peace, little one.

Picadou at 14 years.

In answer to the question everyone asks: Yes. More about Uli anon.

Next up in the blog hop: Judy Leaver. Check in with her blog next Monday.

COMMENTS always welcome.

Cyberflanerie: Bughouse Poet's and Other Far Out Books Edition

Definitely different: Bill Zavatsky on Richard Griffin, the Bughouse Poet, in The Sienese Shredder.

Mine it! My amiga novelist and blogger (Work-inProgress) Leslie Pietrzyk has posted her best books read in 2013 list.

(Mine mine here.)

Honey & Wax has issued an amazing second catalog-- for those who might prefer to buy a book instead of a car. (Well, pourquoi pas?)

It was in-print for over a century: Jeff Peachy on the parachute guy and the best bookbinding manual ever. (Jeff Peachy is one of my new favorite bloggers.)

Laila Lailami has just announced her new novel forthcoming in 2014, The Moor's Account. For my book-in-progress about Far West Texas, I'm writing about Cabeza de Vaca, so I'm especially eager to read this novel from the point of view of Estebanico.

COMMENTS

Cyberflanerie: Internet Book Shopping Edition

The Norton Book Sofa

October and November were intense... no more books for me, Santa, but oh, do I want some of these Brodart book covers... (Why didn't I start buying and using them sooner?!?!)


The Norton book sofa: perfect for rare book collectors.

So whimsical: KnobCreek Metal Arts bookends on etsy.

A well so deep it must go to China: bodaciously great source of antiquarian books (and used whatnot) at www.abebooks.com

Not sure how to get started with rare book collecting? ABC for Book Collectors by John Carter  and Nicolas Barker. 

And do buy Leslie Pietrzyk's novels! P.S. Highlights of her recent talk for the Writer's Center's Leesburg First Friday series on writing short fiction and long fiction here.

Books, books, books! Bookman's Log!

For Baja Buffs and soon-to-be-Baja Buffs: Miraculous Air: Journey of a Thousand Miles through Baja California, the Other Mexico. 

The rest of the gang is here.

P.S. I'll be posting my top 10 reads for the year in the next couple of weeks. Last year's, topped by Sara Mansfield Taber's lyrical Born Under an Assumed Name, is here.

COMMENTS

Top 10+ Books Read in 2012

1. Sara Mansfield Taber's Born Under an Assumed Name: The Memoir of a Cold War Spy's Daughter
Lyrical, original, and profound. At once a memoir, a piece of American history, and an examination of the question, what does it mean to be American?
>Listen to my podcast interview with the author here.

2. Anne-Marie O'Connor, The Lady in Gold: The Extraordinary Tale of Gustav Klimt's Masterpiece, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer
>Read my talk at Bellas Artes in Mexico City about this splendid book. 

3. A tie! (Who says I have to decide?)

Natalie Dykstra's Clover Adams: A Gilded and Heartbreaking Life
One of those rare novelesque biographies that can change the way one thinks about a whole country, a whole century, and certainly about one city: Washington DC. Out of five stars I give this six, lit up in flashing neon.
>View Clover Adams' photo album at the Massachusetts Historical Society

Janet Wallach's Desert Queen: The Extraordinary Life of Gertrude Bell: Adventurer, Adviser to Kings, Ally of Lawrence of Arabia

The life of a priviledged Englishwoman whose curiosity fired with boldness changed the world. Alas she was less apt in love and bureaucratic shenanigans. Fascinating reading. When I came to the end, which was too sad, I went to Egypt and rode a camel.

4. Bruce Jackson's The Story is True: The Art and Meaning of Telling Stories

Brilliant, worth a re-read or five.
>Read my mini-review here.

5. Lonn Taylor's Texas, My  Texas: Musings of the Rambling Boy
Though a collection of columns as "The Rambling Boy" for the Big Bend Sentinel, this is far from the usual mashed potatoes newspaper fare.  Taylor is a wise and lyrical writer with a background as a professional historian and his mammoth love for Texas is infectious. This is a book to savor in a rocking chair on a hot day with a tall glass of spiked lemonade at your side. Get ready to howl with the one about the in-law aunts's oodles of poodles.

6. Rubén Martínez's Desert America: Boom and Bust in the New Old West
Another kind of Texas-- and New Mexico, Arizona, and California. I'm preparing an overdue (rave) review of this one. Stay tuned.
> Read my review of this book in the Washington Independent Review of Books

7. Ruth Levy Guyer's A Life Interrupted: The Long Night of Marjorie Day
>Read my mini-review of this exceedingly strange story and how I happened upon it here.

8. Mitch Horowitz's Occult America: White House Seances, Ouija Circles, Masons, and the Secret History of Our Nation 

So what am I doing reading about the occult? I've spent much of this year reading and researching for an expanded and revised introduction to my translation-- the first into English-- of Francisco I. Madero's secret book of 1911, Spiritist Manual (a work vital for understanding the Mexican Revolution of 1910 since Madero, a Spiritist medium, was its leader). Earlier I'd seen Occult America but didn't pick it up because I (wrongly) assumed it was a bit of trade sensationalism. Then, on the Occult of Personality podcasts,  I happened to listen to an interview with the author about the Theosophist Colonel Henry Steel Olcott's profound influence on the revival of Buddhism in 19th century Sri Lanka. Start reading the literature on the occult and very soon one will appreciate, as water in the desert, an author who is at once knowledgable, objective, and articulate. Of course I immediately ordered the book. It's a masterwork of scholarship. Dear Mr Horowitz, if I had a Ouija board, I would salute you with it.
>Occult of Personality Occult America interview 1 (Publick Universal Friend et al)
>Occult of Personality Occult America interview 2 (Joseph Smith, Edgar Cayce, et al)
>Occult of Personality 48 (Life and Work of Henry Steel Olcutt)
>Mitch Horowitz's website

9. Sergio Troncoso's Crossing Borders: Personal Essays and novel, From This Wicked Patch of Dust

>Read my double review in Literal magazine

>Listen to my interview with the author here

10. Mark Sundeen's The Man Who Quit Money
The superbly told true and head scratcher of a story.
>Author's website with link to mini-doc on the man.

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Of note, two crucial works on Mexico's second Empire were published this year:

*El ocaso del imperio de Maximiliano visto por un diplomatico prusiano: Los informes de Anton von Magus a Otto von Bismarck, 1866-1867, Edited by Konrad Ratz.

*Los viajes de Maximiliano en México (1864-1867), By Konrad Ratz and Amparo Gómez Tepexicuapan 

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Over at Work-in-Progress, my amiga the novelist, short story writer and essayist Leslie Pietrzyk shares her list of top books read / reread in 2012, which, if you've been following her excellent blog, unsurprisingly starts with ye olde Great Gatsby. Which is, seriously, a masterpiece.

Alas, nothing on our lists coincides. This is why, in writing workshops, when we get to plot, I resort to discussing movies. Now if you haven't seen The Wizard of Oz, Casablanca, Gone with the Wind or Gladiator, GHY. But plot in a movie compares to plot in a novel as cement blocks to fine woodwork.

So I just noticed I didn't read any novels this year. Oh well! I'm writing another travel memoir, that's why it's heavy on Texas and the West.

Cyberflanerie: Creatives Edition

Poet and literary translator Zack Rogow is blogging his excellent advice--check out his recent post on why write poetry.

Novelist and short story writer Leslie Pietrzyk offers tips and reflections (Agony & Ecstasy) and recipes and a literary magazine-- Redux-- on her marvelous and long-standing blog, Work-in-Progress.

I just love-love-love Swiss Miss for her wide-open eyes and bodacious links-- most recently, to a treasure trove of designers' podcasts.

Over at Creative Bloq, 1000 Free Resources for Designers (weeeeeeee!!!)

Get seriously revved with Seth Godin's Lynchpin talk

I am pretty sure I'd feel more creative wearing some of these cosmic stockings (available from shadowplaynyc on etsy.com

Ye Olde "Revillagigedo" Featured on Leslie Pietrzyk's REDUX

My writer amiga, novelist, essayist and short story writer and blogger, oh, and writing teacher, Leslie Pietrzyk, has now donned another hat as editor of the online literary magazine, Redux, which features "work worth a second run." The latest is my short story, "Revillagigedo," which was originally published in Turnrow back in (gulp) 2001.

Speaking of Leslie Pietrzyk and her blog, she's been blogging consistently and very interestingly for a few years now. I started blogging back in 2006 and yep, for reasons known only to myself, here I still am. Seems every writer with a book to flog starts one... then walks away. Not many of us  keep at it consistently. Leslie, let's start a club.

More about Leslie: She's the biggest fan in the USA of The Great Gatsby so if you're a fan, too, put your seat belt on and get ready to read her blog posts about the movie.

More anon.

Susan Coll's 5 Favorite Comic Novels

The best novelists are sociologists with a wicked sense of humor. In her widely celebrated novels Beach Week, Acceptance, and Rockville Pike, my amiga Susan Coll has upward-striving suburbia nailed. This month Picador has released the paperback edition of Beach Week, so click on through and get your chuckles. Here's what this master of the genre has to say about some of her own comic reading. Over to you, Susan.

Now there is a pig in this world named “Super Sad True Love Story,” the thought of which is nearly as funny as Gary Shteyngart’s self-same novel, winner of this year’s Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction. It’s encouraging to see an American--even one who came by way of Russia--win this award, which usually goes to a Brit. A few pages into Super Sad it occured to me that this book does have something of a British sensibility in that Shteyngart's humor relies on the mortification of his male protagonist. This got me thinking about my favorite comic novels--or at least books that had me doubled over in laughter, and I have to confess that the British do seem to have a lock on the sort of droll, dark humor that typically does me in. As do, apparently, men--which is at least the sort of observation that helps get me out of bed and to my keyboard each morning.

1. Our Man in Havana, By Graham Greene (1958), in which a cash-strapped vacuum cleaner salesman in Cuba is pressed into service by British intelligence to hilarious effect, and which, I only just learned from Wikipedia, was made into not just a film but an opera and a play.

2. Burmese Days, by George Orwell (1934), which you can read free, on-line, and which amazon describes as a mix of E.M. Forster and Jane Austen. “Stir in a bit of socialist doctrine, a sprig of satire, strong Indian curry, and a couple quarts of good English gin and you get something close to the flavor . . .”

3. A Good Man in Africa, by William Boyd (1982), about a hapless British diplomat in a fictitious African country in the fledgling days of independence. I wrote about this last summer for NPR: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126501855

4. The Wimbledon Poisoner, by Nigel Williams (1994), a suburban comedy about a man who tries to murder his wife. Confession: I read this so long ago that really all I remember is my own hysterical laughter. While I can’t vouch for how well it holds up, I can tell you who borrowed my book and failed to give it back, so perhaps you can consult with him.

5. Memories of the Ford Administration, by John Updike (1992). Odd that Updike, not known for his comedy, should be the token American on my list. I worked up the nerve to approach him at a conference many years ago, and told him how much I loved this novel. He seemed surprised, and said something about having almost forgotten writing it. I later told this to a book critic who scoffed and said, “minor Updike.” Minor Updike! The definition of an oxymoron? Or the fate, too often, of comic fiction?

--- Susan Coll

---> For the archive of Madam Mayo guest blog posts, click here.
Previous guest-blogger novelists include Janice Eidus; Sandra Gulland; Daniel Olivas; Leslie Pietrzyk; Joanna Smith Rakoff; and Porter Shreve.